Merhaba. It has been a while. Well, my friend (Dr Syuk) has posted very inspiring blogger post, and here I am. (peer pressure, lol)
I know...the title is a little bit exaggerate. But, it's true. Food safety is vital element when we come across food. We love food. We want good food. We need food. Food is essential for our physiology need as well as spiritual need. Therefore, keeping our food safe is so fundamental to ensure the public health is at stake. The question is, who's responsibility is that? Everyone. I mean, everyone in whole supply chain. The farmer, the manufacturer, the transporter, the retailer, the consumer, and above all - the authority.
Well, what about Islam? Does Islam particular in food safety? What stand does Islam has to offer? Its simple. Every Muslim would know that - halalan toyyiban is the central principle in dietary law. The halal element or 'permissible' refers to the permitted by the syari'a (law), whereas, toyyiban or simply toyyib refers to the complementary elements such as the quality of food, the health benefit, safety, hygienic and other qualities that completes the food as a wholesome treat. There, a safe food fulfill the element of toyyib.
The prohibited things (in this case food) is actually accounted for very limited number of things in Islam. It is not that much as some people might think it is. It means, other than that, is HALAL (yes, you name it). No worries. I guarantee. This is because everything else which is not mentioned in al-Quran nor al-hadith falls under maxim: al-aslu al-ashiya' al-ibahah (everything is permitted by default). Well of course, unless it has harmful effect towards health like poisonous or intoxicant it is forgiven by The Lawgiver (Allah swt)!
Where was I?
Oh, back to the food safety. As the concept suggest, toyyiban is the integral part of the whole Islamic dietary law. We are not require just to seek for halal food but also toyyiban, because it is mentioned in Surah Al-Baqarah verse 168. A safe means, it is free from contaminants, be it physical (like glass shards), chemical (for example, cleaning agent) or biological (this is the most common and dangerous one, and it could be deadly such as Botulism). Keeping food safe is in accordance to the objective of Shariah (maqasid al-syariah) is to preserve life. (...start to think I should stop writing now, may be I could write as high impact article, not a blog post lol).
Anyway.
The point is, I was attended food safety training by Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) last week. It is a very interesting experience to have collaboration with international community as well as local. I learn a lot from those people - whom I call expert. Some of them are the QC/QA, manager, consultant, and food industry key person. But all of them are very humble and helpful. Let's talk about Jean. It happened to be that I was assigned as a team (because training is mostly practical session) with this guy - Jean from France. Another team mate was Vietnamese.
Interestingly, both of them are from the same establishment. This fellow Vietnamese is quite particular in every wording used for our presentation material. It is good to know, maybe this is how industry works. No jargon. Everything must clear and easy to understand. Sometime, this fellow Vietnamese argue with this French guy even we are actually in the same group (haha). However, it is good to see how professional they are to come into conclusion from the argument (respect). But, I always agree with Jean because almost all of his points seems to me sensible. Oh well. The thing is, it is a great opportunity to work with these people.
Enough talk (I mean read). Here's some picture. (woha!)
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| Me explaining the food process flow. We chose Fresh Orange in Crate! It seems simple, but there's a lot of new idea came out from it. Next to it is the mitigation strategy. In food safety, GMP and HACCP is the system applicable. Left side, is Jean from France. |
Food safety is a holistic process, starts from rawmet (they call it, refers to raw material), processing, packaging, storage, and transportation. New information to me, one of the instrument that is used by manufacturer for physical contamination is the metal detector. But the instrument could cost $4000 to put in inventory. Ensuring food safe is not something that should be taken lightly.
Well, too bad. That's all folks, for today post. Thank you for coming by. See you again, and have a nice day.
