Additives and their Halalness

Additives are added intentionally in a small amount apart from the main ingredients to produce certain effects. The additives are not commonly regarded as a food. These exclude fortifying-nutrients ,herbs and spices, air, water and others. The additives could be natural , nature-identical or artificial compounds. Additives should be strictly regulated and proven to be safe . Through long process of chemical studies to determine whether the substances could have harmful effects such as cancer and birth defects, the results is presented to FDA to determine how the additive used . Two categories of substances that exempt from testing are GRAS ( generally recognised as safe) which the extensive past use without harmful side effects and substances that are approved by FDA and USDA before 1958. the use of these substances should be declared on food labels using either chemical names or E-numbers. These numbers are used internationally to identify all additives internationally. Some additives which are unsafe for consumption are sodium nitrate , saccharin and some artificial colors. The main functions of additives are to increase the shelf-life of food as a preservative , prevent food from being a source for food poisoning , to aid in food manufacturing or processing and to improve maintain the food quality. There are several categories of food additives such as acids, anti-caking agents, anti-foaming agents,antioxidants, bulking agents, food colourings , emulsifiers , flavours, flavour enhancers , humectants , preservatives , stabilizers , sweeteners and thickeners. Examples are citric acid used as acids in many types of beverages and aspartame used a sweeteners. The foods are determined to be halal or haram according to the source , presence of najs and processing and handling which might contact with najs. Someof the issues regarding the usage of certain additives include gelatine, flavouring , enzymes, emulsifiers and glycerine. Gelatin is derived from animal connective tissue collagen . The main sources include pigskin, cattle hides,cattle bones and fish skin. The source of gelatin is not specified on food label thus it is better for a muslim to avoid food containing gelatine. Gelatin is commonly found in gummies, marshmallow, bars and ice cream as an gelling agent. The glycerine and emulsifiers used are not haram unless containing pork or non-halal sources. Enzymes obtained from animals should be from halal animals and the animals should be slaughtered according to halal way. Enzymes are used in various food industries such as fruit juice, cheese and baked products. In cheese-making, chymosin is used to coagulate milk , lipase is for ripening and lactase is to increase digestibility. The flavourings used could be dairy, natural or artificial. The process flavour like meat flavour from beef or pork could be used in formulation of seasonings. There are also hydrolysis of fats by lipase enzyme from animals . Alcoholic flavouring or fermentation by-products are also avoided. The alcohol powder or flavouring is commonly used in ice cream, beverages and chocolate. Some natural coloring from insects like cochineal should be avoided. Generally there is agreement among muslims regarding the additives made from plant and synthesized chemically but disagreements of the permissibility of animal sources which are not halal and not slaughtered according to halal way. there are generally two opinions on this, which are al-istihlak and al-istihalah. al-istihlak refers to a small amount of najs or prohibited materials is dissolved and assimilated in dominant subtances that none of the smell, taste or color of dominant subtances has changed, then it is permissible. For example a small amount of prohibited enzymes used in foods could be allowed according to above specifications. According to al-istihalah , if the najs and prohibited subtance has undergone through chemical reaction that transform it to a different substance with different properties and name, then it is permissible. For example like fat being broken down into glycerol and fatty acids. This transformation process is known as istihalah. For example, soaps that are made of pig fats that has gone through istihalal it would be permissible. There is also an opinion about gelatine which is not considered to undergo istihalal. This is due to the same chemical composition after processing the collagen into gelatine. It has only undergone partial chemical change. However, it is more important to check that collagen has switched to a new entity called gelatine so it is permissible. It is important for muslim to eat food according to principle Halalan thoyyiban which means foods that are wholesome and obeying the Shariah law .