Halal Food Guide for Muslims living in Korea

Assalaam-u-Alaikum all Brothers and Sisters,

This document has been prepared for your acknowledgement and guidance about the food available in Korea specifically and in other countries

in general.

Since pork is the biggest source of meat in Korea, and Koreans eat pork almost daily, so the chances become relatively high for the animal

byproducts to be from pork (animal byproducts in general and fats in particular are included in biscuits, chocolates, snacks and breads etc.).

1- 

Aworth mentioning issue here is that the ratio of usage of fat from pork is not equal to the %age of pork consumed as compared to the other animals. This

is because, other animals do not contain very high amount of fat, so they are very less likely to be used as animal fat source.

For example: Lets Assume that a product ‘A’ contains animal fat (shortening) in a country, and %age of pork consumption in that country is 70%, then it is

around 90% possible for the product ‘A’ to have fat from pork as compared to other animals.

(The numbers used in the previous example are just for elaboration and not a statistical survey)

Please note

:

1- Fat is usually called “Shortening”, either from animals or plants.

But, it is not all about “Shortening”, there are other words for animal fat also.

For example, the other word for shortening is

동물성유지, which means “Animal Fat” (Most probably pork fat if major source of meat is pork)

2- There is one exception for the fat (shortening) to be permissible, that is, if it is from vegetable/beans source. That exception is mentioned in the table

below.

3- The products such as biscuits and chocolates etc which are mentioned as Halal in this document are not guaranteed to be Halal, but in fact we

consider them Halal according to our

limited findings. Again, please note that this document is not a Fatwa on foods but is to give general

guideline.

2-

Please Keep in Mind that if you consider a foreign brand product to be “Halal” but if it contains the ingredients written in Korean language as well, then it

is not necessary for that product to be Halal. This is because; the ingredients policy of a company depends upon the type of local rules or population of a

country. In a less “halal aware” countries like Korea, the foreign companies will use those ingredients which they find easily available, so they wont bother

about Halal or Haram in that non-Muslim country.

The detailed description can be found through the source document, link is given below.
Source Document: Link

New Halal Items List in South Korea File-Link

Note: If you find anyother useful material then do share it.

Jazak-Allah