Kosher, can someone please tell me some basics on it?

Im not jewish but i have always been very curious about the jewish religion and i would like to know some of the "rules" about keeping kosher, i know theres varying degrees and everything but i just want to know your personal ideas.

Thanks Laura

http://www.jewfaq.org/kashrut.htm is a pretty good site that appears to be pretty accurate on the rules of kosher; unfortunately, I'm not as informed as I would like to be on a lot of aspects of Judaism, so don't take me as the best example. ^^;;

I keep kosher mostly- it's not as though I only eat brands with the "K" on them like an orthodox friend of mine, but I still am an...adequate follower of the rules and such. I follow all the rules besides that, though, and would really like to have chicken parmesan someday, though I can't. XP

umm...To outline some of the very basics:

- No meat and dairy in the same meal; I think this is something to do with not taking too much from the environment at once, but again, I'm not really knowledgeable on this subject. ^^;;;

-No eating certain kinds of seafood/meat. (Ex: No dog, cat, horse, shellfish, etc.) Obviously, no human flesh. ew....

-No pork

In general, this was a health provision, especially since pork was really nasty back then, but it's a type of law in the Torah that you follow simply because it tells you to- there's a name for those that I am completely forgetting. It's partially showing your obedience and devotion towards G-d, because some foods I would really like to eat but cannot, but there are people who are trying to figure out the reason.

Hope this helps!

(By the way, I am a mixture of reform-conservative in degree of religion, so I'm far from knowledgeable on a lot of this; if any of this is wrong, sorry, and somebody please correct me. -___-;;;)

I googled it and came up with this simple explanation

http://www.kosherhouston.org/kosherprimer.htm

It looks interesting.

This is from the above article

Which foods are kosher?

Kosher foods that are permitted according to kashruth include: Animals
A kosher animal chews its cud and has split hooves, including cows, goats, sheep, deer, bison, gazelle, antelope, ibex, addax and giraffe. Only the front part of the animal up to the end of the twelfth rib is considered kosher. The hind part of the animal contains prohibited nerves and fats that are difficult to remove.

Fowl
A kosher fowl is one that is not listed among the twenty-four types of fowl forbidden in the Bible and that is traditionally accepted as kosher, including chickens and domestic ducks, geese, turkeys, and doves.

Properly slaughtered and "koshered" animals and fowl
Kosher animals and fowl must be slaughtered according to the complex laws of shechitah (slaughtering) which proscribe the type of knife used, its sharpness, and the manner in which one performs the slaughter.

Kosher animals and fowl must be "koshered"--rinsed, soaked, salted and then triple-rinsed--within twenty-four hours of slaughtering to remove blood.

Dairy food
A kosher dairy food is a milk product from a kosher animal. A dairy food cannot contain any meat or non-kosher substances. Dairy foods include milk, butter, yogurt, cheese (hard or soft), cream cheese, and milk derivatives such as sodium caseinate and lactose.

Fish
Kosher fish have both fins and scales and include cod, flounder, haddock, halibut, herring, mackerel, pickerel, pike, salmon, trout, most tuna, and whitefish. Fish is not considered a meat or dairy food. It may be cooked with meat utensils for a meat meal, or with dairy utensils for a dairy meal. It may be served and eaten side by side with dairy foods. For a meat meal, fish must be served and eaten on a separate dish and with a separate utensil than a meat item.

Eggs
Eggs from any kosher fowl are kosher.

Pareve foods
Pareve foods are neutral, kosher foods that do not contain meat or dairy products. The following foods are pareve if they do not contain dairy or meat products: bread, cake, candy, cereal, cookies, crackers, soft drinks, tea, coffee, noodles, juice. All raw fruits, grains, vegetables, and kosher eggs are pareve.

AS I KNOW THE JEWS EAT ONLY IF ITS MARKED KOSHER

LIKE STAR K OR OU IT DEPENDS HOW STRICT YOU ARE BECAUSE THEIR ARE MORE STRICT KOSHER LABELS THEN ANOTHER ONE AND THE DISHES THEY ALSO HAVE SEPARATE ONE FOR DAIRY ONE FOR POULTRY MEAT AND ONE FOR PARVE EVEN THE POTS THEY TRY TO HAVE 2 STOVES I KNOW THEIR IS ALOT OF DETAILS

My husband and I  do keep kosher. OU, Aish.com and Star K all have articles about the ins and outs of keeping kosher which might help you understand things better. Here are a few points that may confuse you or help you.

1 Meat and milk are not eaten at the same meals and when you eat any meat or some cheeses you wait a period of time, usually the period the rabbis found that these products finally pass through the stomach to the intestines, before you can eat the other foods. The waiting period can be anywhere from 1 hour to 6 hours for meat to milk and 1/2 hour to 6 hours from sharp cheese (e.g. parmasan cheese) to meat.

2. Meats from animals, mamals/fish/birds/insects, who don't have the physical signs mentioned in the bible are not eaten. This includes rabbit, pig, snail, shrimp, lobster, clams, birds of prey and ants. There is a type of locust that is kosher but the rabbis don't all agree they can recognise which one it is so we don't eat any insects at all now.

3 Meat has a 'cleaning' process specific to it so we don't eat the blood of the animal and the hind parts of mamals have to have a specific senew removed for us to eat it. This cleaning process includes the use of a course salt on the meat in question. The removal of that senew is seldom done because it is very hard to do so most of the time the hind part of a mamal is sold as not kosher.

4 Vegetables need to be checked for insects and vegetables from Israel need to be tithed properly before eaten. Leafy veggies and veggies with lots of crevices create a problem for us because of the insect issue so the more strict individuals usually don't eat them.

5 Once every seven years foods from Israel hold a special holiness for the observant Jew and any part of them to be desposed of are desposed of in a more careful way.

Because of this we have two seperate sets of dishes and cooking utinsels. (Some have a third set of cooking utinsels for veggies and the like. We also don't cook meat items while we're cooking dairy items.) We also have special sieves to check foods for insects.

I hope this helps.

There actually is a very specific reason for not eating meat and dairy together.

During the times of the New Testament, when the people of Israel were slaves, there was a delicacy (I believe it was amongst the Babylonians) that consisted of boiling a young kid goat in its mother's milk.  This was viewed as a sacrilege to the sanctity of motherhood, and refusal to partake eventually evolved into not eating any meat and dairy together.

Or, at least, that's the legend I was always told.

Strict kosher even involves keeping separate plates, refrigerators, and dishwashers for meat and dairy products, though few other than the strict Orthodox do so anymore.

I hope that was helpful!

Courtbarb,
The legend you were told is just that. A legend. Sorry. The "Old Testatment", what we know of as the Torah, was written long before the Babylonians were a significant power.  In our Torah the prohibition for eating meat and milk is given three times. Each time we find a relation to what is meant by this prohibition (not eating the food, not owning such food mixtures and not benifiting from the mixtue of such foods) yet we are never told exactly why the prohibition is given. Some people justify it so that it's easier to understand and adhear to, but it could be for some other reason yet to be uncovered.

We keep srictly kosher, as do many of our friends and family, yet I know of maybe one family who has more than one refrigerator and that's more because they have a large family and need the added room (too expensive to run so many appliances). Yes, having more than one dishwasher and stove/oven is common. I happen to have three (one for diary, one for meat and one for vegetarian items).

We also have seperate sets of dishes and a seperate oven for 1 week every spring, for Passover. This is due to special prohibitions against levening during that festival.

I think that the conditions in which the animals are raised and subsequently slaughtered are more humane with kosher food, so I applaud those who do eat only kosher.

Hi all,

I am new here and did a search for "kosher" and got this post. My husband and I also keep strict kosher in our home and outside of our home. We are Orthodox Jews- converts as a matter of fact. We have been eating kosher for about 5 years. There are many many laws involved with eating kosher, ronit covered the basics. It's a challenge but once learned becomes part of your lifestyle like anything else.

Would love be friends with anyone who keeps kosher, thanks!

Elisheva

Just to debunk a few myths...

phoenix121 said: "No meat and dairy in the same meal; I think this is something to do with not taking too much from the environment at once". The rule is correct, the reason is totally untrue. The reason for not mixing milk and meat is, like Ronit says, non-existent. There is no reason for it; you do it cause God said so, period. Since there are quite a few Jews who take issue with this particular reasoning (or lack thereof), you get differing personal choices when it comes to actually observing the rule. There are different waiting times between having a dairy product and having meat, depending on family and community traditions. Some do not wait at all: For example, in my house, we have chicken for friday dinner, clear the table, my dad goes to the bathroom, and we have ice cream =)

ravenlark said: I think that the conditions in which the animals are raised and subsequently slaughtered are more humane with kosher food, so I applaud those who do eat only kosher. While Jews consider shkhitah to be the most humane way (and from a religious standpoint, the only appropriate way) of killing the animal, it is sadly not necessarily true that the animals are treated any better than those due for unkosher slaughter, and it is also not true that kosher slaughterhouses are cleaner than non-kosher ones. Remember, all they need to do is prevent foods that cannot be mixing from mixing. Disgusting working conditions and health-code violations are not discussed in the Torah, so that will depend on the individual company. There is a movement which I think is called Eco-Judaism or Eco-Kosher (don't quote me on the name...) which tries to follow the commandments in the most ecologically and humane way possible. They are, last I heard, going around to different Kosher slaughterhouses and trying to encourage owners to a)treat the animals well and b) (and I think, more importantly) treat their human workers humanely. While this is not at all commanded by the Torah, it is an excellent venture in the right direction.

As for the hekhsher, or the special seal, it doesn't have to just be the StarK. There are tons of seals on the market, and it is, I believe, illegal to fraudulently put one on a package of food. Packages that are just marked with a capital/lowercase K, with no other special fonts, codes, designs, etc (as in, Joe-Bob decides to sell homemade jam, and writes a big 'K' on the ingredients, or 'Hey y'all, this is Kosher!'), are unacceptable to most Jews who keep Kosher. You can google it, and you will find all sorts of 'seals', all of which indicate that the food was prepared/slaughtered under supervision by someone/a board of someones who know all the laws of Kashrut and who certify that the food is Kosher. The matter of accepting certain seals over another or alongside another is a matter of personal preference/family tradition/asking one's rabbi.

Just a quick food lists without going overly into details (which you can get from Ronit's post):

1. Mammals (Land animals that are not birds): Must have split (cloven) hoof and chew it's cud. Cows, Deer, Buffalo=Okay, Camels=not okay (chew cud, the pad under the hoof prevents it from being split), Pigs=not okay (not because they're unclean! I hate it when people give this reason. People are stupid. Cows are just as disgusting and covered in their own s***, too. Have you ever seen a cow? Gross. Pigs are not okay cause they have a split hoof, but don't chew their cud). If you count amphibians in this category, they aren't okay because they do not have split hooves, nor do they chew their cud. No mammals may be eaten at a meal where dairy products are served.

2. Fish (anything living in the sea): Must have fins and scales: Trout, salmon, tuna=okay. Eels+Sharks=not okay (have fins, no scales). Shrimp/shellfish/octopus/squid/crab/oysters=n ot okay (no fins or scales). If you count amphibians in this category, they are not okay, because they do not have scales (even if tadpoles have 'fins'). Swordfish are an interesting case because they molt their scales every now and then. It depends on who you ask and which rabbi you follow. All fish can be eaten at either milk or meat meals.

3. Birds: There is a list of birds in the Torah which are unacceptable and which are acceptable. Some say the bad ones are birds of prey, therefore, we don't eat birds of prey. This is not necessarily true. Basically: chicken, quail, turkey, duck=okay, cause the Torah said so, eagles, falcons, (and the torah lists 'bats' here, though it could be a mistranslation)=not okay, cause the Torah said so. What's interesting about this category is because the birds are specifically named in Hebrew, we don't necessarily know 100% for sure what the birds are; we just have to follow tradition and trust the rabbis. For example, does the word atalef, which means 'bat' in modern Israeli Hebrew, actually mean 'bat' at the time the Torah was written. Even though birds don't nurse their young, the tradition in most streams/cultures of Judaism is that it may not be served at a meal with dairy products.

4. Insects: There is a list of insects which are permitted. The general rule is nothing that swarms, and there is a whole debate on how many legs it must have. Basically, from what I know, grasshoppers=okay, locusts/spiders/bees/ants=not okay (spiders because of the number of legs, the rest because they swarm). But ew; why would you eat a bug? Gross.

5. Fruit: Fresh, unprocessed fruit and veggies do not need a seal of approval.

6. Re: Dairy products: Careful when you buy margarine as a butter substitute for meat dishes; there are dairy margarines out there! A good dairy-free one is Fleischmann's, though that's from a Canadian shopping experience. I don't know if it's sold in the States. It will say near the kosher symbol if the food is dairy/neutral (pareve), or meat. If it doesn't, check the ingredients.

I am desperate for someone to make a low-cal/healthful kosher frozen food option that includes meat that I can zap in the microwave for when I'm too lazy busy to cook...Petition, anyone?