one thing about 'kosher'. its a hell of a good way to secure the supply of your food... i don't mean in the economic sense of a plentiful food supply, i mean in the sense of you've got a reasonable idea of how your food gets to you, and who has handled that food and under what conditions. also, i happen to like the taste of kosher salt more than normal table salt. i think its because its basically sea salt. i could be horrifically wrong though, but that hasn't stopped me from charging blindly ahead in a fit of ignorance before though. andy i think my favorite one was someone asking me if the krispie kreme donuts i sell were kosher... how in the hell should i know? > On Fri, 5 Dec 2003, Matthew Hunter wrote: > > > Consider one of the most ancient (known) bodies of "tradition" in > > our history, that of Judaism. There are many elements of the > > Jewish tradition that are wholly practical; I shall put forth > > kosher food as an excellent example. Nowadays, we can look at > > the traditions concerning kosher food and understand that food > > prepared in that specific way was less prone to disease or > > spoilage than foods prepared in other ways. (I don't know enough > > about kosher to give any really good examples). > > > I think this is arguable - most things appear (from a secular perspective) > to be considered unclean because they don't fit someone's category of > what's natural in terms of scales or foot structure - maybe pigs with > trichinosis were worth avoiding, and maybe milk has some bad chemical > reaction with beef on wooden plates, I don't know - or squeamishness about > blood. To me the greatest advantage of these laws was that it set the > community apart from their neighbors, as did circumcision. This > separation probably brought a lot of persecution but a lot of cohesion as > well. > > On the other hand, maybe G*d thinks it's bad to eat rabbits and scallops > and llamas, as well as golden retrievers, and maybe G*d wasn't clear about > swordfish because He hadn't thought about it.