Kosher chicken pot pie

On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article kosher chicken pot pie. Kosher food also distinguishes between meat and dairy products.

They remain pareve if they are not mixed with or processed using equipment that is used for any meat or dairy products. Because of the complexities of modern food manufacturing, kashrut agencies supervise or inspect the production of kosher foods and provide a certification called a hechsher to verify for kosher food consumers that it has been produced in accordance with Jewish law. Jewish dietary law is primarily derived from Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14:1-21. The Torah permits eating only those land animals that chew their cud and have cloven hooves. The Torah lists winged creatures that may not be consumed, mainly birds of prey, fish-eating water-birds, and bats. Certain domesticated fowl can be eaten, such as chicken, geese, quail, dove, and turkey. The Torah permits only those fish which have both fins and scales to be eaten.

In addition to meat, products of forbidden species and from unhealthy animals were banned by the Talmudic writers. The classic rabbinical writers imply that milk from an animal whose meat is kosher is also kosher. As animals are considered non-kosher if they are discovered to have been diseased after being slaughtered, this could make their milk retroactively non-kosher. Rabbi Hershel Schachter argued that with modern dairy-farm equipment, milk from the minority of non-kosher cows is invariably mixed with that of the majority of kosher cows, thus invalidating the permissibility of consuming milk from a large dairy operation.

Breast milk from a woman is permitted. The situation of cheese is complicated as hard cheese usually involves rennet, an enzyme that splits milk into curds and whey. Because the rennet could be derived from animals, it could potentially be non-kosher. Only rennet made recombinantly, or from the stomachs of kosher animals, if they have been slaughtered according to the laws of kashrut, is kosher. Jews without Jewish supervision, even if its ingredients are all kosher, because very frequently the rennet in cheese is not kosher. However, some such as Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik ate generic cheeses without certification.

The eggs of kosher birds are kosher. Eggs are considered pareve despite being an animal product. Occasionally blood spots are found within an egg, which can affect the kosher status of the egg. The halacha varies depending on whether or not there is a possibility of the egg being fertilized. Regarding the question of whether one must check an egg for blood spots, the Shulchan Aruch rules that one may eat hard-boiled eggs where checking is impossible. A contemporary Ashkenazi authority writes that while “halacha does not require” checking supermarket-bought eggs, “there is a minhag” to do so. Nevertheless, eggs are not checked in commercial settings where doing so would be expensive.

Gelatin is hydrolysed collagen, the main protein in animal connective tissue, and therefore could potentially come from a non-kosher source, such as pig skin. Due to the ambiguity over the source of individual items derived from gelatin, many Orthodox rabbis regard it as generally being non-kosher. Technically, gelatin is produced by separating the three strands in each collagen fiber’s triple helix by boiling collagen in water. Today manufacturers are producing gelatin from the skins of kosher fish, circumventing many of these problems. Traditional Jewish thought has expressed the view that all meat must come from animals that have been slaughtered according to Jewish law. Some believe that this ensures the animal dies instantly without unnecessary suffering, but many animal-rights activists view the process as cruel, claiming that the animal may not lose consciousness immediately, and activists have called for it to be banned.