Hyderabad scientists crack halal code

HYDERABAD: Is halal meat, served in restaurants and sold in supermarkets, really halal? Scientists at National Research Centre on Meat (NRCM) in Hyderabad claim they have developed a laboratory test that can tell if a piece of meat has been obtained from animals slaughtered according to the Islamic dietary law.

NRCM scientists conducted tests on sheep slaughtered through the halal method and compared it with that of sheep slaughtered through electric stunning. They found variations at the molecular level in the meat of the two sets of animals. In the halal method, a specific group of proteins was impacted which was different in sheep slaughtered through electric stunning. Based on the changes, the scientists were able to tell if the meat was halal or not.

The scientists studied changes in blood biochemical parameters and protein structure (proteomic profile) to identify the differences. A method called ‘difference gel electrophoresis’ was adopted to identify the difference in muscle proteins of the two meats. A total of 46 proteins were affected in the two methods.

The scientists said existing laboratory tests can at best confirm if meat labelled as halal has any porcine substance in it. They claim theirs is the only halal-specific test globally. Senior NRCM scientist Dr P Baswa Reddy said the research was conducted on a small no. of sheep. “Further research is needed on a large group of animals,” he added.

The results will be published in the upcoming issue of the journal, Meat Science. An online version of the study was published earlier this month. Apart from Reddy, B M Naveena, M Smrutirekha, Rituparna Banerjee and Y Praveen Kumar were part of NRCM research team. M Kiran of the department of livestock products technology, veterinary college at Bidar, and Ch Venkatesh and Rapole Srikanth of proteomics laboratory, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, also participated in the study.