4 ms·

Related question since this is an Israeli foundation. What do jews and muslims think about the kosher / halal-ness of eating cultured pork if there was such a t

by avar 11y ago

Related question since this is an Israeli foundation. What do jews and muslims think about the kosher / halal-ness of eating cultured pork if there was such a thing? I.e. do they consider the animal itself dirty, or its inherent genetic structure?

gecko 11y ago
It's still not kosher/halal if its made from the cells of a treyf animal. Both religions already have a concept of how pork-derived things aren't religiously acceptable, and pork-derived cultured meat would obviously be an example of that. (Note that the meat they're making here really is chicken; its just a chicken cloned in such a way that only the breast grows.) That said, kosher/hallal beef "bacon" does a brisk business in NYC, so who knows.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  It will never be halal as it's not butchered so it cannot be guaranteed Halal. As far as Kosher goes it's not that far but there are quite a few loopholes that could be used to classify this as not-meat, or find some way to make it Kosher. Kosher unlike Halal has different "levels" based on which organization actually gave it the certification usually, as far as I know Kosher most Kosher meat in the US are not butchered exactly according to Jewish tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita so there might be already a precedence to allow it. You probably won't see the hardcore-est Orthodox Jewry eating eat, but It will be quite viable for most observant Jews.
  - dlgeek 11y ago
    > as far as I know Kosher most Kosher meat in the US are not butchered exactly according to Jewish tradition That's not true. Meat certified by all reputable Kosher agencies in the US is slaughtered according to Jewish tradition. That's part of why it's so expensive.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Not exactly, believe it or not it takes a sampled approach for most things. Even Glatt Kosher might not have inspection for every animal slaughtered. Many modern slaughtering techniques are compatible with Jewish slaughter requirements, the added costs are because the animals have to be inspected for certain defects/conditions before and after the slaughter. You are not going to inverse and inflate the lungs of every cow to check them for lesions even for Kosher beef. Beyond that it's just the question of how the meat is processed after slaughter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#Bedikah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#Bedikah
  - avar 11y ago
    If it can't be butchered is it really an animal for the purposes of these religions, or a new & novel organism that happens to use the genetic material from some animal? I.e. isn't there a case to be made that these things should be treated more like mushrooms than chickens or pigs?
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Don't know, not a religious expert. Gelatin might be a good example according to most Jewish communities Gelatin that is made from animal bones isn't meat but Parve as long as the bones have been processed to remove all marrow and blood prior to being used to make the gelatin. Some very strict communities however do not consider it to be parve and it cannot be used for dairy products for that Gelatin from fish bones or non-animal sources will be used. However both communities will not consider the Gelatin to be Kosher if pig bones are used because that will trump any other statue as pigs are specifically listed in the bible as forbidden (you won't see Jews using pig leather for example either). The only allowed use of pigs according to Jewish religious mandates is for medical purposes e.g. temporary organ donations, using pigs as living dialysis machines and formerly pig insulin (not sure if it's still used anywhere) because saving one's live trumps everything.
- gohrt 11y ago
  ITYM it does a brisket business in NYC.
Eric_WVGG 11y ago
I’m sure there’s no consensus at all. Rabbis have spent millennia debating and reinterpreting their scripture. I once heard that it’s possible to make kosher pork — the literal proscription against pork is that Jews are not to eat from animals who have a cloven hoof. But if you take a baby pig, suspend it from a harness, feed it to maturation but never let it walk on the ground, its hooves will remain uncloven and thus it’s fair game. You will find many, many (probably most) rabbis who disagree with this particular conclusion, but the point is that the whole culture has a fascinating legacy of picking apart the rules that would make any lawyer proud.
- the-dude 11y ago
  For example the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode of some appliances.
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    There was also a fascinating description by Assaf Nativ in PoC||GTFO 0x03, Section 7, of how to hack Nokia feature phones and make "kosher phones", for which there is apparently a sizable market.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Pork or pig is actually one of the few animals that are specifically mentioned in the bible as "unclean" and should not be consumed. While most observant Jews don't have issues with eating say Turkey Bacon or any other substitute some Jewish communities don't eat those either due to a different commandment (actually the one that today is interpreted as not mixing dairy and meat, but it has more to do with accepting customs of other cultures than that). BTW there are probably more "Leviticans" in the US than Muslims, and for sure more than observant Jews so you don't even have to go that far to find new markets for cultured pork.
- ars 11y ago
  > But if you take a baby pig, suspend it from a harness, feed it to maturation but never let it walk on the ground, its hooves will remain uncloven and thus it’s fair game. What??????? You got it backwards! Pig is not kosher because it doesn't chew it's cud. To be kosher you NEED split hooves. > but the point is that the whole culture has a fascinating legacy of picking apart the rules that would make any lawyer proud. That part's quite true. The more intense and involved the study the better, so do not think of this as "loopholes" but rather as study to the smallest detail.
ars 11y ago
> I.e. do they consider the animal itself dirty, or its inherent genetic structure? Dirty? That's a really really really bad translation for not-kosher. It has nothing whatsoever to do with cleanliness. Anyway for the purposes of this meat neither of those two options cover the topic. The animal itself is what is kosher or not kosher. It has physical signs and those decide if it's kosher or not. There is a second issue that something derived from something non-kosher is also not kosher. So CO2 (for seltzer) from beer is not kosher for passover, but CO2 from combustion is, despite both being identical. But, there is a concept of nullified, i.e. diluted. If someone non-kosher is unintentionally diluted in something kosher at a 1/60 level it becomes nullified and ignored. (So CO2 from the atmosphere is fine for passover even if it originally was from beer.) Except, if that diluted item is considered "primary", i.e. it's something that even at a 1/60th level becomes important in the final product. So here we have a single cell from an animal - it certainly is less than 1/60th of the final product, but since it is primary to that product, which could not exist without it, that single cell can not be diluted. i.e. you have to start with a kosher cell. A much more complicated question is if it's considered meat with regard to mixing meat and dairy. But the question is academic only since it would be rabbinically considered like meat because it looks like meat and you should not create a misleading situation. And from the length of this reply you can start to understand why Judaism is such an academic and logically oriented religion with such an enormous quantity of scholarly books. You start with God-given unprovable axioms and generate everything else with logic, one item building upon the next, all ultimately sourced from the Torah (but you need some serious knowledge to be able to trace each law). It's also how Judaism has survived so long - using this method you can extend the law to cover novel situations.
- jld89 11y ago
  "logically oriented religion"... o...k....

by avar 11y ago

gecko 11y ago

It's still not kosher/halal if its made from the cells of a treyf animal. Both religions already have a concept of how pork-derived things aren't religiously acceptable, and pork-derived cultured meat would obviously be an example of that. (Note that the meat they're making here really is chicken; its just a chicken cloned in such a way that only the breast grows.) That said, kosher/hallal beef "bacon" does a brisk business in NYC, so who knows.

dogma1138 11y ago
It will never be halal as it's not butchered so it cannot be guaranteed Halal. As far as Kosher goes it's not that far but there are quite a few loopholes that could be used to classify this as not-meat, or find some way to make it Kosher. Kosher unlike Halal has different "levels" based on which organization actually gave it the certification usually, as far as I know Kosher most Kosher meat in the US are not butchered exactly according to Jewish tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita so there might be already a precedence to allow it. You probably won't see the hardcore-est Orthodox Jewry eating eat, but It will be quite viable for most observant Jews.
- dlgeek 11y ago
  > as far as I know Kosher most Kosher meat in the US are not butchered exactly according to Jewish tradition That's not true. Meat certified by all reputable Kosher agencies in the US is slaughtered according to Jewish tradition. That's part of why it's so expensive.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Not exactly, believe it or not it takes a sampled approach for most things. Even Glatt Kosher might not have inspection for every animal slaughtered. Many modern slaughtering techniques are compatible with Jewish slaughter requirements, the added costs are because the animals have to be inspected for certain defects/conditions before and after the slaughter. You are not going to inverse and inflate the lungs of every cow to check them for lesions even for Kosher beef. Beyond that it's just the question of how the meat is processed after slaughter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#Bedikah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#Bedikah
- avar 11y ago
  If it can't be butchered is it really an animal for the purposes of these religions, or a new & novel organism that happens to use the genetic material from some animal? I.e. isn't there a case to be made that these things should be treated more like mushrooms than chickens or pigs?
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Don't know, not a religious expert. Gelatin might be a good example according to most Jewish communities Gelatin that is made from animal bones isn't meat but Parve as long as the bones have been processed to remove all marrow and blood prior to being used to make the gelatin. Some very strict communities however do not consider it to be parve and it cannot be used for dairy products for that Gelatin from fish bones or non-animal sources will be used. However both communities will not consider the Gelatin to be Kosher if pig bones are used because that will trump any other statue as pigs are specifically listed in the bible as forbidden (you won't see Jews using pig leather for example either). The only allowed use of pigs according to Jewish religious mandates is for medical purposes e.g. temporary organ donations, using pigs as living dialysis machines and formerly pig insulin (not sure if it's still used anywhere) because saving one's live trumps everything.
gohrt 11y ago
ITYM it does a brisket business in NYC.

Eric_WVGG 11y ago

I’m sure there’s no consensus at all. Rabbis have spent millennia debating and reinterpreting their scripture. I once heard that it’s possible to make kosher pork — the literal proscription against pork is that Jews are not to eat from animals who have a cloven hoof. But if you take a baby pig, suspend it from a harness, feed it to maturation but never let it walk on the ground, its hooves will remain uncloven and thus it’s fair game. You will find many, many (probably most) rabbis who disagree with this particular conclusion, but the point is that the whole culture has a fascinating legacy of picking apart the rules that would make any lawyer proud.

the-dude 11y ago
For example the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode of some appliances.
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  There was also a fascinating description by Assaf Nativ in PoC||GTFO 0x03, Section 7, of how to hack Nokia feature phones and make "kosher phones", for which there is apparently a sizable market.
dogma1138 11y ago
Pork or pig is actually one of the few animals that are specifically mentioned in the bible as "unclean" and should not be consumed. While most observant Jews don't have issues with eating say Turkey Bacon or any other substitute some Jewish communities don't eat those either due to a different commandment (actually the one that today is interpreted as not mixing dairy and meat, but it has more to do with accepting customs of other cultures than that). BTW there are probably more "Leviticans" in the US than Muslims, and for sure more than observant Jews so you don't even have to go that far to find new markets for cultured pork.
ars 11y ago
> But if you take a baby pig, suspend it from a harness, feed it to maturation but never let it walk on the ground, its hooves will remain uncloven and thus it’s fair game. What??????? You got it backwards! Pig is not kosher because it doesn't chew it's cud. To be kosher you NEED split hooves. > but the point is that the whole culture has a fascinating legacy of picking apart the rules that would make any lawyer proud. That part's quite true. The more intense and involved the study the better, so do not think of this as "loopholes" but rather as study to the smallest detail.

ars 11y ago

> I.e. do they consider the animal itself dirty, or its inherent genetic structure? Dirty? That's a really really really bad translation for not-kosher. It has nothing whatsoever to do with cleanliness. Anyway for the purposes of this meat neither of those two options cover the topic. The animal itself is what is kosher or not kosher. It has physical signs and those decide if it's kosher or not. There is a second issue that something derived from something non-kosher is also not kosher. So CO2 (for seltzer) from beer is not kosher for passover, but CO2 from combustion is, despite both being identical. But, there is a concept of nullified, i.e. diluted. If someone non-kosher is unintentionally diluted in something kosher at a 1/60 level it becomes nullified and ignored. (So CO2 from the atmosphere is fine for passover even if it originally was from beer.) Except, if that diluted item is considered "primary", i.e. it's something that even at a 1/60th level becomes important in the final product. So here we have a single cell from an animal - it certainly is less than 1/60th of the final product, but since it is primary to that product, which could not exist without it, that single cell can not be diluted. i.e. you have to start with a kosher cell. A much more complicated question is if it's considered meat with regard to mixing meat and dairy. But the question is academic only since it would be rabbinically considered like meat because it looks like meat and you should not create a misleading situation. And from the length of this reply you can start to understand why Judaism is such an academic and logically oriented religion with such an enormous quantity of scholarly books. You start with God-given unprovable axioms and generate everything else with logic, one item building upon the next, all ultimately sourced from the Torah (but you need some serious knowledge to be able to trace each law). It's also how Judaism has survived so long - using this method you can extend the law to cover novel situations.

jld89 11y ago
"logically oriented religion"... o...k....