On the way to Pandarella’s classmate’s birthday party, she informed me that she would like to invite her entire class to her birthday party. Before I said anything, she continued, “If you’re inviting my entire class, you’ll have to make sure the food is halal. Two girls in my class only eat halal food.”

I am often thankful that being educated in Singapore gives the little pandas the privilege of growing up exposed to different cultures and beliefs, and I am really happy that Pandarella is considerate enough about her classmates to take note of their dietary restrictions.

I also thought this would be a good chance to introduce her to the term “清真”, which means “halal” in Chinese.

This term is definitely not new to anyone who lives in Singapore, and if you’re a parent like me, you will certainly be familiar with halal restaurants and bakeries in Singapore for birthday parties and Teachers’ Day caterings.

Giant Panda has had classmates who were strict vegetarians (no egg) and schoolmates who had peanut allergies, which is relatively rare in Singapore. Amazingly enough, I was able to find a bakery who could fulfil my criteria of being halal-certified, egg-free, and nut-free.

While some people are not entirely strict about the dietary restrictions – I know a few vegetarian parents who did not disallow their children to have cake containing egg during birthday celebrations in school although the children would normally only have fully vegetarian meals, and some parents would ask the school or other parents if it’s acceptable for the food to not contain pork and be made from halal ingredients without being halal-certified, I don’t usually ask these questions, because it puts the recipient in the uncomfortable position of having to reject you or compromise his/her own preferences. It is really not difficult to find a good halal-certified bakery or even the occasional one that doesn’t use eggs in its products, and I feel it’s important that when you have guests over at a party, it’s important that they feel at home, and are not worrying about inadvertently breaking any rules.

Our little pandas eat pretty much everything, because we introduce them to a wide variety of food, but we also try to make them aware that not everyone eats like them. We have many family and friends who have specific dietary preferences or restrictions (e.g. no beef, no raw, vegetarian, halal etc) so they do have many opportunities to practice being considerate of other people’s food choices.

In other news, I am now in search of an affordable party venue big enough for me to invite and safely host 30 rowdy children for a 3-hour party.