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There is a widely-circulated essay dismissing the majority of Muslims and focussing on the actions of a fanatical few. It has been attributed to several authors, especially Dr Emanual Tanya, Dr. Emanuel Tanay, and Paul Marek.

Here are some examples:

One of the key claims is:

In Australia [...] many of the most commonly consumed food items have the halal emblem on them.

Is this true?

Oddthinking
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marilyn
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    I don't know about "most" but I looked through the items in my pantry and could not find it on any of them. On the other hand, I know that more and more companies are applying for Halal certification. One winery was surprised its products were rejected ;-) – hdhondt Jul 08 '16 at 01:19
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    @hdhondt: The claim isn't "most". It is a far more wishy-washy "many". – Oddthinking Jul 08 '16 at 03:14
  • I don't know how to turn this into an answer without original research, but it is illustrative to think about how many different types and brands of a product category there is (e.g. butter, ice cream, vitamins, flour) and then look up how many have been halal certified according to the [possibly incomplete] database at [Halal Square](http://www.halalsquare.com.au/groceries). – Oddthinking Jul 08 '16 at 06:12
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    Single data point, but vegemite indicates on its packaging that it is halal. – Andrew Grimm Jul 08 '16 at 08:56
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    Vegemite has to count for at least 20% of commonly consumed food items in Australia alone, right? – user56reinstatemonica8 Jul 08 '16 at 13:08
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    It would be interesting to know what percentage of food in an average western supermarket would be halal without any effort by the manufacturer, and what additional percentage could be made to be halal with very little effort or cost. It surely doesn't hurt anyone to mark food as halal or not halal if the manufacturer knows. – gnasher729 Jul 11 '16 at 08:19
  • @gnasher729 The "issue" isn't with labelling but with the certification, which costs money, and some people claim that money supports terrorism. – curiousdannii Sep 12 '16 at 00:55
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    Possible duplicate of [Do many commonly consumed food items in Australia have the halal certification emblem on them?](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/44000/do-many-commonly-consumed-food-items-in-australia-have-the-halal-certification-e) – Andrew Grimm May 13 '19 at 02:39

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