SEA Games to serve full halal meals for all athletes

MANILA, Philippines—Bruce Lim, executive chef of the Southeast Asian Games, said the food that will be served for the athletes throughout the Games will be “full halal.”

Lim said the decision to prepare halal meals is to ensure the welfare of Muslim athletes participating in the regional multi-sport meet.

“We opted to go for full halal for the SEA Games because we wanted to make way for our Muslim brothers and sisters to say that we care about them,” said Lim during a press conference by the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee Wednesday at World Trade Center.

Lim said preparations are quite challenging with only a limited number of hotels halal-certified, that’s why third party suppliers, who have halal certification, were brought in.

“It was tough for a country that is not primarily a Muslim country or a no-pork eating country for us to execute this,” he said.

“If you noticed some of the hotels are not halal certified so what we did was we brought in third party contractors to help us who are halal certified.”

Food has been a hot topic in the country’s hosting so far with athletes from several countries including Filipinos raising insufficient meals and drinks as among the concerns.

“I know everyone’s wondering why we went full halal I think it’s for the safety of the athletes and we wanted to be fair with everyone and I believe that the people who do consume pork can live for 15 days without,” Lim said.

“If they wanted to eat pork they can always leave the venue and eat somewhere else but for our Muslim brothers and sisters who wanna make sure that they had something here that they can consume that it’s safe for them so that was our main concern.”