Cooking grilled food requires applying sauce or margarine to the food, usually using a brush. The brush itself can be made of animal hair or synthetic. What are the critical aspects of its halalness?
A brush is one of the cooking utensils that is encountered every day. Usually used for food that needs to be grilled or roasted. Its function is to provide a spread on the food. Brushes themselves can be divided into two types, namely bristle brushes and synthetic brushes. Bristle brushes, such as pigs, camels, squirrels, and horses, use real animal hair or fur. While synthetic brushes use plastic or silicone materials.
For a Muslim, pigs are animals that are forbidden in the Qur’an, so it is not permissible to consume pork or use objects that contain parts of the body of a pig. In this case, including using a brush made of pig hair or fur.
Chief of Halal Expert LPPOM MUI, Prof. Dr. Ir. Prof. Khaswar Syamsu, M.Sc., mentioned things that need to be criticized about bristle brush products, namely that they do not come from bristles or hair from pigs and the materials used in their manufacture must be free of impurities.
“Besides brushes, pig bristles or hair are commonly used and extracted to obtain amino acids, widely used for flavor and bread-making industries. So, pig bristles are one of the parts of pigs that are widely used and need to be watched out for,” explained Prof. Khaswar.
Synthetic brushes are relatively safer to use in terms of halal, but in terms of health, there is the potential for the brush to melt when exposed to heat when burning. Thus, synthetic brushes often stick to food and become unsafe for health, which needs to be considered. This product is not necessarily halal because it has critical points such as additional ingredients besides resin, plasticizers, and dyes. Therefore, a safe and halal brush is a brush that already has a halal certificate.
The simplest way to identify animal bristle brushes is to burn the brush. When the burning results give off an aroma like burning or melting plastic, the brush strands are made of synthetic materials. Meanwhile, if the product is burned and emits the smell of burnt fur or meat, it certainly comes from animal fur, generally pigs, sheep, camels, squirrels, or horses.
There are several criteria for animals whose body parts may be used as goods. One of them is an animal that is ma’kul al lahm, namely its meat may be eaten and slaughtered according to sharia, such as cows, goats and sheep. Furthermore, the production process for animal goods must be guaranteed to be pure. The use of fur from carcasses of animals that are ma’kul al lahm or ghair ma’kul al lahm (their meat may not be eaten) for the production of goods must first be purified. The fur of carcasses of dogs, pigs and those born in between are not halal for use.
Identification of the raw materials for bristle brushes needs to be done. One way is to conduct tests in the laboratory. The LPPOM MUI laboratory, accredited with ISO 17025, also provides special testing services for halal, such as testing pig DNA with real-time PCR. That way, we can find out the origin of the ingredients of a product. The LPPOM MUI Laboratory also offers testing related to quality and food safety.
In addition to the large critical point on bristle brushes, the mandatory certification of consumer goods such as bristle brushes has been included by the Government in Act No. 33 of 2014 concerning Halal Product Assurance (UU JPH). Consumer goods are included in the mandatory halal stage until October 17, 2026.
Now, in Indonesia some brushes are halal certified. You can check their halalness through the website www.halalmui.org or the HalalMUI application, which can be downloaded from the Google Playstore. Information related to laboratory tests for pork DNA with real-time PCR and various services (such as vegan and food safety tests) that can be carried out at the LPPOM MUI Laboratory can be accessed via www.e-halallab.com. (ZUL)
