We had a pot luck lunch at work today. I overheard a Jewish woman explaining that in these situations she sticks to vegetarian dishes “because I keep Kosher”.
Is vegetarian Kosher by definition?
Depends. For some, any dairy product will also have to be kosher.
Vegan would always kosher because kosher (other than during passover) only relates to animal foods.
Not for all definitions of kosher. Don’t forget, there is no one true definition of keeping kosher that is agreed on by everybody. “I keep kosher” can mean just about anything the person saying it wants it to mean, from “I only eat pork in Chinese restaurants” to “I don’t eat anything prepared that was not prepared under rabbinical supervision”.
If someone is on the strict end of kosher, they might not eat any foods that have been processed or prepared without rabbinical supervision. That person wouldn’t eat a vegetarian dish that had been prepared in a non-kosher kitchen, and might not eat something served with utensils or plates that might have been previously used with non-kosher food (even if the utensils and plates had been washed since then).
There are, however, a lot of people who are less strict about keeping kosher. I will eat vegetarian or kosher fish dishes prepared in a non-kosher kitchen or served with plates or utensils that might have been used before with non-kosher food (as long as they were washed afterward).
No, it wouldn’t. A vegan dish prepared or served with utensils that had previously been used to cook non-kosher meat or dairy products wouldn’t be kosher to everyone’s standards.
You could also have wine that was vegan (not filtered or fined with any animal products) but not kosher, since it was made and handled by non-Jews. Not all Jews who keep kosher insist on kosher-certified wine, but some do. If you used such a wine (or a vinegar that started out as a non-kosher wine) as an ingredient in a vegan dish, it wouldn’t be kosher to some people’s standards.
Although pure vegetarian products are pretty much Kosher in nature (with some intersting twists and interpetations, like those who worry that broccoli might be concealing small bugs and thus can’t be assured of being purely Kosher), there is a significant issue with vegetarian food having been prepared with cooking tools that have been exposed to non-Kosher products.
In other words, if you boil your veggies in a pot that was previously used for something non-Kosher, or cut them with a knife, etc., under a strict interpretation, the veggies will then become non-Kosher.
How much this bothers a particular Kosher observant person varies. Many Modern Orthodox will eat vegetarian (or vegetarian plus fin-fish) “out” so as not to restrict themselves to strictly Kosher restaurants, particularly when necessary for business purposes.
It also depends on how strict the vegetarian part is. I have known self-proclaimed vegetarians who would still eat things with broth/stock, animal gelatin and lard in them. In their mind, the food counted as vegetarian as long as it didn’t contain hunks of meat.
At a pot-luck, you wouldn’t necessarily know whether an apparently vegetarian dish contained some non-kosher ingredients. I love to use leftover bacon grease anytime a recipe calls for oil, so even my vegetable soup, pancakes and biscuits can’t be relied on to be kosher.
The simplest definition of kosher foods divides them into three categories: foods containing meat, foods containing milk, and parve, or neutral foods that contain neither milk nor meat. Foods containing meat and foods containing milk are not supposed to be eaten together at the same meal. Various traditions prescribe varying amounts of time for how long a person must wait to have milk after having meat.
There’s also a difference between vegetarian and vegan. Vegetarians came in many varieties, but the usual definition allows milk products. Vegans refuse any food that contains anything of animal origins.
Put these variations all together. If you’ve trying to avoid mixing milk with meat, then vegetarian foods will work, since they will be meatless. (Vegan foods are even better since they are always parve.) It’s a quick and easy way of avoiding explaining the issue in detail.
But its not the same as kosher. Strict kosherness requires that all individual foods be certified kosher and cooked in kosher pots and eaten with kosher utensils. Obviously, this is almost impossible in the U.S. secular world. That’s where the compromises come in. Not mixing meat and milk while eating foods that are technically nonkosher is as close as most people can comfortably get.
Understood. The clear answer is… “it depends”.
Thanks, all, for the lessons. I learned something here.