When you come across FOOD which you're unsure is suitable for consumption, what do YOU do?

This includes: Stale foods. Gone past sell-by date foods. Neighbour's foods. Dodgy looking takeaway foods. Unknown ingredients foods. No v-sign foods. Possibly Haraam foods. Doubtful foods. What do YOU actually DO? Let's share.

Depending on what it is I'd probably eat the food gone past the sell-by-date. I used to be a lot more bothered when I was younger, but now I know most food actually won't do any harm even if it has gone past the date. 

Possibly haraam food - don't eat!

Anything that looks or tastes dodgy will end up in the bin... 

"How many people find fault in what they're reading and the fault is in their own understanding" Al Mutanabbi

Don't like wasting food so I tend to avoid the ones I'm unfamilliar with. 

If I doubt food I won't touch it, but that's only ever happened once.

 

There was obviously a reason why i created this thread and it relates back to something that happened yesterday. A non-Muslim friend offered M&M's to the 5 Muslim girls who were surrounding her and i was the last of them. I told her i was fine, and not feeling peckish and continued with the radian work that we were all set.

One of the Muslim girls noticed that i was the only one who hadn't eaten any and jokingly she asked why i had said no and asked if they were Haraam. The non-Muslim girl passed over the packet for me to check and i went through the ingredients and noticed that E120 was listed in there.

I just said what i knew to them. I told them it's Haram to eat E120 because the red colouring is from the blood of an animal similar to a beetle and i was very sure that we couldn't eat that. I explained that because of the absence of a V-sign it means that it's not suitable for vegetarians because of the presence of E120 and that if it isn't suitable for vegetarians, it definitely wouldn't be suitable for us either.

One of the girls decided to check google and found that a lot of places had mentioned that E120 was Haraam but nonetheless they seemed to disregard what i had told them and the information that google was telling them, saying that we should only rely on scholars and not google. To me, it just seemed like they were trying to defend themselves and were justifying the fact that they had just eaten M&M's with E120 in them. 

I sat there wondering why they continued to eat them, even the red ones, which are the exact ones containing E120, even after i had told them. Surely if you're unsure and someone tells you something different to what you know, doesn't that bring up doubt? And if there is doubtful food, shouldn't you refrain from eating it?

Even the non-Muslim girl was 'certain' they were Haraam and took my word and Google's word for it compared to the Muslim girls. She even felt extremely gulity and apologised lol. She actually felt sick knowing what was really in those M&M's. I pray that each of those girls bothers to find out the true reality for themselves inshaAllah. I'm sure M&M's themselves mentioned that they didn't meet Kosher, Halal, Vegetarian and Vegan requirements.

I was just puzzled. What are you supposed to do in such a situation? Do YOU do the same as what those girls did too? Do you continue eating it? I hope not. When you know that your brother or sister in Islam is eating foods which are Haraam, do you continue watching them even after they haven't listened to a word you said? I don't know what more i could've done besides SCREAM which i didn't want to do.

Then we stopped talking about it because our teacher came over telling us that we talk about very strange things in a Maths lesson.

 

Some people just don't care about haraam food, it's obviously not a big deal for them I guess.

I thinking the other day I wish I lived in a Muslim country so I wouldn't need to be checking labels but then last time I went to PK I'm sre I saw famous brands of sweets/choc there, I can't remember if they did have things like m&ms and skittles, but I have a feeling they may have hmmm :/

"How many people find fault in what they're reading and the fault is in their own understanding" Al Mutanabbi

I take your word for it, I won't be eating them any more.  I think the girls were embarrassed and did not want to admit they were eating haram, or more likely they simply didn't care.   I learned something last week I'm not the saviour of mankind! A realisation that freaked me out but will serve me in good stead and a lot of headaches.