Believing that food is part of the healing process, a local hospital in St. Cloud, Minnesota, has added halal options to the menu to help Muslim patients and visitors.
“It makes me really happy that we can help them to heal while they’re in the hospital, getting the foods that they know,” said chef Kyle Wesenberg, SC Times reported.
Previously, family and friends of Muslim patients had to bring food from home or halal restaurants to hospitals.
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After talks with the Muslim community, Community Health Specialist Hani Jacobson said a halal menu was something the hospital lacked.
“It was very important to this community,” Jacobson said of the additions.
“Food is part of the healing process, and if you’re sitting there worried about what you’re going to eat, it really impedes your healing,” Jacobson said.
The halal food menu would include rice, naan, chicken shawarma, chicken suqaar, and beef masala.
Wesenberg said separate pans and utensils are used to prepare halal dishes. All staff have been also trained on the process of preparing the food.
“So far I’ve had very positive feedback on everybody who’s ordering,” Wesenberg said.
The halal term is commonly used for meat, but it’s also applied to other food products, cosmetics, personal care products, and pharmaceuticals which mustn’t be derived from non-halal sources like pork.
Halal also applies to any other consumed and edible materials which mustn’t be harmful to human health.
For example, Islam considers wines, alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, E-cigs, hookah and other unhealthy things to be non-halal.