An unintended side effect of kosher law: better tasting food | Hacker News Reader

An unintended side effect of kosher law: better tasting food

nytimes.com

17 pointssergeant322 comments

Though, not Jew myself, I've been a to private jewish school for two years.

I want to say: all kosher food does is restrict consumer choice to products sanctioned by a small religious mafia perceiving a tax on every products they "authorize".

You could conceivably have the quality of products the author describes in products not sanctioned by religious mafiosos.

And the whole "holier than thou" some of the orthodox (of every religions) have is very tiring.

So basically your comment is a "holier than thou" critique of Jewish Kashrut laws, which concludes with you complaining about others having "holier than thou" attitudes.

And ironically you've posted on a Friday evening when the religious amongst the community you're criticising are not available to provide counterpoint.

So after four years of comments on Hacker News I've finally posted my first negative-voted comment.

Am I right in interpreting this to mean it's perfectly acceptable for the grandparent to write something insulting by saying : "all kosher food does is restrict consumer choice to products sanctioned by a small religious mafia perceiving a tax on every products they "authorize"."

But pointing out the inherent hypocrisy in the grandparents post as per my comment above is out-of-bounds?

Edit - my first post was rated at -3 when I wrote his second comment. But was up voted to -1 by the time I hit Submit.

Don't worry, cheetohs are Kosher.

Unfortunately some religious rules require inflicting extreme and unnecessary suffering on animals in the way they are killed. Interestingly some abattoirs have created loopholes to these religious laws (to comply with the food production laws, but maintain religious certification) by having the machines that stun and kill the animals in the normal humane way "blessed" and prayers said.

I assume you're not speaking about judaism right now — because the point of kosher slaughter is exactly in avoiding unnecessary suffering and rendering the animal unconscious instantly.

Shmura matza is charred, chewy and robust in flavor - compared with soda-cracker-like machine-made matza, it is really more like an artisanal, organic whole wheat bread.

I don't think that strictly kosher food generally tastes any better than non-kosher food, but in this instance the traditional hand-rolled product is really way better.

This 100% doesn't affect most food. I grew up in Israel, where things being Kosher is the norm rather than the exception. Although the central Rabbinate covers most kosher foods, the more orthodox will often defer to the authority of particular rabbis and buy from a smaller set of products than all of what is nominally kosher. In my experience, they often tended towards the lower quality end of the spectrum.

When you're dealing with a product that has only a few ingredients like matzah, any increase in attention will have a positive overall effect. In more complex processed foods, when your emphasis is on meeting various kashrut guidelines the flavor of the food becomes secondary. Not only that, you know that you have a captive market.

So, this is a fun story, but should really have

    s/food/matzah/

Applied to the headline.

The take-away I'm getting from this article is that the trick is actually caring about growing and processing the food instead of just doing whatever half-assed thing is cheapest and easiest.

Does this fallacy have a name?

How can they presume that there wouldn't have been better tasting food without the kosher law?

I've heard a few before: "hypothesis contrary to fact", "what if" fallacy, and "counterfactual fallacy". None of the names are really great and none of them seem to be particularly common but I've never seen any better names for it or any used more commonly.

If I remember correctly, food can't be kosher if prepared by gentiles (non-jews).

Could someone with proper knowledge confirm this?

Everything you want to know and more: http://www.jewfaq.org/kashrut.htm

(We have our own FAQ!)

Thanks!

So, it appears that whine can't be made by gentiles.

In addition, prepared food must also at least be made in part by a Jew. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishul_Yisrael

Surely this clashes with anti-racism laws in some countries, doesn't it? (Imagine food that couldn't be prepared by black people, or that would require a white man somewhere in the preparation.) Is there some special alternate rule for these cases?

As I understand it - wine can't touch gentile hands and still be kosher. The bottle must be opened and served by a Jew.

I'm not Jewish, but going on a Kosher diet greatly improved my health and discipline.

I can understand discipline in the sense of having to follow a diet, but could you elaborate how exactly it improved your health?

Well for starters, dairy and meat don't really digest well together and can create upset in the stomach. But I'm sure OP has better facts than my simple one.

My supposition is that it forced the OP to actually eat better quality, and possibly also less portion size, food. It would also tend to reduce eating overly complex foods as it would be more difficult to ensure that EACH ingredient was kosher.

Chetohs and Oreos are Kosher. Not sure I suggest that diet.

Humorously, I am very picky about what I eat (for health reasons), I eat both of those and did not know they were kosher.

I try to eat clean. I don't restrict myself to kosher foods, but I have found kosher foids to generally be a good option.

I think the main thing is:

* Kosher meats are a lot of the time better than random factory farm meats. But not necessarily as good as the really expensive whole food stuff.

* Most big junk food makers get their stuff Kosher certified, to I guess not rule out any of their market. Not sure Kosher is adding much value here ;)

* Meat and dairy mixing may or may not matter to your health depending on what you read. If you find it matters, kosher can also help you on this side.

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