Archive for the 'Animal Care' Category
Reflections of a Jewish Pig Farmer
In February and March I worked on an industrial pig farm in Israel, which was mentioned on Jcarrot back in February. In a way my time there was a bizarre, self-inflicted, extended identity crisis - but it was also a fascinating and challenging experience for me as both a kosher Jew and a believer in non-factory farmed meat.
I spent time on the “other” side and just recently wrote an article in The Forward, called “On Israel’s Only Jewish-Run Pig Farm, It’s the Swine That Bring Home the Bacon,” which expresses and reflects my own experiences on the farm, the many contradictions of this particular kibbutz, as well as the contradictions within myself.
You can read the full article here.
No Comments »A Lot of Gas
The blogosphere has been buzzing with fake news stories for April Fool’s today (because we need more incorrect information on the internet?) including announcements that Al Gore announced his presidential bid, and Jewish philanthropist, Michael Steinhardt, started a network of kosher cannabis clubs.
Our friends over at Ethicurean really got us giggling with this gag:
Caca-Cola: The National Pork Producers Council and Coca-Cola have announced a joint venture to build facilities that will carbonate soft drinks using CAFO-sourced methane. The partners call the project “a dynamic, environmentally conscious approach to eliminating factory farming odors, which of course were never really a problem in the first place.” (CartelWatch.org)
Hmmm, well honey from bees (a treif insect) is kosher, but soda made fizzy with pig gas? Kosher-keeping Jews, and really everyone else, might decide the join the Pepsi generation after all.
Posterboy of The New Jewish Food Movement
Animal Care, Blessings, Cheese, Eco-Kashrut, Farming, Jewish Learning, Kosher, Milk, Seasonality, Spirituality
The Jew & The Carrot {hearts} Aitan and Adva Dairy. Thanks to Nextbook for producing a wonderful podcast and feature one of our favorite Jewish goat farmers - yes, there’s more than one!
“Goat Days”
Nextbook 2.25.08
By: Jesse Graham
(Listen to the podcast)
There’s a growing movement among environmentally conscious observant Jews to rethink kashrut. Its adherents place less emphasis on the official kosher stamp, and more on where their food comes from. They want locally and organically grown produce, and if they are meat-eaters, they want to know that the meat they’re eating comes from farms that treat animals humanely.
One devotee of this movement is an unassuming thirty-year-old named Aitan Mizrachi, founder of the AVDA Dairy, a small-scale goat dairy farm in northwestern Connecticut that produces organic, kosher raw milk yogurt and cheeses.
Conscious Carving
Animal Care, Eco-Kashrut, Farming, Food Conference, Food History, Hazon, Jewish Orgs, Kosher, Meat, Notable Press, Vegetarian
Here’s the newest article about kosher, ethical meat…this one I wrote for American Jewish Life (Those of you who read this blog religiously might already be well-versed on the subject - but for the non ethical food-obsessed Jews out there, it’s definitely still hot news.)
Conscious Carving
American Jewish Life
By: Leah Koenig
February 25, 2008
Early on a Friday morning this past December, 70 Jews gathered in a frost-covered field in rural Connecticut. Some of them huddled in small groups, talking in hushed tones and blowing on their frozen fingers. Others stood at a distance, quiet with thought. They were all there for one reason — to witness three goats being slaughtered for meat, in accordance with Jewish law.
No, these people were not part of some underground Jewish cult. They were attendees of a food conference hosted by the New York-based non-profit, Hazon (which, for full disclosure, is my employer). The purpose of the ritual slaughtering, was to “enable people to have a more direct understanding of where kosher meat comes from,” said Hazon’s Executive Director, Nigel Savage. In this case, it would be the same meat that many of the participants would eat that night for dinner.
The Rabbi’s Reject Shackle and Hoist Methods
Last week The Jew & The Carrot posted an article about the ”shackle and hoist” scheitah (kosher slaughter) methods used to produce much of the kosher meat imported to Israel. Yesterday, YNet reported the response from The Israeli Chief Rabbinate and OU Chairman. Thanks to The Jew & The Carrot reader, Joshua, for bringing this article to our attention.
Rabbinate: Import Meat Only if ‘Morally Slaughtered’
YNet - 2.20.08
By: Neta Sela
PETA and the Torah? Following the lead of The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to animals, which has long protested against cruel “lift and bind” slaughter techniques practiced in many United States and South American slaughterhouses, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate has also decided to work to eliminate such techniques.
At a recent conference involving the Chief Rabbitate’s Kashrut Committee as well as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, a decision was made to only sanction meat imported to Israel as having undergone a kosher shechita (ritual slaughter) if the animal was killed utilizing the relatively more humane “boxing” technique.
Orthodox Union Calls Cloned Cows Kosher
Today, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an above-the-fold, front page article about our newest source of mystery meat - cloned cows.
In the article “Consumers May Not Be Able to Avoid Cloned Food,” the Chronicle reported that the Orthodox Union has publicly stated that food items derived from cloned animals are kosher. Rabbi Menachem Genack of the O.U. stated that cloned animals would be kosher as long as they belong to a single kosher species, such as cattle, sheep, and goats.
Given the highly uncertain health effects of eating cloned meat, and the biological manipulation necessary to create cloned animals, I call on rabbis from across the denominations to speak out on this issue.
How can an animal production technology, which is proven to be cruel to the animals it creates, be kosher?
Animals can be cloned from the tissue of a dead animal. Would that cloned animal be kosher?
The principle of Kelayim requires the separation of species - what does it say about the replication of species?
What about the fundamental notion of eating food in its natural state, as God brought it to us. Does the biological tinkering with the DNA of life disturb our respect and awe for the divine manifestation of the natural world - in the food we eat?
I think the O.U.’s statement is wrong - I’d like to hear what others think, particularly our Jewish legal scholars.
With Love for Hashem, and Love for its divine manifestation in Food.
Z
By the way, for more information, check out my previous post, “Is Milk or Meat from a Cloned Animal Kosher?“
Wasted Meat is Such a Downer
Yesterday, the California-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Company issued the largest beef recall in history - 143 million pounds. According to the NYTimes, the recall:
“…comes after a widening animal-abuse scandal that started after the Humane Society of the United States distributed an undercover video on Jan. 30 that showed workers kicking sick cows and using forklifts to force them to walk.
The video raised questions about the safety of the meat, because cows that cannot walk, called downer cows, pose an added risk of diseases including mad cow disease. The federal government has banned downer cows from the food supply.”
In other words, the meat itself was not necessarily tainted. Instead, the recall was largely a precautionary (and perhaps futile) measure to safegaurd the American dinner plate from the irresponsible practices of the meat industry. A precautionary measure that sent 143 million pounds of meat to the trash heap.
If ever there was a modern-day example of violating bal tashchit, this is it.
Shackle and Hoist - A Serious Shonde
Here’s the newest “kosher meat industry article” from Nathaniel Popper over at The Forward. This time he covers Israel’s South American meat fetish - as in South America where he reports that most cows are killed using the controversial “shackle and hoist” slaughter method that is largely banned in the US. (In comparison, the folks at Agriprocessors are given a relative ”kudos” by PETA for using alternative methods.)
Is anyone else just getting bored by our (meaning Jews, meaning Americans, meaning Israelis etc.) collective ignorance and/or defiance about how the animals that give their lives to feed us are treated? Also, is anyone else kind of shocked - and I learned this in the article - that Congress passed a Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act in the early 20th century? I imagine it must have been Upton Sinclair fallout (let me know if you know otherwise), but considering the state of things today, what a joke!
Widespread Slaughter Method Scrutinized for Alleged Cruelty
The Forward
By: Nathaniel Popper
PETA banned from the Super Bowl
According to PETA, their Kentucky Fried Cruelty advertisement - which focuses on the fast food industry’s blind eye towards animal cruelty - was denied commercial air time on Super Bowl Sunday.
On the one hand, PETA should have equal right to advertising. On the other, the ad does not exactly fit into the Super Bowl’s family-friendly image. What do you think - should the ad have been allowed to play?
(Warning: PETA’s ad depicts graphic violence, so watch with caution.)
Glimpsing the Eternal
Animal Care, Blessings, Community Agri., Family & Kids, Food Conference, Hazon, Holidays, Jewish Learning, Judaism, Kosher, Meat, Milk, Personal Story, Spirituality, Women
Thanks to Maria Russakoff for this guest post, originally printed in the Arizona Jewish Post. It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything about Hazon’s Food Conference or the controversial goat schecting, but this piece is worth sharing.
The handwritten sign over the shiny percolator reads: “Chai tea - made lovingly with raw goat and cow milk, brewster honey, sadeh hot peppers, blackstrap molasses, black tea and ginger.” I haven’t the faintest idea where brewster honey comes from or what makes hot peppers “sadeh,” but I know from the first sip that I have come to a place that will nurture my stomach, mind and soul for the next three days. I breathe a contented sigh of relief, happy to have made it in one piece from sunny Arizona to the Connecticut Berkshires in the dead of winter, happy to be back at the Hazon Jewish Food Conference in its second year.
The Jew and The Pig - On Kibbutz
Animal Care, Farming, Featured, Food Safety, Food Writing, Health, Israel, Kosher, Meat, Neat Projects, Personal Story, Vegetarian
The Jew & The Carrot blogger, Jeff Yoskowitz, has been on hiatus from the blog for a little while - but he has a darn good excuse. He is currently living on a kibbutz in Israel. On the one hand, like many kibbutzim, internet access is spotty so posting frequently is a challenge. But Jeff’s situation is a little different. Jeff is currently researching the (painfully ironic) pork industry in Israel. His kibbutz happens to house an industrial pork feed-lot, which means he’s spending most of his time hanging out with animals he’d never personally eat.
The little bit of time Jeff’s not researching pigs, he’s logging in his experience at his personal blog The Wet Sprocket. And while we understand his need to prioritize his web time, his stories are just too interesting not to share. To find out more about Jeff’s extraordinary daily experiences check out his blog, and read a few key (and quite graphic) excerpts below:
In Good Company
As it turns out, Hazon is not alone in slaughtering animals in a public way to help people get a sense of where their meat comes from - and where it might come from if meat production was signficantly more humane and responsible.
An New York Times article today by Julia Moskin, “Chef’s New Goal: Looking Dinner in the Eye, features British chef Jaime Oliver (as well as American chefs Dan Barber, Tamara Murphy and others), going to great lengths to educate themselves - and their customers - about the meat industry. Moskin writes:
LAST Friday, in front of 4 million television viewers and a studio audience, the chef Jamie Oliver killed a chicken. Having recently obtained a United Kingdom slaughterman’s license, Mr. Oliver staged a “gala dinner,” in fact a kind of avian snuff film, to awaken British consumers to the high costs of cheap chicken.
“A chicken is a living thing, an animal with a life cycle, and we shouldn’t expect it will cost less than a pint of beer in a pub,” he said Monday in an interview.
Is Milk or Meat from a Cloned Animal Kosher?
As a staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety, I was appalled that the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cloned animals for use in our food today. I have to ask, “who does our federal government protect? How can they allow this into the food system without facts showing it is safe and without any labeling or public disclosure requirements?” As a Jew, it makes me ask other questions: “Will this be allowed in kosher milk? Kosher meat? What do our rabbis think? What about the eco-kosher movement?”
FDA Approves Cloned Animals for Our Food
Today’s FDA decision was a long-awaited regulatory assessment of cloned animals, proclaiming that food from cloned animals are just as safe as food from naturally raised animals. (See FDA on Cloning) And while the FDA did not address whether cloned milk and meat is kosher, they did decide today that it is safe for Americans to eat.
The FDA made this decision in the worst way possible. FDA based its decision on an incomplete and flawed review that relies on studies supplied by cloning companies that want to force this cloning technology on American consumers. Biotechnology companies such as ViaGen provided FDA with the “science” in this case. There are no peer reviewed studies showing that this stuff is safe for us to eat.
Meeting of Minds
(x-posted at Lilith)
Last week I had the good fortune of attending a completely packed lecture at the 92nd Street Y called, “Hedonistic, Healthy, and Green: Can We Have it All?” Featuring Michael Pollan (of The Omnivores Dilemma fame), Dan Barber (Head Chef of Blue Hill at Stone Barns), and moderated by Joan Dye Gussow (This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader), it was the kind of event that sustainable foodies like me drool over. These are our movie stars, the people we choose when asked, “which famous person would you most want to take to dinner?”
The event itself was pretty straightforward: glowing introductions, 10-15 minutes from both speakers (Pollan on his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
The real meat of the evening was not in the format of the event, but in the meeting of these amazing minds. For Pollan, Barber, and Gussow, this is life: travelling, speaking (often about the same thing), and answering questions. But for the audience, watching the exchange between these sustainable food “rebbes” felt like watching your grandmother make her favorite recipe. It looked so simple and obvious, and you left feeling full and nourished and inspired to try it yourself.
