What is kosher food? The term kosher refers to food prepared in accordance with the Jewish laws of food preparation. These dietary restrictions are referred to as "Kashrut," the written dietary laws of the Jewish people. While some Jewish people do not insist upon eating a strictly kosher diet, many Jewish people do adhere to this diet.
Understanding the Rules
What are the tenets of Kashrut? What makes a food kosher or not kosher? Unfortunately, the laws are quite complex, and easy as it might have been to obey these laws back when most of your food was prepared in your own kitchen from your own supplies, today it is much tougher to know if a food was prepared according to kosher rules.
Some foods are not kosher no matter how they are prepared. Some examples of this are pork, rabbit, eagle, owl, catfish, sturgeon, insects, reptiles or shellfish, all of which are not allowed in a kosher diet under any circumstances. No part of any of these creatures can be consumed by someone adhering to a kosher diet.
Some foods can be considered kosher if they are prepared according to Kashrut, or kosher law. For example, the method of slaughter determines whether a piece of meat is kosher. Other rules, such as the separation of meat and milk, must also be respected so that certain foods can be considered kosher. In fact, if anything that is not kosher is cooked with a kosher food, it negates the kosher status of the kosher food, rendering the entire dish not kosher. This means that a piece of candy tinted with food coloring derived from a beetle is not kosher.
Finding Kohser Foods
There are many companies devoted to the production of kosher foods, so you can look at labels to determine if some foods are prepared in a kosher manner or not. For some food items, you'll have to guess, forgo the food or make it yourself to be sure.
If you have kosher merchants in your area, you can be confident that you're buying kosher meats, dairy and fish. You can also look for Web sites that specialize in kosher foods.
In the supermarket, you'll face a challenge, since ingredient labels alone will not tell you if a prepared food is made according to kosher ingredients. To be sure that you're getting kosher foods, look for the kosher and pareve symbols on packages. There are several variations on the kosher symbol, the most common of which is the letter u inside a large letter o, signifiying certification by the Orthodox Union. Other symbols feature the letter k. Non-dairy kosher foods will have the word "pareve" or "parve" on the label. This should not be confused with a single letter p, which signifies that a product is kosher for Passover and can include dairy and meat products.
Companies must recieve annual certification from a rabbinical council in order to put these symbols on their packaging. If you have questions about certification, contact the company directly and ask for details. Most will be happy to provide a copy of their certification, which will list the certifying council, the products included and the methods of preparation.
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