City Councilman Rafael Espinal (D-Brooklyn) announced Wednesday he wants to expand school lunch menus to include halal food options for Muslim students.
About 20% of city schoolchildren - 170,000 students - are Muslim and often go a full day without eating school lunch because of religious dietary restrictions, Espinal said. He said the proposal for universal free lunch, which was introduced by Public Advocate Letitia James earlier this month, should be inclusive of all students according to faith-based needs.
“While there is an ongoing conversation of providing free lunch to every student, we must also be progressive in instituting lunches that respect the faiths of New York City’s diverse population,” Espinal said.
He wasn’t sure how much it would cost the city to provide the lunches. Practicing Muslims cannot eat pork or pork by-products, or animals that were dead prior to slaughtering.
Kamal Bhuiyan, chairman of the Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group, said his two children often come home starving because they cannot eat any of the cafeteria food offered in their Queens schools.
“They are not able to eat lunch,” he said. “They come home at 3:30, and they’re weak, tired and fatigued.”
Espinal said no date has been set for a hearing on his proposed resolution.