Muslim in Japan: Pork & Pork Products

Other than the price of food here, avoiding pork and pork products in food has been a big issue for me. Pork is a pretty common meat here because it is cheaper than beef. It is also really common to use pork flavoring in food that you wouldn’t think has a pork product in it!

Thankfully, the teachers at my school are really nice and gave me information on a little card that I can carry with me to check the ingredients on things I buy at the store. I thought it might be useful so I’ll pass it along here. 🙂

Here are the things to look out for:

1. Pork: [豚肉, ぶたにく, ポーク] pronounced “buta niku“
2. Gelatin: [ゼラチン] pronounced “zerachin“
3. Lard: [ラード, 豚脂] pronounced “raado“
4. Mixed Oil: [混合油] pronounced “kongou yushi“
5. Pork Extract: [ポークエキス, ぶたにくエキス] pronounced “pooku ekisu“

It has been pretty easy with my handy card. The only wild card is bread, because many of the bread products here have gelatin in them, which I didn’t even think of! I just have to be extra careful when I’m shopping.

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