KZBlog

The Biotechnology Center of Kazakhstan has developed a test to tell if there is pork in your food so that Muslims can avoid eating pig inadvertently. Apparently, pork is cheaper than beef or lamb in Kazakhstan (we never buy it, so I don’t actually know) meaning that some restaurants or cafes, or maybe butchers, slip pork meat into hamburger or other meals.

Apparently it involves putting a special stick into a glass of water with some meat. If the stick changes color, it means there’s pork in your food. Since many Kazakhs do refrain from eating pork, even if they are not religious, it’s actually a pretty practical idea. And I could see it catching on among Muslims living in Western countries, where pork is used in all sorts of manufactured foods.

The new invention, which isn’t out on the market yet, has made the Odd news section, and it sounds sort of funny, but it’s actually a pretty practical idea and much more realistic than some other more ambitious projects that have been proposed such as reversing aging or nanotechnology computers.

I have to admit that I was surprised to learn recently that the sausage we had been buying at the market (April’s Doctor sausage), has pork in it. I had assumed that since so many Kazakhs don’t eat pork, that sausages would not have pork either. So I apologize to any guests who ate it without realizing they were eating pork. We didn’t know either! Of course, I didn’t need a test to find out; I just read the package.