McDonald’s says goodbye to halal

McDonald’s Corp. is dropping halal food, which are prepared according to Islamic guidelines, from its U.S. menu after a lawsuit in Michigan accused the fast-food chain of false advertising.

McDonald’s only two U.S. restaurants that offered halal food, both in Dearborn, Mich., have stopped serving Halal Chicken McNuggets and Halal McChicken sandwiches after a lawsuit was filed in 2011 alleging the items were not properly prepared under Islamic law and that some customers who ordered halal items were mistakenly given non-halal food.

“Those items have been discontinued as a result of our continued efforts to focus on our national core menu,” a spokesman for McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) told the Detroit Free Press.

McDonald’s, which denied any wrongdoing, reached a $700,000 settlement in April. Of that amount, $275,000 went to a Muslim health center in Detroit; $150,000 to the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, $25,000 to Ahmed Ahmed, the man who filed the lawsuit against McDonald's, and the remainder went to attorney fees, reported the Detroit Free Press.

The restaurants stopped serving the halal items last month, after 12 years of including them on the menu, according to the newspaper.

Kassem Dakhlallah, the attorney who filed the lawsuit, told the Detroit Free Press he was disappointed that the company decided to stop selling halal food rather than try "to ensure that all products sold were halal as advertised."

McDonald’s still sells halal food in Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia.