Saturday Night
October 2004
KOSHER?
It's not just observant Jews who are seeking out kosher food. People with health prbelms or concerns about food handling turn to it as well. Are they really getting what they think they're getting?
IF ONLY THOSE LITTLE KOSHER SYMBOLS COULD TALK. For every COR, MK, OU or KSA on every package of Oreos and Cheerios, there is a story of how it came to be kosher. And that story isisn't always straightforward.
The word kosher meaning "fit and proper" goes beyond the avoidance of pork and shellfish and rules about the number of hours observant Jews must to wait between eating meat and dairy; it deals with everything that happens to a product before it reaches the consumer. When a chicken or a chocolate bar is certified kosher, that means every single ingredient, every raw material, every piece of farm or factory equipment complies with kosher standards. So for every product containing "natural and artificial flavours and colours" there was a rabbi who looked into the source of those 10, 20 or 50 other ingredients that weren't listed on the label.
Ironically, despite the strict guidelines and rigid supervisions surrounding kosher dietary laws (known as kashrut), there is perhaps no food standard more open to interpretation. And the proliferation of new foods vying for kosher certification means more challenges - and more ambiguity. From gelatin to wine, kashrut controversies abound.
Over the past two decades, North American food manufacturers have tapped into the growing demand for kosher -- a market that goes far beyond observant Jews. There are Muslims, Hindus and Seventh-day Adventists whose dietary demands overlap with kosher laws. Then there are non-religious devotees including vegetarians, vegans and people with various food allergies and health concerns. People who suffer from celiac disease, a digestive disorder caused by gluten intolerance, are buying up cases of kosher beer made for Passover, a Jewish holiday that imposes further dietary restrictions, one of which prohibits the consumption of leavening agents that happen to contain gluten.
The kosher pareve or neutral symbol that indicates the product is free of dairy ingredients reassures shoppers who are lactose intolerant. And then there is the perception that kosher products are "cleaner" (due to the existence of a supervising body), easing the minds of consumers for whom purity is of primary concern. In other words, there are a lot of eyes scanning the aisles for packages bearing the kosher mark. To meet the demand, the number of kosher products has soared to an estimated 80,000 from just 16,000 in the mid '80s.
So while some of the guidelines yield significant health benefits, the widely perceived relationship between kosher and nutrition is dubious at best. A kosher hot dog, for instance, may be no healthier than its non-kosher counterpart. But that hasn't stopped companies such as Hebrew National, which manufactures prepared-meat products, from reminding consumers about kosher's more stringent standards: "We Answer To A Higher Authority," boasts the company slogan.
It could be said that rabbis are merely the earthly agents of that Higher Authority, granting kosher certification based on their interpretations of the Old Testament. Every aspect of kosher-food preparation from farm to plate is overseen by rabbis representing the kosher-supervision agencies that certify products, and there are lots of them: more than 600 such agencies exist worldwide. Jurisdictions overlap and different interests compete, and as a result, deciding whether or not something as simple as a doughnut is kosher isn't as simple as it seems.
When Krispy Kreme opened its first kosher location in Canada, some local rabbis advised their congregations not to shop there. The store's kosher certification came from the Los Angeles-based KSA (Kosher Supervision of America) rather than the Toronto-based COR (Kashruth Council of Canada). Things get even more complicated in New York State, the second-largest producer of kosher foods after Israel: New York City alone has 150 different kosher supervision agencies, creating a chaotic environment susceptible to everything from mass confusion to fraud.
Perhaps no one understands the kosher complexities south of the border better than Joe Regenstein, a Professor of Food Science at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. In addition to his academic work, he has spoken to companies such as Nabisco about the development of kosher products for the U.S. market. Regenstein was pleased when a new law was passed in July that will eventually replace New York's first kosher-food law, put on the books in 1915. The law relied on state inspectors to find products that violated "orthodox Hebrew religious requirements." The phrase always bothered Regenstein and has been the source of endless conflict and hostilities among New York's Jews.
"Give me a break!" says Regenstein, "We're a secular country and we have a law based on a Jewish religious text written in Hebrew?"
The new law will remove the state from the uncomfortable position of enforcing religious standards. It will also put New York's kosher rules more in line with Canada's, where, by law, manufacturers must justify kosher claims in the same way they must disclose nutritional facts such as fat and calorie content.
"The manufacturer can't just use the word kosher anymore without having to explain how it was made kosher, how was it separated from non-kosher goods, the source of its ingredients and so on," says Rabbi Saul Emanuel from Montreal's kosher supervision agency, Vaad Ha ' ir. "There are checks and balances."
On both sides of the border, the real onus is on the consumer to look beyond those little symbols. "The law only works if the consumer pays attention to it," says Regenstein. Take Jell-O products for instance. Jell-O is made from pork-derived gelatin, and is thus the subject of ongoing debate. Kraft used the COR certification agency in Canada, and the OK agency in the U.S.; neither will certify Jell-O as kosher. In the U.S. however, Kraft found a rabbi who deems gelatin to be a non-meat product (because it has been "cleaned" and processed), and who therefore awarded Jell-O a plain K certification. The letter K, like all letters, cannot be trademarked, and can be used by anybody who wants to assert that a product is kosher.
But most consumers are unaware of this. All they know is that a product has been certified somewhere, by someone, as kosher. -- Shawna Wagman
