Why do people continue to eat from filthy kebab shops? Writes Joshua Winston
While people will talk about the barbarity of halal slaughter, and about not eating halal food for this reason, there’s not too much talk about the hygiene levels of all too many Muslim takeaway shops and restaurants. I’ve never eaten a kebab in my life, and it’s for hygiene reasons that I don’t purchase any items from Muslim-owned stores, even pre-packaged items and spices.
E.coli, “only the second outbreak of its kind in Europe,” was passed on to customers in Nottingham after they had purchased food contaminated with human faeces from the Khyber Pass fast food outlet. Owners Mohammad Abdul Basit and Amjad Bhatti pleaded guilty to breaching food hygiene regulations.
Other health inspector findings revealed such things as dead rats floating in cooking oil in one kebab shop, Mamaz: “Owners Maqsood Ahmed, 41, and Mohammed Saghir, 43, admitted 11 breaches of food safety and hygiene regulations.” A cockroach infestation was discovered in another. Pools of blood were found in a curry house; “Boss Salik Mohammed Miah, 42, pleaded guilty to eight food hygiene offences and was hit with an eye-watering £32,000 fine.”
In another shop, there was found more E.coli and raw chicken stored on top of pizzas; “Now Hussain, 58, of Hudson Street, Loughborough, has been banned from managing a food business and fined after breaching food safety and hygiene regulations. He pleaded guilty to three charges and was found guilty of two others.” In yet another was a toxic time bomb: “The owner of the Dallas Chicken takeaway on Westgate Road, Newcastle, Raja Khalid Khan admitted 12 food hygiene charges and was fined £1,800 by the city’s magistrates.”
At another kebab shop, run by Resul Asam, Hasan Asam and Yusein Ahmed, “a large volume of chicken was being butchered in the kitchen. Chilled storage space was limited and a risk of cross contamination was evident.” Also, “a risk of salmonella was also highlighted due to the kebab shop’s mayonnaise, with the report stating: “Eggs used to make mayonnaise were not branded to demonstrate salmonella free.” Then there is the chance of eating a kebab that is filled with the meat of an underage rape victim.
It’s not just the storage and cooking conditions of the meat once it is inside the shop that is alarming, it’s also the conditions in which the meat gets transported. More often than not it is done so unwrapped, and in unrefrigerated, filthy vans. You see these all across East London. One man describes the kebab meat as looking like “rolled-up carpets being transported in a sweaty van.” There doesn’t seem to be a need for care from owners, cooks, or customers alike.
Human faecal matter, along with mouse droppings, is commonplace when food and utensils are inspected in these establishments. Jihad Watch did an exposé on saliva sometimes being an added ingredient into food prepared by Muslims.
Fast food and kebabs are part of the night-time economy in the UK, and as drunken people are often being served, this could explain a drop in standards, but what will it take before the public start taking good hygiene into consideration when making food purchases?
