page_title: Kashrut
section_title: Permitted and forbidden animals
hierarchical_section_title: Kashrut / Laws of Kashrut / Permitted and forbidden animals
caption_attribution_description: Photo montage of kosher/nonkosher hooves
context_page_description: Kashrut is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jews are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the Hebrew term kashér, meaning "fit".
  Although the details of the laws of kashrut are numerous and complex, they rest on a few basic principles:
  Only certain types of mammals, birds and fish meeting specific criteria are kosher; the consumption of the flesh of any animals that do not meet these criteria, such as pork and shellfish, is forbidden
  Kosher mammals and birds must be slaughtered according to a process known as shechita; blood may never be consumed and must be removed from meat by a process of salting and soaking in water for the meat to be permissible for use
  Meat and meat derivatives may never be mixed with milk and milk derivatives: separate equipment for the storage and preparation of meat-based and dairy-based foods must be used
  Every food that is considered kosher is also categorized as follows:
context_section_description: Only meat from particular species is permissible. Mammals that both chew their cud (ruminate) and have cloven hooves can be kosher. Animals with one characteristic but not the other (the camel, the hyrax, and the hare because they have no cloven hooves, and the pig because it does not ruminate) are specifically excluded. In 2008, a rabbinical ruling determined that giraffes and their milk are eligible to be considered kosher. The giraffe has both split hooves and chews its cud, characteristics of animals considered kosher.  Findings from 2008 show that giraffe milk curdles, meeting kosher standards. Although kosher, the giraffe is not slaughtered today because the process would be very costly. Giraffes are difficult to restrain, and their use for food could cause the species to become endangered.
  Non-kosher birds are listed outright but the exact zoological references are disputed and some references refer to families of birds (24 are mentioned). The Mishnah refers to four signs provided by the sages.  First, a dores (predatory bird) is not kosher. Additionally, kosher birds possess three physical characteristics:  an extra toe in the back (which does not join the other toes in supporting the leg), a zefek (crop), and a korkoban (gizzard) with a peelable lumen. However, individual Jews are barred from merely applying these regulations alone; an established tradition (masorah) is necessary to allow birds to be consumed, even if it can be substantiated that they meet all four criteria. The only exception to this is the turkey. There was a time when certain authorities considered the signs sufficient, so Jews started eating this bird without a masorah because it possesses all the signs (simanim) in Hebrew.
  Fish must have fins and scales to be kosher. Shellfish and other non-fish water fauna are not kosher. (See kosher species of fish.) Insects are not kosher, except for certain species of kosher locust. Generally, any animal that eats other animals, whether they kill their food or eat carrion, is not kosher, as well as any animal that has been partially eaten by other animals.
caption: Examples of cloven hooves in  goats (upper left), pigs (lower left) and cattle (lower right). Horses lack cloven hooves (upper right).
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