Someone told me that if you take fresh pig meat and pour Coka-Cola on it, you'll see all sorts of worms and parasites start crawling out of it.
100% false.
For example, sea-food is "halaal"
Unless you're (hanafi?) shia and only think shrimp and fish with scales are ok...
So I'm honestly not allowed to go to McDonalds and order a burger because that beef wasn't killed in the correct Islamic way.
For some reason, there actually are McDonald's with halal meat, and I think a few have 100% halal menus. The funny thing about halal meat, is that most of it....isn't. As rattler said, you can't hang a cow upside down, etc. Even some halal meat plants have admitted to not saying "bismallah" (spelling?) before killing every single animal, and most halal meat plants use machines to do the killing. Lots of places have been found to not be clean enough, etc, etc. I think this is the story I watched:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txoxtcvehCA
Then there's the whole 'is kosher halal'? Debate, etc, etc.
Of course there are multitudes of Muslims that disagree with each other on pretty much every aspect of what I just said. Very ironic for a religion that claims to know absolutely everything, and demands that it is undebateable
.
Anyway, relating this to the topic, I've never seen any proof to show that kosher or halal products are any cleaner or more healthful, as compared to non-kosher/halal products. Europe has always been largely pagan and later christian, and Europe has more often than not been the most powerful/advanced region on the planet (for the past ~2000 years. PS: I'm not saying Europe was powerful because of religion). You've got the Greeks, Romans, Russians, Austrians, English, Prussia, USA (largely Euro settlers), etc, etc, etc, as compared to the Turks and Persians. The Mongols made very quick work of the Turks, and the Mongols would be included in people that never had strict dietary restrictions. So, not only did those not adhering to such totalitarian restrictions
not weaken and/or die, but they have more often than not been the strongest on the planet since about 100AD.
And bonus points to the Teutons for inventing beer in 800BC.