DAR AL HARB - U.S.A.: JIHAD ON INFIDEL FOOD PRODUCTS, WILL FRITO-LAY FORGET ABOUT ITS OLD TIME CUSTOMERS & CATER TO THE RELIGION OF HEAD CHOPPERS?!?

Frito-Lay Products Containing Pork Seasoning ‘Chip’ off Muslim Consumers Worldwide
By Rima Abdelkader

In the wake of corporate scandals, the “War on Terror” and increasing globalization in this post-9/11 world, most multinational corporations are finding it increasingly difficult to compete worldwide in marketing their products and services to potential buyers and sellers with America’s tarnished image abroad. One American company, Frito-Lay, a United States company that markets a variety of chips and snack foods internationally, has recently drawn much criticism and concern from its Muslim consumers and non-consumers—not for “anti-American feeling,” but for not informing them of pork enzymes contained in some of its products they consume.

From around the world, Muslims have been calling up Frito-Lay, inquiring about their products after learning of possible pork enzymes in their cheese seasonings. Muslim students and professionals, in response, started email campaigns, wrote on their blogs, and some even created groups on the popular college-networking website, Facebook.

One group on Facebook, “Fight Against Pork in Frito-Lay Products,” has already accumulated over 1,810 students globally. Its moderator urged its members to “call whether [they] are for or against the change” and for them to inform Frito-Lay of their concerns.

Muslims who eat and enjoy Frito-Lay products are concerned that its products are “haram” (Arabic for “forbidden”) since pork is not accepted under the dietary laws in Islam. Muslims can only eat products that are “halal” (Arabic for “permissible”) under Islam. This Arabic term is very much similar to the Hebrew term “kosher, since Jews like Muslims are also forbidden from consuming pork as it is restricted under Judaism.

Some Muslims, however, have opted out of the “contact Frito-Lay” bandwagon and have instead questioned their fellow Muslims’ concerns and actions. On one blog, one Muslim woman wrote on April 3, 2007, “I wonder how many of those people who called Doritos called their local congressman about their opinion of the war? Or to have a fair trial for Dr. Sami Al-Arian? How many of these thought to affect change on more important matters? I mean, if the food is not permissible to eat, I would like to know. But the reaction and the larger context really irks me.”

One Muslim man responded back to him on that same blog, “The reason people are worked up…number of us have been eating Frito-lay products since we were little kids.”

Muslim American Hussam Kubtan, an Industrial and Systems Engineer, who admitted he does not consume Frito-Lay products, told me, he is not sure if this process is “not halal.”

Kubtan added that “unless those enzymes are coming from meat (versus bones or some other non-meat part), and unless they are retaining their properties as a substance, even after the cooking / preparation process is complete, there is inconclusive evidence to suggest that it is haram.”

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Hat Tip:

The Religion of Peace


Pertinent Links:

1) Frito-Lay Products Containing Pork Seasoning ‘Chip’ off Muslim Consumers Worldwide