According to Jewish dietary law, meat products are prohibited to be consumed with milk or products derived from milk, such as cheese.
The Torah forbids the cooking and consumption of any milk with any meat to prevent one from cooking a kid in its mother's milk. According to Kabbalah, meat represents gevurah (the Divine attribute of Judgment) and milk represents chesed (the Divine attribute of Kindness).
While cheeseburgers — made with dairy cheese and beef burgers — are unlikely to appear on kosher restaurant menus anytime soon, a relatively lenient ruling issued by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau has found that cultured meat could, in theory, be mixed with dairy.
The basic prohibition has to do with putting both substances in the mouth at the same time and ingesting them simultaneously, but because meat leaves a residual taste in the mouth—and also as an extra step to ensure the separation of meat and dairy—the rabbis imposed a waiting period after eating meat before eating ...
The mixture of milk with meat instills in it the undesirable characteristics of blood. If meat and milk together were not forbidden, then the Jews would be unknowingly transgressing the prohibition of consumption of blood and exposing themselves to the damaging effects of blood.
In Jewish tradition, the prohibition on mixing dairy and meat products has been interpreted in several different ways. Some see it as an implementation of the same principle of separating animals authorised for consumption from those that are forbidden.
Because of this concern,6 the Rabbis decreed that one who wants to eat a dairy product must wait six hours7 after eating meat. A person is “fleishig”,9 even if he chewed the meat and removed it from his mouth.
“All Meat Is Forbidden to Be Cooked with Milk”
For them, the law is not specific, but general: all meat cannot be cooked with all milk. Further, the move from specific to general meant that they also consider this as a prohibition against eating—not just boiling—meat and milk together.
Background. During Passover, Jewish law prohibits the consumption of food items other than matzo that are made with wheat or other similar grains. Given these restrictions, some individuals will make lasagna by substituting matzo for traditional wheat pasta sheets.
Yet, for most kosher-observant Jews, McDonald's is a big red flag. Unless you live in Israel, that is. Of the 36,000 McDonalds locations in the world, there are only a few dozen that don't serve bacon or cheeseburgers and adhere to strict kosher laws.
French fries from a non-certified establishment are almost certainly non-kosher. French fries are prepared in a deep fryer and the same oil is probably used to fry chicken, cheese sticks and other types of foods.
Kashrut. While McDonald's operates several Kosher and non-Kosher restaurants, all the meat served in the restaurants is kosher beef. The difference is that the non-Kosher branches open on Shabbat and Jewish holidays, in addition to serving dairy products and cheeseburgers.
Kashrut—Jewish dietary laws
Certain foods, notably pork, shellfish and almost all insects are forbidden; meat and dairy may not be combined and meat must be ritually slaughtered and salted to remove all traces of blood. Observant Jews will eat only meat or poultry that is certified kosher.
To be kosher, eggs must come from kosher fowl and be free of bloodspots in the white (albumin) and the yolk. Each egg must be checked individually after it is opened. If there is blood in an egg, it is forbidden. Eggs from a chicken that died are forbidden by rabbinic enactment.
Summing up, Muslim buyers can consume kosher products. Jewish buyers cannot do likewise with halal. For many Muslim buyers, non-alcoholic kosher food products are considered halal. This can be a convenient thing in areas with smaller Muslim populations.
A rule of thumb cited by the Talmud is: What comes from a kosher animal is kosher; what comes from a non-kosher animal is not kosher. Thus, milk and eggs are kosher only when they come from kosher animals. In addition, all eggs should be carefully examined before use to ensure that they are free of blood spots.
Lobster is not kosher: Jewish Scriptures prohibit eating all shellfish. Nevertheless, Maine's Jews have developed a pronounced fondness for one of this state's signature dishes. Many Jewish Mainers eat lobster even though they would never eat pork, another forbidden food.
Like all other highly processed foods, ice cream can contain many dozens of ingredients. So in order for ice cream to be accepted as kosher, it needs to be marked kosher by a reliable certifying agency. Note that dairy ice cream may not be served after a meat meal.
In order to make chocolate, the cocoa liquor (or butter or powder) is blended with sugar and lethicin. Starch can also be introduced into the mix, which can be an issue for Pesach since the starch is either chometz or kitniyos.
The cheese is not kosher unless a jew oversaw the addition of the rennet. Even if one knows the cheese maker buys only microbial rennet, or one has a contractual agreement with the cheese maker, by decree, it is not kosher unless someone actually watches the making of the cheese via the addition of the rennet.
The company uses rennet, an animal-derived enzyme, in its cheese-making process. This enzyme is not allowed in food products certified as kosher for Passover. Additionally, Kraft cheese is not produced in a dedicated facility that is free of chametz, which is also a requirement for kosher for Passover certification.
The mixture of meat and dairy (Hebrew: בשר בחלב, romanized: basar bechalav, lit. 'meat in milk') is forbidden according to Jewish law.
Prohibition in Jewish law
The Torah (Pentateuch) contains passages in Leviticus that list the animals people are permitted to eat. According to Leviticus 11:3, animals like cows, sheep, and deer that have divided hooves and chew their cud may be consumed. Pigs should not be eaten because they don't chew their cud.
The Torah explains which animals are kosher and which are not. Kosher animals are ruminants, in other words they chew cud, and they have split hooves, such as sheep or cows. Pigs are not ruminants, so they are not kosher. Animals that live in water can only be eaten if they have fins and scales.