Is glycerin (E422) halal?

Glycerin is a sweet, syrupy alcohol (not an intoxicating one) that forms when fats and oils are split into fatty acids, a by-product of soap and biodiesel making. The fat can be palm, soy or coconut oil, or beef and pork tallow, and the finished glycerin is chemically the same whichever it came from. It can also be made from petrochemicals. Food makers use it as a sweetener, a humectant that keeps bars and icing soft, and a carrier for flavours; it is also in toothpaste, cough syrup, e-liquids and cosmetics.

SANHA, the South African National Halaal Authority, lists E422 glycerin as mushbooh (doubtful) on its E-number pages, because it may be made from animal fat as well as plant fat. The UK Food Standards Agency lists E422 as an approved additive, which tells you it is safe to eat but nothing about its source.

For food, the source decides: plant or synthetic glycerin is halal, pork-derived is not, and glycerin from beef that was not slaughtered the Islamic way is treated like other such fats, which most scholars avoid. For toothpaste, soap and skin creams many scholars are more lenient, because the product is not eaten, though some avoid pork-derived ingredients on the skin too. Muzzmi does not rule on this: follow your own scholar.

Look for "vegetable glycerin", "plant-based" or a halal certification mark. A kosher mark on its own does not settle the halal question, since kosher rules on animal fat differ. If the pack only says glycerin, glycerol or E422, ask the maker. The same question applies to the emulsifier E471, which is made from glycerol and fatty acids, and to gelatin in sweets such as Haribo. Muzzmi's free label scanner flags glycerin and other source-dependent ingredients on any barcode.