Kosher Food Is an Opportunity for Vegans
Learning a bit about Jewish dietary laws can help unlock vegan options you might never have known existed
There’s a secret, hidden in plain sight, among the jarred gefilte fish and abundance of matzo boxes in your local grocery store’s kosher section. Tucked between those questionable jars boxes are vegan jewels — “milk chocolate” chips and bars, ramen, date honey, sour cream and onion chips, gnocchi, cookies — all free of animal products and derivatives. Venture to the kosher sections of the coolers and you’ll find even more: pierogies, whipped cream, dumplings, and frozen garlic bread, just to name a few.
Many of the foods enjoyed by vegans are already kosher. In 2014, 41 percent of packaged food in the U.S. was kosher, despite the fact that less than 2 percent of Americans are Jewish. A 2016 study by the Institute of Food Technologists found that 80 percent of kosher food in America was purchased by non-Jews.
The Jewish dietary laws that dictate what makes a food kosher are complex and detailed, but the most important aspect that benefits vegans is the separation of meat and dairy, as mandated by the Torah. Foods that aren’t meat or dairy fall into a magical third category dubbed pareve (a word derived from Yiddish that rhymes with “carve”).
