Obviously, physically they can, but is pigs’ milk kosher or halal?
Nope… kosher milk only comes from kosher animals.
And to extend that answer, nothing that is made from or derived from a pig in any way can be kosher or halal. If you were to boil’s pig’s feet and make gelatin (if that’s possible) the gelatin would not be kosher. Pigs are absolutely untouchable as a source of food.
Exapno:
Actually, that’s not completely true. If one were to use only the pig’s bones, and be scrupulously certain that there was no meat attached to them, I’m pretty sure the result would be Kosher. The problem with commercial gelatin, of course, is that it’s not only bone that’s used.
What about the bone marrow?
So calcium from pig’s bones would be considered kosher? No matter how you split hairs, so to speak, that would surprise me.
However, I was referring to food products in my answer and minerals would not technically fall under that category.
Where did you get this from? I have a devout Muslim friend here and he states he has never heard of such a thing. You have a cite?
Your friend would be familiar with the rules of Halal which are similar but not exactly the same as Kosher.
Yes, but Halal does not state pig is authorized in any form to eat. It basically covers the methods that certain foods are allowed to be eaten. For example, my friend here will not eat hamburgers from McDonalds because they are not slaughtered in accordance with Halal, but he will go to his local butcher and buy cow’s meat.
I apologize for not being clear. cmkeller is an Othodox Jew and was answering the question from that perspective.
Some authorities do maintain that gelatin from non-kosher animals can be kosher, because during the intermediary rendering process the material stops being food at all, and thus apparently maintains no memory of its origins. But I believe that other authorities disagree; at any rate, cmkeller’s answer jibes with my own limited knowledge of the matter.
All I know about the rules of Halal, I learned from Gummi Bears.
Years ago, during the Mad Cow stuff in Europe, the Gummi Bear people announced that Gummi Bears were safe as they only used gelatin made from pig ones. After a few days, they announced that Gummi Bears for the Middle East are made only of beef bones.
Oh yeah, those two products have never been mixed up on the loading dock.
Hell no, they can’t drink pigs’ milk. No pigs means no pigs. This includes mere physical contact. BTW, Kosher and the less restrictive Halal laws are actually quite complex, much more so than no pigs and no mixing milk and meat. The ritualistic slaughter of animals, for example, doesn’t allow the animal to suffer (this precludes hunting, so animals must be raised), or to witness the slaughter of another animal, or to be slaughtered after it has been beaten, gored by horns, or to be eaten if it has been in a fight or has fallen from a great height. The slaughtered animal must be an herbivore (predators are not allowed). It goes on and on…
If I might be permitted a minor hijack, I’ve often wondered about the Jewish dietary restriction whereby it’s not permissable to eat meat and cheese as part of the same dish- something about not boiling a kid in it’s mother’s milk, as I understand it.
But how would this apply if, for example, the cheese was from New Zealand and the meat was from the US? There’d be no chance at all of the two animals concerned being related…
And what about Goat Cheese and Beef Meat, or Regular Cheese and Goat Meat?
Hey, it’s not like there are any Jewish people (that I know of) around here to ask…
With one notable exception…
Grim 
Halal refers to both which animals are permitted for food, and also the method of slaughter of permitted animals. It is categorically said that pigs are not to be eaten:
Basically, the foods that are considered haram (i.e. not fit for consumption) , are things that have died naturally, been killed in a fight, pigs, anything over which anything other than the name of Allah has been said, anything that died from a fall, or was beaten, or strangled, or gored by horns, or things that wild beasts have eaten. Further, anything slaughtered on a pagan altar is forbidden, and anything that you hunt with an arrow. However, if you’re dying of hunger, you can eat these things, and you’ll be forgiven.
I thought that meant the custom of dividing the meat by the casting of arrows. That is the ancient fortune-telling technique (now forbidden) of throwing arrows over the shoulder to divine the future.
Having been raised in a Kosher home, maybe I can give this perspective… You have hit upon a main issue with Kosher- it’s not about logical explanations of obscure dietary restrictions- it’s about philosophy and faith.
My mother’s understanding of Kashrut is like this- we folow these rules because they elevate our humanity. Animals will eat anything they come across. Humans should be deliberate and thoughtful as to what we eat, how we prepare it and how we eat it. By doing so it raises us above animals towards thinking introspective humans. The rules may have been developed at a time when you were eating from the local food supply, and now we are not, but the *philosophy * underlying the development of those rules still applies.
My family was not the biggest Kosher sticklers for all the subtle bits of the rules, and truth be told even different synagogues and Rabbinical oversight groups will have difference opinions about what is OK and what is not. For example, our conservative synagogue has a more rigid implementation of Kashrut than the reform temple down the road, but more lax than another conservative synagogue in a neighboring town.
;j And now I’m an athiest who doesn’t keep kosher. So there you go. But I know that I carry many of the philosophical explanations of the “rules” of Judiasm
and they influence my secular bul ethical and spiritual life.
OK, hijack off!
Still no, at least for Orthodox Jews. It’s because that prohibition is mentioned thrice in the OT. No, I am not Jewish, but I have seen the answer several times.
I think there is some looseness combining Fowl or Fish and dairy?
Fish is pareve, a term which means neutral, and thus can be eaten with dairy.
What is Kosher has a good quick summary.