farmdoc's blog post number 489

Food is kosher if it conforms to kashrut, i.e. Judaism’s dietary rules. The root of the Hebrew word kosher means fit, proper, correct. Chinese or Italian food, say, is kosher if it conforms to kashrut. And traditional Jewish foods such as bagels and matzah balls are non-kosher if their preparation breaches kashrut. Non-kosher food’s called treif, meaning torn, from the commandment not to eat animals torn by other animals. Food can be treif if milk and meat mix, if prepared with utensils previously used for non-kosher food, if it’s meat that wasn’t properly slaughtered, or if it’s specifically prohibited food. Prohibited birds are birds of prey, and fish-eating water birds. Prohibited fish have no fins and/or no scales. And prohibited animals don’t have cloven hooves and don’t chew their cud. So sheep, cattle and goats are kosher if properly slaughtered. But rabbit, camels and pigs aren’t kosher no matter how slaughtered. The only rationale for kashrut is the Torah – which doesn’t specify any reason for kashrut. So while some kashrut rules may be positively healthy (e.g. eating dairy food with meat may slow digestion) or reduce disease risk (e.g. eating scavengers may predispose to infection) there’s no evidence this was ever the rationale for kashrut. Nonetheless it’s nice when science demonstrates treif food to be unhealthy: ham and bacon are on the World Cancer Research Fund’s hit list because they’re linked to bowel cancer [1]. Me? I don’t keep kosher. But I don’t eat ham and bacon – or indeed any foods prohibited by kashrut. Ho hum.