Dearbornistan KFC Now Serving Finger-Lickin' Halal Chicken

Never underestimate the amount of pandering corporate America will do for $$$$$.  Now the Dearbornistan (Dearborn, Michigan) Kentucky Fried Chicken has gone finger lickin-halal chicken. So its chicken is now served up with Islamic or muslim specifications - thus after the birds are slaughtered halal-style - they are sent to the KFC where the chickens are cooked in apartheid fryers.(away from the non-halal ones)

I never was crazy about KFC - the local one here is in the same building as Taco Bell - I refer to it as the "Cluck & Guck".  So, the remote chance that I may have ever chosen to eat at KFC has just "flown the coop".

To anyone who doubts that the Islamization of the United States is well underway - maybe this will be a cock-a-doodle-do wake-up-call. Entire article - emphasis mine:

Halal food lands on menus

It reflects growing interest by Muslims

BY NIRAJ WARIKOO • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • March 30, 2008

Growing up in Dearborn, Zeinab Chami often was tempted by ads for Col. Sanders' original recipe, the finger-lickin' meal sold by fast-food giant KFC.

However, Chami was an observant Muslim, and the restaurant's chicken was not halal, meaning it wasn't prepared according to Islamic law. Her choices usually were limited to what her immigrant parents cooked or the occasional takeout from Middle Eastern restaurants.

But now she's able to get a taste of KFC. Last month, the restaurant's east Dearborn restaurant began selling halal chicken, a change that reflects the growing demand for halal products among metro Detroit's sizable Muslim population.

Underneath the colonel's bearded face, the store's sign reads "Now serving halal original & crispy." The juxtaposition of an American icon with Islamic tradition is a striking display of the changing landscape of southeast Michigan. Halal meat is not new to Dearborn's butcher shops and Arab restaurants, but a growing number of national chains have been accommodating the local demand for Muslim food in recent years.

"A lot has changed just in the past decade," said Bilal Dabaja, 22, a Dearborn resident who eats halal. "More people want these products."

The change is similar to how the growing Jewish population decades ago led to kosher becoming part of the American food industry and vocabulary. The kosher symbols "K" and "U" can be seen today on everything from Heinz ketchup bottles to Fruity Pebbles cereal boxes.

Muslims hope to create a similar market for halal products.

In Dearborn, two McDonald's restaurants are the only ones selling halal Chicken McNuggets and sandwiches among about 13,700 McDonald's in the country. Ram's Horn, a local chain of diners, and Big Boy restaurants also serve halal meat in the city. And a manager at a Subway restaurant in Dearborn hopes it soon will become halal, but it is facing difficulties because of the chain's insistence on using uniform meat suppliers.

Many in the Muslim community welcome the restaurants' changes, but some are still reluctant to eat there because they haven't been vetted by Islamic scholars.

Halal is an Arabic word that generally refers to "what is permitted." Its opposite, haram, refers to what is forbidden.

Like Jews, Muslims don't eat pork. Halal also requires that during the slaughters, the animal must face Mecca, its blood be totally drained, and the butcher has to say a prayer invoking God.

Drinking alcohol is also considered not halal, and so some Muslims would refuse to eat at the now-defunct La Shish chain because they sold beer and wine.

There are varying interpretations among Islamic leaders as to what exactly is halal. And individuals make personal decisions on how to eat halal depending on strictly they observe Islam.

One challenge is determining if the meat is truly halal.

"A sign saying it's halal is not always enough," said Imam Mohammad Elahi, a religious scholar who heads the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights. "There needs to be other evidence."

A general rule is that if the preparer is Muslim and says the meat is halal, it's OK, But if the preparer is non-Muslim, you have to dig further to back up the claims.

In some cases, halal slaughterhouses are now using recordings of a man saying an Islamic prayer that repeats itself each time an animal is killed so that it's halal.

Chami, 23, wants to try KFC's chicken, but is reluctant because she hasn't seen how it's prepared. One concern that she and Dabaja have is whether KFC uses separate fryers for its halal and non-halal meat, because using the same fryer contaminates the halal. When Chami eats tuna or vegetarian sandwiches at Subway restaurants, she always asks the sandwich preparer to don another set of plastic gloves because they might have the taint of non-halal meats on them.

Store employees at the KFC and McDonald's in east Dearborn said they use separate fryers. At the Subway on Schaefer in Dearborn, manager Ramsey Hourani said he wants to make his store halal, but "it's a lot more difficult than it sounds" because of the company's insistence on restaurants using similar food suppliers.

In England, Subway is rolling out all-halal restaurants in up to 200 locations, according to Zabihah.com, a Web site that tracks halal restaurants around the world. Hourani hopes that one day, American stores can take a similar path.

For now, many Muslims often stick with halal products they find in Middle Eastern grocery stores such as halal marshmallow crispy treats.

But others are excited about the KFC restaurant in Dearborn. Tarek Baydoun, 23, of Dearborn, heard about the halal chicken through a friend's text message. This month, he went there with his family.

"It's a good value and it's very tasty," Baydoun said. "It was bound to happen because it just makes sense from a business perspective."

Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO at 248-351-2998 or warikoo@freepress.com.

Comments

[ThePatriot]

It will be a cold day in hell that I ever eat Halal anything. Show me the Haram Hooters please..

[Infidel4life]

more pandering to a minor segment of society.

[Philip Saenz]

I've known since 9/11 that Islam is insidious, and cruel, for example, stoning women to death, forcing nine year old little girls to marry old men, and then raping them on the day of the so-called matrimoney, and very much against the poor child's will.
And now this, halal food! Incredible! That the poor stupid animal must face Mecca when it's killed has to be bordering on superstition. I can now see why Muslims have become so extremely fanatical in almost everything. It reminds me of the Pharisees during Jesus' time. They, too, were fanatical and legalistic, and, I might add, hypocritical. The Pharisees had 670 little laws to observe every day. I don't know how many stupid little laws and sometimes very cruel laws the fanatical Muslims have to observe, but I know there are many. Can you believe that Muslims can't have their backs toward Mecca when they have to doo doo? Incredible! No wonder they have gone berserk. I, too, would probably have gone nuts trying to observe all those stupid little legalisms. Give me a good old sensible religion like my Catholicism. Thank you.

[Cletus]

lol apartheid fryers.

It wouldn't be a problem if muslims in the middle east and asia wouldn't point to this as weakness.

[Roni Alam]

Islamization in America is not very far away! One afternoon, I happened to visit a local Subway in CT, and I asked the deli boy make me a sandwich. I was refused to be given Bacon When I asked for it on my sandwich. He said it was Haram!

[Roni Alam]

A friend of mine originally from Pakistan and I met after many years from college graduation.
We sat in "PF Chang's" in Tysons Corner, VA. I asked the waiter to bring me a shot of Cognac. My long time friend got offended and said, "You should be ashamed of drinking in front of a Muslim!".
This was the friend who used to be cool in college and we've been to many bars and clubs.

[David]

It is time to run those Muslims out of our country.
We should not change please them; they should change to please us.

[Lissette Martinez]

I live in Toronto, Canada and to my disgust I realized that many KFC and Popeyes Chicken locations are selling ALL halal products. So they don't even give you the choice of getting infidel meat. When I wrote to KFC, they basically told me to go shove it. The list of fast food restaurants that I frequent gets shorter by the day.

[Greg]

It's amazing what being 0.6% of American society can do - provided you follow everything with an unspoken threat of mass violence and death.

[bobby]

If everyone starts serving halal stuff, non-muslims butchers and farmers will be out of business. As halal means having to buy from a muslim.

[leila]

i understand why most of the comments about this article are negative, if i ate an animal that lives in and eats mud, i would'nt care about eating a clean islamic meat...and what is wrong with eating a clean chicken might i ask??? oh i understand.. you like your animals tortured...YUM

[Confused]

It is always amazes me to see such ignorant comments coming from supposedly educated people. It's apparent that such folks eat up whatever fabrications of exaggerations they hear about a culture different than themselves, bigotry is such an easy road to take - and a real fast one, seeing as you walk it alone only accompanied by made up perceptions and quarter truths (if even that). Jewish and Muslim people adhere to their teachings and people unlike them complain because these two religions compile a great number of the populace; therefore, of course, it’d unbelievable that after ALL these years companies that would realize the profit gained from observing such requirements – actually wish to accommodate them. Alas, what is humanity coming to! The poor people that will have to --- well, they won’t have to do anything really. Sheesh.