--- title: Halal Food: Is it Healthier? description: Halal refers to Muslim criteria for how food is raised, slaughtered and prepared. But do the requirements make the food healthier? canonical: https://time.com/3975785/is-halal-meat-healthier-than-conventional-meat/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-28T21:11:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:58:23.286Z article:section: Health og:title: Is Halal Food Healthier? og:description: Halal refers to Muslim criteria for how food is raised, slaughtered and prepared. But do the requirements make the food healthier? og:url: https://time.com/3975785/is-halal-meat-healthier-than-conventional-meat/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Is Halal Food Healthier? twitter:description: Halal refers to Muslim criteria for how food is raised, slaughtered and prepared. But do the requirements make the food healthier? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Is Halal Meat Healthier than Conventional Meat? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Brief (Washington politics, twice weekly), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=48df5912-091b-410a-ae09-598a85eb7a43&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Should I Eat Burgers? [Watch (HLS stream): Should I Eat Burgers?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G7EXHLsP.m3u8) (2:02)  _Published 2015-07-08. It may be stating the obvious, but burgers, as we know them, are not a health food, according to most of our experts. Here's why 3 out of 5 experts gave burgers the thumbs down._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jul 28, 2015 9:11 PM UTC  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jul 28, 2015 9:11 PM UTC **Correction appended, July 30** Denmark announced last year it would ban Halal and Kosher slaughtering practices. Halal meat is reared—and slaughtered—differently from conventional meat. But is it healthier? Like kosher food, Halal food is guided by religious criteria that govern everything from how the animals destined to be eaten are fed and raised, to how they are slaughtered and prepared for consumption. According to the Muslims in Dietetics and Nutrition, a member group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Halal food can never contain pork or pork products (that includes gelatin and shortenings), or any alcohol. Rasheed Ahmed, founder and president of the Muslim Consumer Group (MCG), which both certifies Halal food and educates Muslims about different foods’ Halal status, says that to be truly Halal, how the animals are raised is taken into account. Animals must be fed vegetarian diets, which means that many chickens and cows raised on U.S. farms don’t qualify (some feed contains animal byproducts). Halal animals also can’t be treated with antibiotics or growth hormones, since the hormones may contain pork-based ingredients. Halal animals must be slaughtered by a Muslim, who says a blessing, and by hand, not by machine (which is the way many chickens in the U.S. are killed. Once killed, the animal’s blood must drain completely, since Muslims who eat Halal do not consume the fresh blood of animals. Ahmed admits that his criteria for certification are a bit stricter than others; for example, MCG won’t certify fish if it’s farm-raised, since it’s not clear whether they fish was fed animal byproducts. Only wild-caught fish are Halal certified by MCG standards. While some people believe that these criteria make Halal food healthier, Carol O’Neil, professor of nutrition and food sciences at Louisiana State University Agricultural Center says that there simply aren’t studies showing that to be true. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which serves as the reference for nutritional content of food, does not separate out Halal meat (or kosher meat, for that matter) from other meats for its nutritional information. “It’s difficult to know if there are any kind of nutritional differences,” says O’Neil. “There are certainly no studies done looking at people who consume Halal meat to see if their cholesterol levels are different, or anything like that. We just don’t know.” O’Neil does note, however, that Halal practices may be more humane for the animal, and therefore that may make a difference for some people. “Our religion does not allow us to put any pressure on the animals,” says Ahmed. “So we treat them as humanely as possible.” **Correction**: The original version of this article misstated when the ban was enacted. It was in February of 2014. **MORE:** [The 50 Healthiest Foods of All Time (With Recipes)](http://time.com/3724505/50-healthiest-foods/) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] It might be stating the obvious, but burgers, as we know them, just aren't a health food, according to most of our experts. Here's why three out of five of them give burgers the thumbs down. [ MUSIC ] But there might be some wiggle room there. Depending on what's in your patty. Fatty beef from dubiously- fed cattle, slathered in sugary ketchup and placed between two halves of a refined flour bun? No, thanks, says David Katz. Same for any beef burger not made with 90 to 95 % lean ground beef, says Julia Zumpano. Kristi King, however, gives a thumbs up to burgers in moderation and in proper portion sizes. Burgers are high in protein, vitamin B12, and iron, she says. Moderation, of course, is the key word. Eating beef burgers regularly isn't a good idea for a few reasons, says Erica Frank. Beef burgers are loaded with saturated fat, she points out. An ungarnished fast food cheeseburger has 29 % of your daily FDA recommended limit. Certain burgers can come with a large side of environmental issues. Beef just isn't the most sustainable meat to produce. Raising a cow takes a huge amount of water, and livestock production is a large contributor to climate change, Frank says In fact, raising and producing livestock is responsible for 18 % of global greenhouse gas emissions worldwide according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Local demand for meat is increasing nearly two percent a year, says Rebecca Shaw. One way to make burgers better for the earth is to change the way we grow corn, a primary source of cow feeds, she said. [ MUSIC ] choosing grass fed, instead of corn fed beef is one way to earn burgers a slightly higher rating in Katz's opinion. But when it comes to his wife's special burgers, made from lean, free range ground turkey and lentils, Katz gives a definite yes. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3975785/is-halal-meat-healthier-than-conventional-meat/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3975785/is-halal-meat-healthier-than-conventional-meat/"},"headline":"Is Halal Meat Healthier than Conventional Meat?","datePublished":"2015-07-28T21:11:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:58:23.286Z","description":"Halal refers to Muslim criteria for how food is raised slaughtered and prepared. 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