Kosher foods

All plant-based products, including fruits, vegetables, grains, herbs and spices, are intrinsically kosher, although certain produce grown in the Land of Israel is subjected to other requirements, such as tithing, before it may be consumed.

Foods that are not in accordance with Jewish law are called treif (/treɪf/; Yiddish: טרײף, derived from Hebrew: טְרֵפָה ṭərēfā) meaning "torn."

[2] The Torah lists winged creatures that may not be consumed, mainly birds of prey, fish-eating water-birds, and bats.

[6] The Torah forbids two types of sherets (creeping or swarming things): In addition to meat, products of forbidden species and from unhealthy animals were banned by the Talmudic writers.

[13] 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.

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 kosher; the same principle is not applied to the possibility of consuming meat from an animal that has not been checked for disease.

[20] Rabbeinu Tam[21] and some of the geonim[22] suggested that this decree does not apply in a location where cheese is commonly made with only kosher ingredients, a position that was practiced in communities in Narbonne[23] and Italy.

[29] To avoid the complexity of these rules, Moshe Isserles records a custom not to eat any such eggs with blood spots.

[28] Gelatin is hydrolysed collagen,[32] the main protein in animal connective tissue, and therefore could potentially come from a non-kosher source, such as pig skin.

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[33] and several prominent Orthodox rabbis—including Chaim Ozer Grodzinski and Ovadia Yosef—argue that gelatin has undergone such total chemical change and processing that it should not count as meat, and therefore would be kosher.

These guidelines require the animal be 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.

Rabbis usually require the slaughterer, known within Judaism as a shochet, to also be a pious Jew of good character and an observer of the Shabbat.

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.

[40] As forbidden fats, tendons, blood vessels and the gid hanasheh (sciatic nerve) must be removed, more difficult in the rear-quarters, often only cuts of meat from the forequarters are available.

[48] The gift of the foreleg, cheeks and maw of a kosher-slaughtered animal to a kohen is a positive commandment in the Hebrew Bible.

The main technique, known as meliḥah, involves the meat being soaked in water for about half an hour, which opens pores.

[54] After this, the meat is placed on a slanted board or in a wicker basket, and is thickly covered with salt on each side, then left for between 20 minutes and one hour.

Some Jews refer to these prohibited foods as akum, an acronym of Ovde Kokhavim U Mazzaloth (עובדי כוכבים ומזלות‎), meaning "worshippers of stars and planets (or Zodiac)".

Akum is thus a reference to activities that 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 that had been manufactured by them as being kosher.

A later responsum of Conservative Judaism was issued by Eliot Dorff,[specify] who argued, based on precedents in 15th- to 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.

[citation needed] Three times the Torah specifically forbids "seething" a young goat "in its mother's milk".

[61] The Talmud interprets this as a general prohibition against cooking meat and dairy products together, and against eating or deriving any benefit from such a mixture.

By rabbinic decree, the flesh of birds and wild mammals (chayot), such as deer, is considered as "meat", rather than pareve.