So wait, according to Kosher rules…
Arthropods unintentionally in food = Very bad.
Aquatic arthropods = Bad
Some varieties of land arthropods = not bad?
I’m having trouble parsing the logic on this one. Can anyone educate me on why the above would be the case.
Sure hope they serve it with fast-rising matzo dough biscuits on the side!
Some Jewish legal scholars have tried to make it into a health thing, but most accept it is a way to gain bonus points in life by following the rules, like gathering power-ups in a game, most also have an attached ethical lesson. But it is said that even Solomon the wise couldn’t understand why the red heifer worked as it did.
Apparently, kosher pickle juice may also be the trick here. To be “kosher” dill pickles just have garlic and dill in a salt brine, so they’re brined pork chops that are then braised. Never tried it, but it sounds tasty! (and the sign does say “kosher-style”)
EDIT: Hey @Bobo - wikipedia has a good article on Kosher foods, and why they’re considered to be un/edible. If you’re curious about where all those rules came from, you might want to look there. Spoiler: Mainly it’s Deuteronomy and Leviticus - Old Testament rules.
Years ago I was doing some work for a customer in Newton, Mass. and I needed to curve a small piece of moulding. I didn’t have a steam box on the job so I asked the customer if I could use her crab/lobster pot. In New England everyone has one. Except this house. Very nicely she told me, “I’m sorry, but we keep kosher in this house”. Ended up kerfing the piece.
I’ve actually done a bit of looking into it as my kid’s preschool is set up with “kosher style” food restrictions. I was trying to parse why lox and cream cheese is acceptable and say a turkey and cheese sandwich is not. Boils down to a statement that it’s not kosher to boil something in it’s own mother’s milk. Since fish are not mammals, they can be consumed with dairy. Dunno about why birds are “meat” and can’t be consumed with dairy. It all seems to arbitrary.
The extension of this would be why are most arthropods verboten, and 4 species fair game? They all certainly have “walked on the earth” and aren’t “born within a fruit, and never have touched the ground”.
So much of it seems to boil down to some influential rabbi’s analysis way back when of a torah phrase, and not any sort of set (or logical) rule.
Oh… so is that why God commanded Peter to eat the unclean animals? More prophecy fulfillment?
Note: Atheist here, just one who likes to know what it is he doesn’t believe in.
I’m reminded of a ham and cheese on matzah sandwich.
I had a friend who I noticed eating ham and cheese matzos during passover; they had them available in my dorm along with more obvious Passover related items, like paper plates. I asked him about the logic of such an item. What he said had a distinct logic: he didn’t keep kosher in general, so that ham and cheese was fine, but did note Passover enough to skip leavened bread. This was a common enough degree of observance that food service noted the demand and provided them. Reform Judaism is accepting partial observance of that kind.
There’s a difference between “kosher” and “kosher-style”. People who keep to a truly kosher diet do know that the two aren’t the same. (I’m not one of them, but I have a friend who does keep kosher.) Here’s an article about the differences. I accommodate them the same way I accommodate my friends who are vegetarians.
That was Leviticus (explained in the Wiki entry), and it looks like all were varieties of locust or “plague” animals. Eating them would keep numbers at a containable level pre-pesticide.
The four insects are the locust, the bald locust, beetle (a.k.a. “the hopping locust”), and the grasshopper (a.k.a. “the small locust”). They were supposedly cooked various ways, and John the Baptist spoke of eating locusts. (See verse 22 in this link for more info.)
Honey was also allowed (even though it’s a product of an unclean animal).
NO, JUST NO.
Fuck that double-standard nonsense. Proper animal rights laws are the right way to deal with the ethical problems with mass meat production. The exceptions made to accommodate kosher and halal meat production mean it’s more possible for the animal to suffer, whereas proper slaughter regulations leave next to no room for suffering. America’s regulations are shit, by the way. The FDA is a joke. In Australia the only exceptions made to regulations that ensure minimal suffering for the animal are exceptions for people with a menu that is pre-approved by the cloud cowboy himself… or at least some people that made up some shit. Do not support kosher or halal food on this basis because it’s one of the many lies imams and rabbis push to validate their nonsense bullshit.
Furthermore if the problem is the ‘mass’ in ‘mass production’ then everyone switching to an alternative isn’t a solution.
If anyone is concerned with the ethical implications of the meat they eat, then source some free-range or organic meat from your local butcher.
If my derisive screed to Mindy didn’t make it clear enough: I’ll leave people alone if they want to eat a fantasy menu based on bullshit but I won’t respect their choice like I do that of a vegetarian who, for many of them, have made their choice based on ethics and social awareness, not some bullshit written by people a long time ago.
I once watched a movie (Pi, I think) where at one point one of the Jewish characters wrapped what looked like a bullwhip around and around his arm, and wore a little wooden Elmer Fudd hat on his head. I asked a Jewish colleague at work what was up with that and the next day she brought in two mighty tomes, The Jewish Book of Why and the Second JBOW. All told, they had more words in them than the whole entire Bible. I told her I would never be competent to follow a religion with such a massive owner’s manual. But after reading around in it for a while, I slowly came to the realization that at the end of the day there is no why. There just is. That and an overwhelming desire to argue over what is.
I have friends who are Buddhists, and practice vegetarianism as a part of their their religion. I also know people who developed the practice as competitive swimmers in high school or for socio-political reasons apart from any religion.
I don’t disagree with you. I also would rather people made life choices in general based on “ethics and social awareness”, but I think that for my friends who do practice vegetarianism as a part Buddhism, I can assure you that it is an extension of their current ethics - not a learned rule.
Kosher is more complicated because it’s following some rather old rules that now seem arbitrary. (I explained that locusts are kosher most likely because eating them would prevent plagues of the insects.) I believe that the original rules for kosher diet were written to keep practioners healthy (people were told not to eat several animals that transmit disease and shellfish can be toxic at different times of the year). I don’t know how well the diet translates to modern times, and that’s probably why many modern Jews have trouble “keeping kosher”.
it’s a new york city thing. aiui, kosher delicatessens were gaining cred because they had amazing pastrami and big stacks of it. the gentiles wanted a slice of that action, but didn’t want to bother with all that old testament nonsense, so “kosher-style” was born. all it ever meant was that it’s delicious like a kosher deli, but not actually kosher, though i’m sure that back then no one would have had the chutzpah to serve kosher-style pork.
and, really, aren’t we all better off?
Agreed. Religion is mostly, as far as I am concerned, a how-to-life for people who can’t read. Thankfully I can read 
I understand that there are historical reasons for why certain things are considered kosher. There are also historical reasons that doctors used leeches as ‘medicine’.
Also, I have more of a soft-spot for buddhism’s vegetarianism than other religious food edicts because, as far as I am aware, the reasons buddhists don’t eat meat are ethical in the first place.
The other part that I find to be hilarious is that, in Judaism anyway, there are ways to ‘koshify’ any foods that aren’t actually kosher if you have no other option. I forget the process, but it involves saying some prayers. It’s all just too silly for me and I love silly things!
Doctors are still using leeches:
The idea of Kosher food has nothing to do with health, although it could be possible that there may be side benefits. The general concept of Kashrut is best explained by the statement saying: do not say you don’t want such [non-kosher] food, but rather I do want it but what can I do if God has said no". It is the possibility with something as basic as food, necessary for survival that one has to stop and check is this from a kosher animal, that was killed in an appropriate manner, and there non-kosher ingredients. In addition, what blessing should I say on this. The concept is that it requires thought appreciation, and discipline. Obviously, this applies if you ‘buy into’ the whole package, but within Jewish thought this to me is the best way to understand what kosher really means. Clearly kosher style pork is an oxymoron. And saying prayers over non-kosher food does NOT make it kosher.
[quote=“ChuckV, post:38, topic:39679”]
Doctors are still using leeches:[/quote]
No doctor I’m going to. The article you linked to said they also have a device that does the same thing and they list various reason why the device is better than the leech.
