Our continued quest to keeping kosher

Oh my my my. As I've been digging around and researching hechsherim {kosher symbols} I've seen even more how not all hechsherim are equal! Some of the things I read shocked me, like certain unclean things being allowed based on the amount of it! But as I said in this last post I wanted to share with you what I found as I studied this out. 

Thankfully I was able to come up with a list to start out with. But I'm pretty sure this is going to be a life long endeavor. Something where I'll just have to stay up to date on any changes that are made, and make sure that the standards haven't been relaxed.

Here are some resources I found that can help you in determining what is right for your family. 

kashrut.com
kosherquest.org
crcweb.org

Here are some videos in a teaching series from a "conservadox" Jewish shul that believes in Yeshua as Messiah.

And here is a printable card that has hechsherim that are deemed appropriate: kashrus card 

I hope these resources get you off to a good start, and if you hear anything about specific hechsherim let me know :o)

 Its purpose is to distinguish between the unclean and the clean, and between the creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten. 

-Leviticus 11:47

Keeping Kosher

I will be the first to tell you that to eat Biblically clean you DO NOT have to buy everything kosher. In fact if you know what you're looking for, and you do most of your cooking from scratch you can completely avoid hechshers {the symbols on food that tell you if they are kosher or not}.

But in light of our almost dinner fiasco tonight, we have decided to go kosher. Now of course anything that we know to be clean we will still purchase, like cheese, but we will be making sure that the bulk of our products are hechshered.

So here's what happened. My husband purchased a bottle of sweet and sour sauce that he wanted me to use for dinner. Nothing wrong with that. Well I ended up reading the label, because we have a youngin' with allergies, and guess what I saw? CARMINE. Now if you don't know what carmine is let me just tell you that a it's unclean, and b it's gross. Carmine is a red food coloring that comes from the Cochineal bug, which is a cactus parasite.. Blech! 

Being that so many food additives are derived from rather unsavory sources, and we can't keep up with them all, we've decided to trust those whose job it is to make sure that unclean things do not get into our food. This also means I'll have to start digging into which hechshers are actually good. Because I know some rabbis believe that things that are derived from an unclean source are so far removed from the original source that they can be considered clean. We do not agree with that, nor do most Orthodox Jews, so those are the type of hechshers we will be sticking with. One hechsher that everyone is very familiar with it the OU symbol from the Orthodox Union. That's the most common one, but as I study things out I will share the other ones that I find to be valid. 

In the mean time while you're trying to figure things out READ READ READ those labels! Even if you don't keep kosher do you really want to eat a bug, just to make your food red? 

This is the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and of every creature that creepeth upon the earth: To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten. -Leviticus 11:46-47