Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Facts About Kosher Meals

By Molly Morse


Kosher meals are made with kosher food ingredients. These items are given this title because they conform to the regulations in placed by Jewish dietary law known as kashrut. Foods that are allowed under these lawns are considered kosher, which loosely translates to fit. They are fit for human consumption.

Foods that do not follow the Jewish law are called treif. Rules about these items, as well as the accepted foods, are included in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The reasons the items may be known as treif: ingredients that come from non-kosher animals or those slaughtered in a way that is not considered acceptable under Jewish law, produce from Israel that has not been tithed, meals made using non-kosher utensils and cooking devices, and a mix of milk and meat, wine or grape juice made with no supervision.

Rabbinic authorities assert that every law of the kashrut can be broken in situations where life is at stake. In the Jewish Bible it states that all animals that chew the cud and have cloven hooves are ritually clean, but animals that exclusively chew cud or only have hooves that are cloven are not. It identifies four animals considered unclean based on these guidelines: pig, camel, hyrax and hare.

In the Torah it says that creatures that are winged should not be eaten, especially birds of prey, fish-eating water birds and bats. Anything that lives in waters, such as seas and rivers, is considered clean to eat if it has both fins and scales. Additionally, things that crawl over the earth are not clean and bugs born within a fruit may be acceptable so long as it has not crawled on the ground.

In terms of dairy products, it is implied that milk from animals with clean meat is permitted. Cheese is a complicated situation. The hard kind usually includes rennet, which is an enzyme that splits the milk into curds and whey. Most rennet is derived from animal stomach linings. Nowadays, it is often made recombinantly and is therefore considered acceptable. Despite being animal product, eggs are known as pareve. Gelatin could potentially be unaccepted depending on its source.

Prepping this kind of food is just as important as the source of the ingredients. Luckily, there is a lot of information available on the topic of this kind of meal preparation and recipes. People who are Jews, consume a mostly Jewish-inspired diet, or just enjoy these meals often know what is allowed.

There might be differences in what foods and rules are acceptable, just as there are differences among Jews and how they practice. Most Jewish recipes only include foods fit for consumption. Because of this, a good source for prep and cook information, as well as recipes, is Jewish cookbooks.

Jews are not the only kinds of people who consume these foods. However, it is the Jewish laws that these rules are based on. There are food preparation rules, as well as a list of foods, that are acceptable when it comes to kosher meals.




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