A Little Bit Kosher
I recently decided that to only eat meat, eggs or dairy products that come from humanely raised animals.1 Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cinnabunny for motivating me to do so, although I know that as far as she's concerned, vegan is the only way to go - to which I reply that if four years at Bryn Mawr didn't make me a vegetarian, I doubt anything ever will. This is the best I can do.
In Phildelphia it's actually not that hard to do, if you know where to look. Butchers in the Italian Market and Reading Terminal generally sell meat from local farms, and these days you can get organic milk or yogurt and eggs from free-range chickens at a lot of regular grocery stores. There are lots of restaurants that serve meat from humane farms as a rule, or good vegetarian food.
One of those restaurants is a strictly kosher Israeli place called Maccabeam, where I went withbatshua and nightengalesknd yesterday.2 batshua told me something I didn't know about kashrut (kosher rules): for meat to be kosher, the animal it comes from must be raised in good conditions. I already knew that kashrut requires an animal to be slaughtered in a certain way that minimizes pain and suffering,3 otherwise its meat will be tainted, even if it's an otherwise kosher animal.
I am trying to figure out whether meat (and eggs, and dairy) that's certified kosher always comes from humanely raised animals, because that would give me an easy option for getting meat if I can only go to a regular grocery store. It would also be an easy thing for my family to do when I visit them, although since they also regularly shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and the like, I don't think they'll have much of a problem.
I've never been interested in keeping kosher before, and I don't think I'm going to go the whole nine yards on it. But following that particular rule of kashrut - eating food from well-treated animals - is something I can get behind, because unlike a lot of other rules about what's kosher and what's not, it makes sense to me.
1 I've been doing something similar with seafood for almost six months now.
2 I recommend it:nightengalesknd says they have the best falafel in town. Be informed, however, that they adhere very strictly to the rules of kashrut, which means no mixing milk products and meat. They stick with meat exclusively, and never have dairy anything.
3 There is some dispute over whether the kosher way to slaughter an animal is in fact humane, because the rules say you have to slice the animal's jugular with a sharp knife and it cannot be unconscious during the process. If it's done right it is generally quick and relatively painless, but if done incorrectly it can take several minutes for the animal to die.
cinnabunny for motivating me to do so, although I know that as far as she's concerned, vegan is the only way to go - to which I reply that if four years at Bryn Mawr didn't make me a vegetarian, I doubt anything ever will. This is the best I can do.In Phildelphia it's actually not that hard to do, if you know where to look. Butchers in the Italian Market and Reading Terminal generally sell meat from local farms, and these days you can get organic milk or yogurt and eggs from free-range chickens at a lot of regular grocery stores. There are lots of restaurants that serve meat from humane farms as a rule, or good vegetarian food.
One of those restaurants is a strictly kosher Israeli place called Maccabeam, where I went with
batshua and nightengalesknd yesterday.2 batshua told me something I didn't know about kashrut (kosher rules): for meat to be kosher, the animal it comes from must be raised in good conditions. I already knew that kashrut requires an animal to be slaughtered in a certain way that minimizes pain and suffering,3 otherwise its meat will be tainted, even if it's an otherwise kosher animal.I am trying to figure out whether meat (and eggs, and dairy) that's certified kosher always comes from humanely raised animals, because that would give me an easy option for getting meat if I can only go to a regular grocery store. It would also be an easy thing for my family to do when I visit them, although since they also regularly shop at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and the like, I don't think they'll have much of a problem.
I've never been interested in keeping kosher before, and I don't think I'm going to go the whole nine yards on it. But following that particular rule of kashrut - eating food from well-treated animals - is something I can get behind, because unlike a lot of other rules about what's kosher and what's not, it makes sense to me.
1 I've been doing something similar with seafood for almost six months now.
2 I recommend it:
nightengalesknd says they have the best falafel in town. Be informed, however, that they adhere very strictly to the rules of kashrut, which means no mixing milk products and meat. They stick with meat exclusively, and never have dairy anything.3 There is some dispute over whether the kosher way to slaughter an animal is in fact humane, because the rules say you have to slice the animal's jugular with a sharp knife and it cannot be unconscious during the process. If it's done right it is generally quick and relatively painless, but if done incorrectly it can take several minutes for the animal to die.