What is Kosher?
Know the Acceptable Varieties
The information on these pages is organized carefully.
What is kosher comes first for a reason.
What You Don't Know Can Hurt You
What happens when one of your children leaves the table with sticky hands? Does it spread to the toys and stop there? Does it spread to the furniture,the windows...everybody else's clothes?
What does it take to clean it up?
That same chain reaction is what can happen when you don't know what is kosher. The wrong food can affect your stove and appliances, your pots, your dishes and cutlery - the whole kitchen.
What is Kosher?
Good news! You can prevent that chain reaction.
That's why our first step is to identify just what is kosher.
We'll start with the simple and move to the complex.
First we will see
what is kosher about salt
and other minerals and vitamins.
Next there is
plant life.
Up to now as long as it's edible,
in its natural state and non-poisonous, it's permissible.
Moving up the food chain to the animal kingdom
we find for the first time species which are not permitted.
Animals are divided into three classifications -
fish
birds
animals.
SIDEBAR
The Torah actually permits some types of insects! Since we are unable to identify those species with certainty, all insects are prohibited.
(You're not disappointed are you?)
SIDEBAR
The Torah lists characteristics of
kosher fish
to help you choose correctly.
Unlike the higher orders of life though you will find no special processing
requirements and no prohibited parts. All you need is a fishing rod!Now that we have arrived at the more complex
forms of life you will notice two things.
First, fewer species are permitted.
Second, handling them is more complicated. Regarding birds and animals there is a more
extensive set of questions to answer. They are:
1) What species of birds and animals are permitted?
2. What factors disqualify an animal, making it non-kosher?
3. What are the laws of slaughtering animals and birds?
4. Which parts of the acceptable varieties are
prohibited and how are those parts removed?
The Ingredient Stage
Now that we have selected the kosher species,processed
them properly and removed the non-kosher parts,what's left?
The information so far gets us to the point where we have
usable kosher ingredients. The final aspect of what kinds of food are kosher is those foods that are derived from other foods, like: In fact, if their source is kosher so are they.However there is more to know about each one. To keep the
flow of information simple and systematic, look for it in the
"When may I eat it?"
section. That's what comes next.
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