Written by Chihiro Mujahed-san
Assalamu Alaykum
I would like to discuss on baby food.
I unfortunately have to tell you that when it comes to baby food, since I only fed it few times during the travel, I am not able to tell you too much information on this subject.
When I checked them on several company sites online, most of the products did not contain any alcohol since it’s catered for babies. Same goes for pork as well, since I didn’t find any pork ingredient for most of the early stage products. Although people may think gelatin is being used for the ingredient since most of the baby food products are made with thick sauce to make it easier for babies to eat, all of the products that I researched online were all using starch as the ingredient.
Here are some examples: Goo Goo Kitchen, vegetables and egg ankake-udon (udon with thick starchy sauce and grated ginger) by Wakodo
As you can see, now days, you can check the ingredients for virtually any product at the company’s website. If you are still worried, you can call up the customer service center of each company, and if you tell them the product name and product code, they will give you the detailed ingredient information on the spot. With that said, my experience is that babies can sense the difference between the commercially made baby food and homemade baby food made with mother’s love! Regardless of one’s religion, mother’s home cooking is the universal language for all of us!
Lastly, I want to talk about pre-school.
My daughter is currently attending pre-school starting last year, but prior to attending the pre-school, I had thorough discussion with the teacher concerning the meal arrangement. What I remember of that experience was that teachers were very kind to me as if they were my parents, and that they went extra miles in details to come up with various measures. Just like the maternity hospital, the teachers directly contacted the maker when it came to milk. For the school lunch menu, parents would check the ingredient content of the meal on monthly basis in advance, and a dietician would make a new menu by extracting the unwanted portion of ingredients or by using substitute ingredients. The menu is finalized through the process of parents rechecking the menu and signing off the consent form. I was very surprised to see that for my daughter’s case, her meal portion was being separated from other kid’s meal tray to avoid mix up, and they even went as far as putting cover over her meal as an extra precautionary measure! With that kind of thorough measure, any parent can request for a special meal without ever having to worry about it. So I am truly thankful for their extra care.
After I became a Muslim (although technically Japanese Muslim), I feel like my opportunities to run into good aspect of Japanese people have actually increased. The effort in understanding the viewpoint of others and service to others, are some of the things that I think Japanese should be proud of. And because I am Japanese by birth who happens to embark on the journey of becoming a Muslim, it is only natural for me to continue to seek a development of environment and structure that can ensure happiness and secure living for Muslims in Japan. With that said, I realized that for now, what is required of us (my husband and I) as Muslim, is for us to carefully discuss our policy and standard of decision for labor/child raising in Japan, and for us to be heading toward the unified direction. Since the decision standard varies individually even within a Muslim community, I think it’s important for a husband and wife to see things eye to eye. So what I like to do is first and foremost establish a solid ground for the family living condition, and one by one engage in things that we as adults can do, and realize in near future a kind of environment where both Muslim and Japanese children can happily grow up together in harmony.
So everyone, let’s all engage in this fun and exciting lifestyle of raising Muslim child in Japan!
