Is it impossible to certify Impossible Pork as kosher or halal?
Animals: Tradition - Philosophy - Religion Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Jonah Goldman Kay, TheCounter.org
February 2022

The growth of alternative proteins from companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, new research into genetically modified meat products, and increased attention to the ethical implications of industrial farming have forced scholars of kashrut and halal to reevaluate their interpretations of religious dietary restrictions.

Graphic by Alex Hinton | Source Images: ProVectors/Kateryna Novokhatnia/RobinOlimb/PhonlamaiPhoto/gilaxia/iStock

There’s a classic joke in Judaism that for every Jew there are two opinions. Meant to signify a general lack of agreement about the application of religious laws (as well as our love of argumentation), the joke is based in truth—namely that in Judaism there is no clear answer to many of the tradition’s recurring questions. The same is true in Islam, where scholars have spent centuries negotiating the application of religious principles in modernity.

Nowhere is this lack of agreement felt more clearly than in ongoing debates about religious dietary restrictions. The growth of alternative proteins from companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, new research into genetically modified meat products, and increased attention to the ethical implications of industrial farming have forced scholars of kashrut and halal to reevaluate their interpretations of religious dietary restrictions. Caught up in a web of certifying organizations and economically-motivated food-tech companies, some religious Jews and Muslims have found that their consumption practices are increasingly divorced from the religious laws and social contexts that formed the basis of Jewish and Muslim foodways.

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Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE (PDF).

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