According to a survey, 68pc of chickens, 54pc of cows and 52pc of sheep or goats are cooked directly for human consumption, while the rest is used as indirect food called ‘rendering products’
IT is estimated that the human population has now touched the six-billion mark. While their need for food consumption has accordingly increased, unfortunately the production of a number of edibles has not.
According to a survey, 68 per cent of chickens, 54 percent of bovines and 52 per cent of sheep or goats are cooked directly for human consumption, while the rest is used as indirect food and is called ‘rendering products’.
Bearing in mind this scarcity of food, man has now resorted to other alternatives as well, including the controversial production of genetically engineered grains and other unconventional food items that include recycled animal products. And this is why a process called ‘rendering’ has gained worldwide acceptance.
Rendering is a recycling process in which all waste matter coming out of a slaughter house and the dead or diseased animals are cooked and converted into food of different kinds in order to feed other animals and birds. While cooking the flesh, the fat of the animal is taken out separately in the form of ‘lard’ (white greasy substance made from the melted fat of pigs) and ‘yellow grease’, also known as animal fat.
It has been reported in the local press that in Pakistan 3,000 tons of cattle lard has been imported in the last couple of years. Though we are not directly importing any rendering food, but indirectly the same is being received in the form of imported chicken meat and mutton as these animals normally continue to feed on rendering food including pork, which is haram in Islam.
Rendering plants have been set up to get rid of waste matter coming out of abattoir and other dead animals and to avoid piling up of discarded or diseased animals to protect them from harmful bacteria. This has often endangered human lives with different diseases, one of which is the ‘Mad Cow Disease’. The disease, also known as the BSE, is caused by abnormal body protein called prion. Prion is now also associated with another harmful disease, the Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD).
It is said that there are 286 rendering plants in the USA alone where 40 billion pounds of animals and their excrement are processed on a yearly basis. It is not only bacteria or viruses that cause the Mad Cow Disease but according to a study carried out by the American Journal of Veterinary Research, different kinds of pet food (for dogs and cats) contain traces of Phenobarbital, a drug used by those who practise euthanasia.
It is alarming to note that rendering products also contain pesticides, organophosphate compounds used in insecticides, fish oil laced with bootlegged DDT and heavy metals from animals tags. Not to mention other chemicals, antibiotics and plastic from styrofoam trays used in packaging of various food items. As a result, the possibility of poisoning human food has become a reality leading to a slow and steady death of anyone indirectly consuming rendering products.
Apart from feeding animals and birds, rendering products are used in lubricants, soaps, cement, ink, lipsticks, shampoos, hair dyes, creams, liquid makeup, nasal sprays, glycerine and pets’ food too.
Epidemiological studies have proved that initially the primary cause of the Mad Cow Disease was the consumption of contaminated animal food, but the subsequent epidemics affecting human beings and animals were boosted by recycling of BSE-infected cattle food in the UK during the 80s and onwards. At present, the disease has been detected in many European countries, the USA, Japan and Israel.
The edibles that rendering plants produce include lard taken from the fatty tissues of pigs and tallow from cows. It is believed that the USA exports 40 per cent of its tallow and grease production. The USA produces 40 per cent of the world’s total meat production too, mainly to feed animals and birds. That is how cows and other animals that are herbivores or vegetarians are forcedly changed into meat-eaters.
It is a known fact that 75 per cent of cattle in the USA devours edibles containing rendering products. Michael Hansen of US Consumers Union once stated, “it remains legal in the USA to ‘grind up’ cattle, feed them to pigs and then grind up the pigs and feed them to cows.” A research study shows, says the National Rendering Association of USA, 40 per cent of chicken feed consists of rendering meat and bone meal.
In the last few years many countries involved in trading food items, containing or consuming rendering meal products, have expressed their concern regarding the issue. Many Muslim countries like Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Nigeria have been importing all kinds of meat and dairy products from the USA and Europe. According to Andrew Speedy of the United Nations the Middle East, east Europe and north Africa run the highest risk of getting affected by the Mad Cow Disease. It has been reported that one case of the disease has been found in Saudi Arabia. Pakistan imports chicken meat from China and South Africa where pigs are found in huge numbers. Pakistan imports cows from England for cross-breeding as well, and therefore, it still confronts the danger of getting affected by the Mad Cow Disease as it takes at least six years or more before the symptoms of the deadly disease appear.
It is interesting to note that pork-eating and blood consumption was prohibited centuries ago. Physicians of ancient China found pork-eating the root cause of many ailments; but in 2003, China produced more than 45.5 million metric ton of pork, which is almost 47.57 per cent of the world’s total pork production.
Pork consumption is also prohibited in the Bible in the book of Leviticus. It states: “And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not cud, is unclean to you.”
The Holy Quran prohibits pork consumption in no less than four places, stating: “Forbidden to you (for food) are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah.” (Al Quran 5:3)
In 1988, Britain stopped feeding rendering products to cattle but continued to export infected meat and bone rendering products to 80 countries. It has been reported that Britain exported more than 200,000 tons of such products to 70 countries from 1988 to 1996,while a similar report has revealed that during 2000 tens of thousands tons of potentially BSE-infected cattle meat was exported to 12 countries in Asia and Africa. Frighteningly, no one knows as to how many cattle may now be in the incubation stage and spread the disease to human beings once they are consumed.
It has also been mentioned in the media that 80 people have so far lost their lives to the BSE or Mad Cow Disease in Europe, whereas 160,000 animals also died. The British government has acknowledged that eating of infected beef was the likely cause of the death of 10 young victims of Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD).
From 1995 to 2002, a total of 124 human cases of CJD were reported from the UK alone, whereas six cases in France and one case each in Ireland, Italy and the USA were unearthed. However, it was only in European countries that human beings were found infected with the disease. Sadly, Japan and Israel were added to that dreaded list in 2002.
The Mad Cow Disease can also spread through blood transfusion.
As far as ailments caused by pork consumption are concerned, Muslim countries are safe. Having said that, imported food items still remain a danger to these countries.
According to a survey, 68pc of chickens, 54pc of cows and 52pc of sheep or goats are cooked directly for human consumption, while the rest is used as indirect food called ‘rendering products’ 
