Advice on consuming products derived from alcohol: halal or haram?

**Umoo** · 02-11-2023

Selam aleykum, I have a question about consuming products which are derived from alcohol, but have a minimum amount of alcohol in it. Examples include wine vinegar, carrageenan (which is cristallyzed by alcohol) and alcohol-free beer. They all have a tiny percentage of alcohol in them, at most 0,5%. What is your advice on this, are they haram because they have traces from alcohol or halal because those traces are minimal?

**A.R.BRahimbaksh** · 02-11-2023

Walikum assalam warahmatullah e wa barakhatuhu,

There is a Hadith;

It was narrated from ‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said:
“Every intoxicant is unlawful and whatever causes intoxication in large amounts, a small amount of it is (also) unlawful.”

Reference : Sunan Ibn Majah 3392
Jazaka Allah khairen

**Umoo** · 02-11-2023

Originally Posted by A.R.BRahimbaksh

Walikum assalam warahmatullah e wa barakhatuhu,

There is a Hadith;

It was narrated from ‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said:
“Every intoxicant is unlawful and whatever causes intoxication in large amounts, a small amount of it is (also) unlawful.”

Reference : Sunan Ibn Majah 3392
Jazaka Allah khairen

Thank you for your reply. I have also seen that hadith but I wasn't sure if that's also the case with the products I mentioned. The reason being if it is indeed haram according to that hadith then that would mean that at least the following products are forbidden:

- sauces and salad dressings (because they often contain vinegar),
- dairy products such as chocolate milk, whipped cream, pudding, soft ice cream, but also toothpaste (because they contain carrageenan and it's probably very hard to find out the source of carrageenan for each product)
- and ofcourse alcohol-free beer

As you can see these are products we often use or consume which is quite hard to avoid I think.. Do you think that this is true? Do you indeed avoid all of these products because they are or might be derived from alcohol?

**Umoo** · 02-11-2023

As far as I can see I can't edit my post, so with the sentence "As you can see these are products we often use or consume which is quite hard to avoid I think", I ofcourse only mean the vinegar en carrageenan (so not the alcohol-free beer).

***charisma*** · 02-11-2023

Originally Posted by Umoo

Selam aleykum, I have a question about consuming products which are derived from alcohol, but have a minimum amount of alcohol in it. Examples include wine vinegar, carrageenan (which is cristallyzed by alcohol) and alcohol-free beer. They all have a tiny percentage of alcohol in them, at most 0,5%. What is your advice on this, are they haram because they have traces from alcohol or halal because those traces are minimal?

There is a small percentage of naturally occurring alcohol in many foods such as fruit and breads, however eating an excessive amount of these foods would never cause alcohol intoxication. There is a difference of opinion among scholars are whether or not vinegars that started out as wine are halal due to how its processed because wine has to be deliberately processed into vinegar which means we'd have to handle and procure wine in the first place (haram) and it is not a natural process, although the wine vinegar itself would not be intoxicating. I assume that Alcohol-free beer is similar unless it was never processed directly from beer and is just some beer-flavored drink. wa Allahu a3lem

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/2283...-vinegar-halal

**Karl** · 02-11-2023

Alcohol purifies water and makes it safe to drink. So if you can't boil the water, a little bit of alcohol could save your life. It is Halal as long as you are not affected by the drug.

***charisma*** · 02-12-2023

Originally Posted by Karl

Alcohol purifies water and makes it safe to drink. So if you can't boil the water, a little bit of alcohol could save your life. It is Halal as long as you are not affected by the drug.

This is untrue. You'd need a 50:50 ratio of alcohol to water for it to potentially remove some bacteria, but even then it would not be purified 100%.
And even to use it at that concentration would be counter-productive since alcohol is a diuretic.

**A.R.BRahimbaksh** · 02-12-2023

Originally Posted by Umoo

Thank you for your reply. I have also seen that hadith but I wasn't sure if that's also the case with the products I mentioned. The reason being if it is indeed haram according to that hadith then that would mean that at least the following products are forbidden:

- sauces and salad dressings (because they often contain vinegar),
- dairy products such as chocolate milk, whipped cream, pudding, soft ice cream, but also toothpaste (because they contain carrageenan and it's probably very hard to find out the source of carrageenan for each product)
- and ofcourse alcohol-free beer

As you can see these are products we often use or consume which is quite hard to avoid I think.. Do you think that this is true? Do you indeed avoid all of these products because they are or might be derived from alcohol?

Assalam walikum warahmatullah e wa barakhatuhu,

As you can see in Hadith it is saying about intoxicant (the state where you can't control physical and mental state ) I think she .but in the case of sauce and salad et cetera they are not intoxicant.the Hadith clearly shows the things which are Haram are those which disturb the conscious mind .but these are not .there are different opinions about this .may be I am wrong.
You can ask scholar.
Jazaka Allah khairen