K A S H R U T . C O M_©

The following news is from the Jerusalem Post on August 1, 2013.

Article written by by Ari and Doni Zivotofsky on efforts to ban foie gras and halacha and efforts in Europe to ban shechita.

The following news is from the Food Product Design on July 25, 2013.

Dannon is being criticised by the Center for Science in the Public Interest for using cochinial extract which is extracted from cochineal insects in their yogurts. CSPI is suggesting that they use berries instead of bugs.
Dannon has just arranged to sell their yogurts in Starbucks, who removed the carmine from their drinks, because of public critisism.
Carmine is now required to be listed on lables because of allergies. The CSPI is asking that this declaration also include the term, insect derived.

The following news is from the foodnavigator.com on July 29, 2013.

Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University in the Netherlands will present a burger made from in-vivo produced meat and lab prepared fat wxt week. They grew muscle tissue from stem cells taken from healthy cows. The researchers hope that this can lead to the production of low cost food without the need for lifestock.

The following news is from the Jewish Press on July 23, 2013.

Michal Boni, the Polish minister responsible for religious affairs has asked Jewish and Muslim representatives to petition the country’s Constitutional Court to sort out conflicting laws that have led to a ban on ritual slaughter. "1997 Act on the Relation of the State to the Jewish Communities in Poland, which states that ritual slaughter may be performed in accordance with the needs of the local Jewish community.
The law appears to conflict with Article 34 of the 1997 Law on the Protection of Animals, which states that “vertebrate animal in a slaughterhouse may be killed only after being knocked unconscious by qualified personnel."
In 2004, the Polish government tried to reconcile the conflict by issuing a regulation exempting Jews and Muslims from stunning animals. But in November, the constitutional court ruled that the government had no legal right to issue the exemption.

The following news is from the Washington Post and Jewish Press and JTA posted on July 17, 2013.

"The Polish Parliament rejected a draft law that would have legalized Jewish ritual slaughter, or shechitah, in Poland." "The bill, defeated 222-178 on Friday, would have allowed shechitah provided it is done in a slaughterhouse. It also excluded certain forms of immobilizing the animal." "Until this year, Poland allowed shechitah, making about $650 million annually by exporting kosher and halal meat to Israel and Muslim-majority countries like Egypt and Iran. But the business practically ground to a halt in January after a constitutional court ruled that the country has no right to allow religious slaughter. The ruling was made after a petition filed by animals’ rights groups."

As a result of this the Polish Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Michael Schudrich is threatening to resign since he feels that he cannot properly do his job in a country that curtails religious rights.

The following news is from the foodingredients.com on July 22, 2013.

A collection of studies by Dr Kathleen Vohls of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota published in Psycholgical Science found that the riturals that we perform before eating, can change out perception of the food we eat.
People who performed some kind of ritual before eating food, had a more enjoyable eating experience.

The following news is from the foodnavigator.com on July 22, 2013.

Dr. Robert Van Loo from Wageningen University in the Netherlands has developed a strain of quinoa that does not have the bitter saponin coating and can be grown in the lowlands of Chile or in Europe.

The following news is from the TheDomains.com and change.org posted on on July 17, 2013.

In a letter to ICANN, the OU, Star-K, cRc, Kof-K and COR, responsible for certification of approximately 63% of kosher ingredients worldwide, objected to the "unequal treatment of the new gTLD applications for .Kosher and .halal. Kosher Marketing Assets LLC of Brooklyn New York, whose mission of the .KOSHER TLD is to promote Kosher food certification in general, and OK Kosher Certification and its clients in particular has applied for the top level domain name .kosher. "In a letter to ICANN, several Kosher certification organizations, responsible for certification of approximately 63% of kosher ingredients worldwide, objected to the "unequal treatment of the new gTLD applications for .Kosher and .halal." ICANN has acknoledged to Saudi Arabia that they will not honor the application for the .halal and .islam names from a Shia group associated with Iran. The kashrus agencies are reminding ICANN that they should give .kosher the same consideration as .halal.

Ed. note: This will be decided in the following weeks
https://gtldcomment.icann.org is the website to comment on new GLDT applications.

The following news is from the Aretz 7 on July 10, 2013.

On July 10th, the Knesset passed on its preliminary reading a law that would forbid the import and sale of foie gras. "The law would complement a 2003 High Court decision that ordered the Agriculture Ministry to actively enforce a ban on foie gras production, which entails the force feeding of geese and ducks, the main source for the fatty liver delicacy. Since 2006, the Ministry has been consistently enforcing the production ban, but importing foie gras for sale in Israel was still legal."

The following news is from the JTA June 20, 2013.

"The amendment approved Wednesday to the Farm Bill mandates identifying kosher and halal food already in food banks so it may more easily be distributed to Jewish and Muslim communities during crises. It also encourages the Department of Agriculture to purchase more such foods, as long as the costs are equal to items that are not kosher or halal.
The idea for this amendment came from difficulties for the Kosher and Halal populations during last year’s Superstorm Sandy.
The Farm Bill itself failed to pass Thursday over disagreements over how deep its cuts should be to food stamp programs. Congressional leaders suggested they would craft a new bill, but it was too early to tell whether the kosher-halal amendment would be included."

The following Israeli news is from the document 1 and document 2 on June 13, 2013 and translated by Rabbi Shalom Rosenfeld.

A recent ruling, State of Israel vs. Balker, confirmed that one is in violation of the law not only for claiming their restaurant was kosher when in fact it wasn't and this caused people to eat treif; but even giving a restaurant a hechsher certification when one is not authorized to do so by the rabbanut is a violation of the law. The state does not even need to prove that this caused people to eat non-kosher.