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Kosher foods
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Kosher foods are those that conform to the rules of Jewish religion. These rules form the main aspect of kashrut, Jewish dietary laws.
Reasons for food being non-kosher include the presence of ingredients derived from non-kosher animals or from kosher animals that were not properly slaughtered, a mixture of meat and milk, wine or grape juice (or their derivatives) produced by only gentiles, the use of produce from Israel that has not been tithed, or even the use of cooking utensils and machinery which had previously been used for non-kosher food.
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Kosher foods are those that conform to the rules of Jewish religion. These rules form the main aspect of kashrut, Jewish dietary laws.
Reasons for food being non-kosher include the presence of ingredients derived from non-kosher animals or from kosher animals that were not properly slaughtered, a mixture of meat and milk, wine or grape juice (or their derivatives) produced by only gentiles, the use of produce from Israel that has not been tithed, or even the use of cooking utensils and machinery which had previously been used for non-kosher food. Kosher is eaten mainly by Orthodox Jews but other Jews are not so specific. The phrase kosher may also be used to refer to the diet of the Jewish religion.
Animal species
In Judaism, most of the laws of Kashrut pertain to animals. The Torah explicitly states which animals are permitted or forbidden. In regard to birds, the Torah provides no general rule, and instead the Deuteronomic Code and Priestly Code explicitly list the prohibited birds, using names that have uncertain translations; the list seems to mainly consist of birds of prey, fish-eating water-birds, and the bat.
By contrast, for water creatures, Leviticus and Deuteronomy both give the general rule that anything residing in the waters (which Leviticus specifies as being the seas and rivers) is ritually clean if it has both fins and scales, in contrast to anything residing in the waters with neither fins nor scales, which Leviticus calls filthy (Hebrew: sheqets). All flying creeping things were also to be considered ritually unclean, according to both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but unlike Deuteronomy, Leviticus identifies four exceptions; the exceptions are of uncertain translation, but are clearly locusts and similar creatures, and there is a tradition upheld by Jews from Yemen about which animals constitute the kosher locusts.
With regard to land beasts (Hebrew:Behemoth), Deuteronomy and Leviticus both state that anything which chews the cud and has a cloven hoof would be ritually clean, but those animals which only chew the cud or only have cloven hooves would be unclean. The texts identify four animals in particular as being unclean for this reason - the hare, hyrax, camel, and pig although the camel both ruminates and has two toes, while the hare and hyrax are coprophages rather than ruminants; the latter issues have been discussed by many, including the recent book on the subject by Rabbi Natan Slifkin Leviticus, but not Deuteronomy, also states that every creeping thing which creeps upon the earth should be considered filthy (Hebrew: sheqets).
Animal parts
Blood and fat
One of the main biblical food laws is the forbidding of eating blood on account of the life [being] in the blood; this ban and reason are listed in the Noahide Laws, and twice in Leviticus, as well as by Deuteronomy The Priestly Code also prohibits the eating of fat, if it came from sacrificial land animals (cattle, sheep, and goats), since the fat is the portion of the meat exclusively allocated to Yahweh (by burning it on the altar).
The classical rabbis argued that, in a number of cases, the prohibition against consuming blood was impractical, and there should be exceptions; they claimed that consuming the blood which remained on the inside of meat (as opposed to the blood on the surface of it, dripping from it, or housed within the veins), would be permitted, and that the blood of fish and locusts could also be consumed.
To comply with this prohibition, a number of preparation techniques became practiced within traditional Judaism. The main technique, known as melihah, involves the meat being soaked in water for about half an hour, which opens pores; after this, the meat is placed on a slanted board or in a wicker basket, and is thickly covered with salt on each side, and left for between twenty minutes and one hour. The salt covering draws blood from the meat by osmosis, and so the salt must be subsequently removed from the meat (usually by trying to shake most of it off, and then washing the meat twice ) in order to complete the extraction of the blood.
Melihah is not sufficient to extract blood from the liver, lungs, heart, and certain other internal organs, since they naturally contain a high density of blood, and therefore these organs are usually removed before the rest of the meat is salted; roasting on the other hand will usually cause blood to be discharged, and it is therefore the usual treatment given to these organs (if they are to be eaten at all), and it is also an alternative cooking method for the rest of the meat.
Thigh meat
The Bible mentions in passing that there was an Israelite tradition of not eating the sinew which shrank upon the hollow of the thigh, but the Talmud interprets this as an explicit prohibition against doing so; the Bible attributes the tradition to the dislocation of the hollow of Jacob's thigh during a wrestle with God, in a biblical narrative set at Penuel. Within Judaism the rule has usually been interpreted as referring to the sciatic nerve, the removal of which is a very time-consuming process demanding a great deal of special training, and is therefore rarely done outside Israel as there is little demand in general populations for kosher meat. The Talmud excludes bird meat from the restriction.
Animal produce
In addition to meat, all other produce of ritually unclean animals, as well as from unhealthy animals, were banned by the Talmudic writers; this included eggs (including fish roe)) and milk, as well as derived products such as cheese and jelly, but did not include materials merely manufactured or gathered by animals, such as honey (although, in the case of honey from animals other than bees, there was a difference of opinion among the ancient writers. According to the rabbinical writers, eggs from ritually pure animals would always be prolate ("pointy") at one end and oblate ("rounded") at the other, helping to reduce uncertainty about whether consumption was permitted or not.
Dairy products
Although human meat is generally assumed to have been among the forbidden foods, the prohibition against produce was not regarded by the rabbinical writers as applying to women's breast milk; the only restriction applied to this substance was that it could only be consumed directly from the breasts by children younger than four (or five if the child is ill), and children older than two were only permitted to continue to suckle breasts, if they had not stopped doing so for more than three consecutive days.
The classical rabbinical writers imply that milk from an animal whose meat is kosher is also kosher. However, as animals are considered non-kosher if they are discovered, after slaughter, to have been diseased, this could make its milk, taken from the animal when it was alive, retro-actively non-kosher. However, by adhering to the principle that the majority case overrules the exception, Jewish tradition continues to regard such milk as kosher, since statistically it is true that most animals producing such milk are not non-kosher; the same principle is not applied to the possibility of consuming meat from an animal which has not been checked for disease. Rabbi Hershel Schachter, a prominent rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University, has made the bold claim that with modern dairy farm equipment, milk from the minority of non-kosher cows is invariably mixed with that of the majority of kosher cows, thus invalidating the permissibility of consuming milk from a large dairy operation; the Orthodox Union, however, released a statement declaring the milk permissible based on some leniencies.
The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 115:1) rules one may consume only "cholov yisroel" (??? ?????), or milk produced with a Torah-observant Jewish person present. Lacking proper supervision, one cannot be sure whether the milk came from a kosher animal. Some recent American rabbinical authorities, most notably Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, ruled that the protection provided by cholov yisroel is unnecessary because the regulations imposed on the US milk industry by the USDA are so focused and strict that the milk industry can be trusted to self-regulate themselves (i.e. when they label an item "cow's milk" to not include milk from any other animal). Some Haredi and Modern Orthodox rabbis hold that this leniency cannot be employed and only milk and dairy products with milk-to-bottle supervision may be consumed.
If you have eaten any meat you cannot consume any dairy product within 3 hours.
Cheese
The situation of cheese is complicated by the fact that the production of hard cheese usually involves rennet, an enzyme which splits milk into curds and whey. Although rennet can be made from vegetable or microbial sources, most forms are derived from the stomach linings of animals, and therefore could potentially be non-kosher. Only rennet made from the stomachs of kosher-animals, if they have been slaughtered according to the laws of kashrut, is kosher. If a kosher animal is not slaughtered according to the halakha, the rennet is not kosher. Rennet is not considered a meat product and does not violate the prohibition of mixing meat and dairy.
Jacob ben Meir, one of the most prominent medieval rabbis, championed the viewpoint that all cheese was kosher, a standpoint which was practised in communities in Narbonne and Italy. Contemporary Orthodox authorities do not follow this ruling, and hold that cheese requires formal kashrut certification to be kosher, some even arguing that this is necessary for cheese made with non-animal rennet. In practice, Orthodox Jews, and some Conservative Jews who observe the kashrut laws, only eat cheese if they are certain that the rennet itself was kosher.
Gelatin
Gelatin is also a product with complicated implications for Orthodox Jews; Gelatin is hydrolised collagen, the main protein in animal connective tissue, and therefore could potentially come from a non-kosher source, such as pig bones. Gelatin has historically been a prominent source of glue, finding uses from musical instruments to embroidery, one of the main historic emulsions used in cosmetics and in photographic film, the main coating given to medical capsule pills, and a form of food including jelly, trifle, and marshmallows; the status of gelatin in kashrut is consequently fairly controversial.
Due to the ambiguity over the source of individual items derived from gelatin, many Orthodox rabbis regard it as generally being non-kosher. However, Conservative rabbis and several prominent Orthodox rabbis, including Ovadia Yosef the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel argue that gelatin has undergone such total chemical change and processing that it should not count as meat, and therefore would be kosher; technically, gelatin is just produced by separating the three strands in each collagen fibre's triple helix, an action performed simply by boiling collagen in water.
One of the main methods of avoiding non-kosher gelatin is to substitute gelatin-like materials in its place; substances with a similar chemical behaviour include food starch from tapioca, chemically modified pectins, and carrageenan combined with certain vegetable gums guar gum, locust-bean gum, xanthan gum, gum acacia, agar, and others. Although gelatin is used for several purposes by a wide variety of manufacturers, it has started to be replaced with these substitutes in a number of products, due to the use of gelatin also being a significant concern to vegetarians.
Production methods
Slaughter
Of the rules appearing, in two groups, in exodus, most do not express dietary laws, but one of the few dietary rules it does list is a ban on eating the meat from animals which have been torn by beasts; a related law appears in Deuteronomy's law code, totally prohibiting the consumption of anything that has died from natural causes, and even giving away or selling such things. The Book of Ezekiel infers that the rules about animals which die of natural causes, or are torn by beasts, were only adhered to by the priests, and were only intended for them; the implication that they did not apply to, and were not upheld by, ordinary Israelites was noticed by the classical rabbis, who declared that the prophet Elijah shall some day explain this problematic passage.
Since the Bible prohibits eating meat from animals dying from natural causes, and all animals killed by beasts, traditional Jewish thought has expressed the view that all meat must come from animals which have been slaughtered according to Jewish law. These strict guidelines require that the animal is killed by a single cut across the throat to a precise depth, severing both carotid arteries, both jugular veins, both vagus nerves, the trachea and the esophagus, no higher than the epiglottis and no lower than where cilia begin inside the trachea, causing the animal to bleed to death; apologists for Orthodox Judaism argue that this ensures the animal dies instantly without unnecessary suffering, but many animal rights activists view the process as cruel, arguing that the animal may not lose consciousness immediately, and activists have called for it to be banned.
To avoid tearing, and to ensure the cut is thorough, such slaughter is usually performed by a trained individual, with a large razor-sharp knife, which is checked before each killing to ensure that it has no irregularities (such as nicks and dents); if irregularities are discovered, or the cut is too shallow, the meat is deemed not kosher, and is sold to the non-Jewish public. Jewish rabbis usually require the slaughterer, known within Judaism as a shochet, to also be a pious Jew of good character, who observes the Shabbat, and believes that the slaughter victims are sacrificing their lives for the good of the slaughterer and their community. In smaller communities the shochet was often the town rabbi, or a rabbi from a local synagogue, but large slaughterhouses usually employ a full-time shochet if they intend to sell kosher meat.
The Talmud, and later Jewish authorities, also prohibit the consumption of meat from animals who were slaughtered despite being in the process of dying from disease; but this is not based on concern for the health of the eater, instead being an extension of the rules banning the meat from animals torn by beasts, and animals who die from natural causes. To comply with this Talmudic injunction against eating diseased animals, Orthodox Jews usually require that the corpses of freshly slaughtered animals are thoroughly inspected. There are 70 different traditional checks for irregularities and growths; for example, there are checks to ensure that the lungs have absolutely no scars, which might have been caused by an inflammation, and if this check is passed then the meat is termed glatt, literally meaning smooth.
Compromises in countries with animal cruelty laws that prohibit such practices involve stunning the animal to lessen the suffering that occurs while the animal bleeds to death. However, the use of electric shocks to daze the animal is often not accepted by some markets as producing meat which is kosher.
Dead animals
The Talmud prohibits the consumption of animals which are still alive. The consumption of eggs which have started to hatch was regarded as falling under the ban on eating parts of live animals; the Yoreh De'ah argues that if there is blood in the yolk then hatching must have begun, and therefore consumption of the egg would be forbidden.
Modern Orthodox Jews adhere to these requirements, but although the Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews treat an egg as non-kosher if blood is found anywhere within it, the Sephardi Orthodox Jews only consider blood in the yolk to be a problem; the Sephardi treat eggs with blood in the albumen as legitimate food, if the blood is removed before use.
Seething a kid in its mother's milk
Three times the Torah specifically forbids seething a young goat in its mother's milk ( and ). The Talmud interprets this as a general prohibition against cooking meat and dairy products together, and against eating such a mixture. To help prevent accidental violation of these rules, the modern standard Orthodox practice is to classify food into either being meat, dairy, or neither; the latter category is more usually referred to as parve from the Yiddish word parev meaning neutral. As the biblical prohibition specifically refers to (young) goats, the flesh of mammals is logically categorised as meat, while that of fish is considered parve; however, rather than being considered parve, the flesh of birds is regarded by Modern halakha (Jewish law) as meat.
Involvement by non-Jews
The classical rabbis prohibited any item of food that had been consecrated to an idol, or had been used in the service of an idol; since the Talmud views all non-Jews as idolaters, and viewed intermarriage with apprehension, it included within this prohibition any food which has been cooked/prepared completely by non-Jews. However, bread sold by a non-Jewish baker was not included in the prohibition; similarly, a number of Jewish writers believed that food prepared on behalf of Jews, by non-Jewish servants, would not count as idolatry, although this view was opposed by Jacob ben Asher.
Consequently, modern Orthodox Jews generally believe that wine, cheese, certain cooked foods, and sometimes even dairy products, should only be prepared by Jews. The prohibition against drinking non-Jewish wine, traditionally called yayin nesekh (literally meaning wine for offering [to a deity]), is not absolute. Cooked wine (Hebrew: yayin mevushal), meaning wine which has been heated, is regarded as drinkable on the basis that heated wine was not historically used as a religious libation; thus kosher wine includes mulled wine, and pasteurised wine, regardless of producer, but Orthodox Judaism only regards other forms of wine as kosher if prepared by a Jew.
Some Jews refer to these prohibited foods as akum, an acronym of Obhde Kokhabkim U Mazzaloth, meaning worshippers of stars and planets; akum is thus a reference to activities which these Jews view as idolatry, and in many significant works of post-classical Jewish literature, such as the Shulchan Aruch, it has been applied to Christians in particular. However, among the classical rabbis, there were a number who refused to treat Christians as idolaters, and consequently regarded food which had been manufactured by them as being kosher; this detail has been noted and upheld by a number of religious authorities in Conservative Judaism, such as Rabbi Israel Silverman, and Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff.
Conservative Judaism is more lenient; in the 1960s, Rabbi Israel Silverman issued a responsum, officially approved by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, in which he argued that wine manufactured by an automated process was not manufactured by gentiles, and therefore would be kosher. A later responsum of Conservative Judaism was issued by Rabbi Elliott Dorff, who argued, based on precedents in 15th-19th century responsa, that many foods, such as wheat and oil products, which had once been forbidden when produced by non-Jews, were eventually declared kosher; on this basis he concluded that wine and grape products produced by non-Jews would be permissable.
Known poisons
For obvious reasons, the Talmud adds to the biblical regulations a prohibition against consuming poisoned animals. Similarly the Yoreh De'ah prohibits the drinking of water, if the water had been left overnight and uncovered in an area where there might be serpents, on the basis that a serpent might have left its venom in the water; it has since been discovered that snake venom is generally non-toxic if drunk, rather than injected via a bite.
A concern for the health of the eater is also behind the instigation, by the Talmud and Yoreh Deah, to never eat or cook fish with meat, and instead ensure that the mouth is washed between consuming fish and consuming meat; these texts explain that the prohibition is for the purpose of avoiding leprosy, a disease which the texts suggest would be caused by eating meat and fish together, although it is now known that leprosy is caused by a parasitic species of bacterium. Some rabbis of modern Orthodox Judaism continue to follow this ban.
Other Products
Kosher issues can extend into the nonorganic under certain circumstances. The production of steel for construction work involves treating the outside of the completed girder or other component with a thin layer of lubricant as weather-sealing. A rabbi noted with some dismay that animal fats were being used for the lubricant, making the output from that factory unclean for Jews to touch. The enterprising man offered to certify kosher steel once the lubricant to be used was firmly set as vegetable oil.
Vegetables
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The Book of Genesis implies that there were no restrictions on any fruit, cereal, nuts, or other vegetable matter growing upon the earth. However, Leviticus forbids the consumption of fruit from trees which are less than three years old, and the eating of any grain which is too young to have been growing before the previous Mazzoth; the latter rule is known as Yoshon, roughly meaning old, and the former is known as Orlah, meaning foreskin, due to the biblical instruction that young trees should metaphorically be considered to be uncircumcised. A related biblical rule argues that the first of the first fruits should be brought to sanctuaries
Orthodox Jews generally adhere to these rules, but only for the produce of Israel, to which they believe it exclusively applies. Most Orthodox Jews also adhere to Joseph Caro's view that agricultural produce would not be non-kosher if the Levite Tithe has not been exacted from it, nor if it has been harvested during a Sabbatical Year.
Unprocessed items
All fresh fruits and vegetables are kosher in principle. Jewish law requires that they be carefully checked and cleaned to make sure that there are no insects on them, as insects are not kosher (except certain grasshoppers and crickets according to the Jews of Yemen only, see main article). The Orthodox community is particular not to consume produce which may have insect infestation, and check and wash certain forms of produce very carefully. Many Orthodox Jews avoid certain vegetables, such as broccoli, because they may be infested and exceedingly hard to clean. Some kashrut certifying organizations completely recommend against consumption of certain vegetables they deem impossible to clean.
According to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, commercially it is not possible to remove all insects, and a sizable amount remain. Responding to this issue, some companies now sell thoroughly washed and inspected produce for those who do not wish to do it themselves, even going to the trouble of filtering the wash water to ensure that it carries no microscopic creatures [see discussion of such animals in tap water, above]. These may or may not meet rabbinical standards for being insect-free.
Processed items
Processed items (e.g. dry cereals, baked goods, canned fruits and vegetables, frozen vegetables, and [dried fruit such as raisins) can also include small quantities of non-kosher ingredients. This is because these items are often cooked and processed in factories using equipment that is also used for non-kosher foods, may involve containers used for processing that have been greased with animal fats. Sometimes additives are introduced, and fruits or vegetables may have been prepared with milk products or with ingredients such as non-kosher meat broths.
For these reasons, Orthodox rabbis advise against consuming such products without a hechsher (mark of rabbinical certification of kashrut) being on the product. By contrast, some Conservative rabbis regard a careful reading of the ingredients to be a sufficient precaution. However, certain processed foods are usually regarded (by most Jews) as being an exception: plain tea, salt, 100% cocoa, carbonated water, some frozen fruits, including berries, and coffee, have only very basic processing from their natural state; these fruits are often frozen in their natural form and then bagged, while carbonated water is generally the addition of carbon dioxide to natural water.
Passover restrictions
During Passover, there are additional food restrictions in Orthodox Judaism; in this branch of Judaism, leavened products are prohibited during the festival. Jews who are concerned about accidentally consuming leavened food, during passover, typically maintain an entirely separate set of crockery and cutlery for Passover; it is also common for those concerned about such things to rigorously clean their homes, to ensure that even the tiniest of remains of leavened products are removed. Some Jews even have a separate kitchen exclusively for use during Passover.
Products made from the traditional five species of grain, which might have been inadvertently moistened after harvest, and thus begun to ferment (an aspect of the leavening process), are regarded by Orthodox Jews as prohibited during Passover; the five species are conventionally viewed to be wheat, rye, barley, emmer (sometimes confused with spelt, which did not historically grow in the Middle East), and either two-rowed barley orse
Among the Ashkenazi Jews there is an additional customary practice of avoiding the consumption of kitniyot (literally meaning little things) during Passover; the list of items regarded as kitniyot varies between communities, and can include things such as rice, legumes (including peas, peanuts, and beans), and corn. Due to the prevalence of corn syrup in certain well known processed foods, such as Coca-Cola, many items common in western countries are regarded as impermissible by Ashkenazic Jews, during Passover; to take account of this cultural issue, Coca-Cola produces and distributes kosher for Passover Coke, made without corn syrup, in the U.S. during Passover.
See also
Further reading
Alan F. Segal, Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World, Harvard University Press, 1986, 125-7.
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