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Kosher Sustainable Cheese List

by · February 3rd, 2008
Cheese, Kosher, Organic, Wine

Until recently, the world of kosher cheese was pretty bleak. On the one hand you had shrink-wrapped, industrial produced (but kosher certified) brands like Miller’s. On the other, you had artisanal, raw-milk and hand-crafted (but not kosher certified) cheeses. These days the tide is turning.

Introducing: The Jew & The Carrot’s Kosher Sustainable Cheese List

The cheese companies on the list allow you to have your kosher cheese and eat ethically too! We think we have enough options represented for a pretty decent cheese plate, but welcome suggestions. Send cheeses you’d like to see added to list (especially mozzerellas, which we had trouble finding!) to: tips @ jcarrot dot org, or leave a comment below. And don’t forget to pair your cheese with a bottle from The Jew & The Carrot’s Kosher Organic Wine List!

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7 Responses to “Kosher Sustainable Cheese List”

  1. aliza Says:
    February 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 am

    leah, thanks for the list. it’s exciting to see that i can potentially even get 5 spokes creamery in Boston. It’s too bad that most of even that short list isn’t actually organic, but not having hormones is a really important first step.

  2. Leah Koenig Says:
    February 3rd, 2008 at 10:11 am

    It’s true – they’re not all certified organic…but the title: “kosher, organic-and-or-hormone-free-and-or-artisanal-and-or-raw-milk cheese” didn’t have the same ring :-)

    I’ll make the distinction more clear on the page.

  3. Tovah @ Gluten-Free Bay Says:
    February 4th, 2008 at 12:19 am

    I’m wondering if a more appropriate title would be “artisan cheese” or “sustainable cheese”, because several of these aren’t organic (as noted above) and in a world where the word organic is quickly losing meaning, I think it’s important to not be misleading by titling this page “Kosher Organic Cheese List”. It’s false advertising of sorts. It is, however, fabulous that you put this page together! If you’re not sticking just to organic, may I recommend another?

    Meyenberg
    http://www.meyenberg.com/?action=products

    Scroll to the bottom of the page. They have amazing aged goat cheddars. All their products are hekshered, hormone-free and antibiotic-free.

    I heard a rumor Cedar Grove Cheese makes kosher varieties too, but I can’t confirm:

    http://www.cedargrovecheese.com/

    Organic Camembert is available here from a company called Rond R. Bio:

    http://www.igourmet.com/shoppe.....cat=Kosher

  4. Leah Koenig Says:
    February 4th, 2008 at 7:42 am

    Thanks for the suggestions Tovah.

    I did go ahead and change the title to sustainble b/c false advertising was not the point and it is indeed more catch-all than organic. :) But it got me thinking about the word sustainable. We don’t have a USDA-defined meaning for the word (which is probably a good thing), but for as much as I and other folks throw that word around, it doesn’t really seem to mean much of anything.

  5. Shev Says:
    February 4th, 2008 at 11:11 am

    I also want to point out that “sustainable” doesn’t mean “yummy”! Milk from happy animals can make just as rubbery processed cheese as unhappy milk.

    But Leah, you just increased the cheeses-to-try list by a few hundred percent, so thanks!

  6. aliza Says:
    February 6th, 2008 at 11:00 am

    it’s true- the concept of sustainable is very vague at this point in time, and is being co-opted by a lot of perhaps-not-so-well-meaning corporations— which is why i’m currently taking an entire class on sustainable food systems and a lot of that is considering different elements of sustainability and defining what it means as a whole….i get to research yogurt for school! yay!

  7. Mark Solomon Says:
    May 18th, 2009 at 11:08 pm

    The use of animal rennet to make a cheese is not what renders a cheese kosher or non-kosher. According to Klein, A Guide to (Conservative) Jewish Religious Practice, the processing of rennet makes it a davar chadash, a new substance, or comparable to “a piece of wood.” “Thus, all cheeses that are subject to the Pure Food and Drug act should be considered kosher.”
    Orthodox standards are stricter. But, for the Orthodox, if the rennet is extracted from a cow which has been shected according to the laws of kashrut, the rennet is kosher. So rennet is not the issue and vegetable rennet is no more kosher than animal rennet. A bigger issue for the Orthodox is whether a Jew made the cheese, whether the Jew is observant, and, in some cases, whether a Rabbi added the rennet.

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