If the Conservative movement is serious about the tzedek “justice” hechsher, it might also consider including kosher certified foods that have a low carbon footprint or that proactively offset their greenhouse gas liability. The Chicago Tribune takes a look at how China, lynchpin of the global marketplace, is working kashrut into its manufacturing processes:

China’s seven masgiachs are exhausted. Factory owners don’t understand kosher (“I have to tell them, ‘There’s no way to make a pork dim sum kosher,” said Rabbi Amos Benjamin, a Shanghai-based Star-K inspector.) And there’s confusion as to what a rabbi is, as workers wait patiently for the “rabbit” to arrive.

The article betrays just how many food miles are in your kosher convenience foods, “Shipments of frozen fish from Alaska and Greenland come all the way to China for processing and kosher inspection, only to be reshipped to the U.S. for sale.”

As the crow flies, it’s about 6,000 miles from Greenland to the factory districts of China. It’s another 8,000 miles from China to New York City. Your hecshered frozen fish owes a fair-sized debt to the planet.

[Chicago Tribune]