Halal meat and regular (conventional) meat differ in four places: how the animal is treated, how it is slaughtered, whether the blood is drained, and whether the meat is kept away from pork and alcohol. At Ribs 'n' Kabobs in Artesia every cut is Zabiha halal and HFSAA-certified. Here is what each of those differences means, without the health claims you will find elsewhere.
Ribs 'n' Kabobs is a family-owned, HFSAA-certified, 100% Zabiha Halal BBQ and grill restaurant at 18925 Norwalk Blvd, Artesia, CA 90701, serving Los Angeles County, Orange County and the rest of Southern California since 2014.
What does halal mean for meat?
Halal is Arabic for permissible. Applied to meat it means the animal is one Muslims may eat (cattle, sheep, goats, chicken and so on, never pork) and that it was slaughtered and handled in the way Islamic law requires. The stricter word is zabiha. Zabiha halal is meat from an animal slaughtered by hand by a Muslim who recites the name of God over it, with the blood fully drained. Our post on what zabiha halal means goes through the five rules one by one.
Regular meat in the United States is inspected by the USDA for safety, but there is no legal rule about who slaughters the animal, what is said over it, or whether the plant also handles pork. There is also no single legal definition of the word halal on a label, which is why certification bodies exist. We follow the standard set by HFSAA, the Halal Food Standards Alliance of America, published at hfsaa.org.
How is the animal treated before slaughter?
Halal guidelines ask that the animal be healthy and alive at the moment of slaughter, treated with care, given water, and kept out of sight of other animals being slaughtered. A sick or injured animal does not qualify. Conventional slaughter in the United States follows USDA humane handling rules, which cover transport and stunning, but it does not include the religious requirements above and does not reject stunned animals.
Neither system is careless. The difference is that halal adds a set of obligations on top of the legal minimum, and a certifier is there to hold a business to them.
How does halal slaughter differ from conventional slaughter?
This is the heart of it.
Zabiha halal. A sane adult Muslim makes a single swift cut across the throat with a very sharp knife, severing the windpipe, the gullet and the major blood vessels, after reciting the name of God over that specific animal. One animal, one person, one blessing.
Conventional. The animal is stunned first, with a captive bolt, an electrical current or gas, and then bled, often on a mechanized line. Poultry plants process birds by machine at very high speed. Nobody recites anything, and no one is required to.
Some products sold as halal fall in between: stunned or machine-cut with a recorded blessing playing over the line. HFSAA accepts hand slaughter only, and so do we. What the certificate on our door covers is explained in our HFSAA certification post.
Why is the blood drained, and does it change the meat?
Consuming blood is forbidden in Islam, so a zabiha animal is hung and allowed to bleed out fully before processing. Conventional animals are also bled, but there is no religious requirement about how completely.
Does it change the meat? Many people say it does. Well-drained meat is often described as cleaner tasting and lighter in color. We treat that as preference rather than proof. What we can say is that the process behind every cut we serve is the same one, hand slaughter by a Muslim under one certified standard.
What about hygiene and cross-contamination?
Halal is often paired with tayyib, which means pure and wholesome. For a restaurant, the simplest way to honor that is to keep anything that is not halal out of the building. At Ribs 'n' Kabobs there is no pork and no alcohol on site, so there is nothing to keep apart from the halal meat.
A conventional kitchen has no such rule. Beef and pork can share a grill, a fryer or a cutting board, and that is perfectly legal. For a halal eater, it is the reason a halal dish on a regular menu is not the same thing as a halal kitchen. If you want to test a restaurant on exactly that point, our guide on how to check if a restaurant is really zabiha halal lists the questions to ask.
Halal vs conventional meat at a glance
| Area | Halal (Zabiha) | Conventional |
|---|---|---|
| Who makes the cut | A Muslim, by hand, one animal at a time | Plant workers or machines on a line |
| Blessing | The name of God recited over each animal | None required |
| Condition at slaughter | Alive and healthy | Stunned first |
| Blood | Fully drained | Drained, with no religious standard |
| Pork and alcohol | Kept out of a halal kitchen | May share lines and kitchens |
| Oversight | USDA inspection plus a certifier such as HFSAA | USDA inspection |
Is halal meat healthier?
Honest answer: we do not claim that, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Both halal and conventional meat pass the same USDA safety inspection. Many people prefer halal meat, and it is often described as cleaner, but the solid reasons to choose it are faith, trust in the process and the way it eats.
Where can you eat certified halal meat in Southern California?
Every item at Ribs 'n' Kabobs comes from the same HFSAA-certified, hand-slaughtered supply, from the Lamb Loin Chops to the hickory smoked back ribs, the Beef Seekh Kabob and the Nihari Burger. Guests drive in from Cerritos, Lakewood, Long Beach and across Orange County, and we cater across Los Angeles County too. Browse the menu and come see us.
Ribs 'n' Kabobs, 18925 Norwalk Blvd, Artesia, CA 90701. We are a short drive from the Pioneer Boulevard Little India district, near the 91 and 605 freeways. Directions are on the contact page.