Have Questions or Comments?
Leave us some feedback and we'll reply back!

    Your Name (required)

    Your Email (required)

    Phone Number)

    In Reference to

    Your Message


    22 Jun KASHRUS QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK

    Posted at 21:58h in by
    0 Likes

    Can a frum person be a vegan? What potential problems could they have?

    A frum person can be a vegan. The two main points I’d like to make is a) if you’re going to be a vegan it doesn’t mean the vegan foods don’t need supervision. Vegan food, even if it doesn’t have animal products, can still have kashrus issues. It can have Akum issues or other types of issues with the ingredients. Moreover, as I understand, vegan supervi- sion is not to be compared to kosher su- pervision. Kosher supervision is a stronger supervision where the mashgiach is in the facility checking out what’s going on. As I understand, vegan supervision doesn’t have that type of rigorous supervision, even if the company is making a claim that they are vegan. It doesn’t mean that the ingredients don’t have kashrus issues. You could be a vegan, but that doesn’t mean you can buy food that’s labeled vegan if it’s not properly supervised.

    The other issue is that one has to eat meat on Yom Tov and Shabbos. So yes, there are those that say if you don’t enjoy eating meat or poultry, that isn’t called being b’simcha and maybe you’re exempt. But, the letter of the law on Shabbos and Yom Tov is that you should eat meat or poultry and a vegan obviously can’t have that, so the person would have to take that into consider- ation, as well.

    Can one invest in a business that serves meat & milk? Can one own a share of stock in a business like McDonalds?

    It’s a very big problem. I recently spoke in a shiur about pet food and I brought up the issue of basar b’chalav. Someone asked me if you’re allowed to own a store that sells pet food that is basar b’chalav? It’s really very complicated because the halacha is that a Jew is not per- mitted to sell something that is forbidden to be eaten. So if you have stock in a hedge fund and you don’t know how they’re managing the money, it’s less of a problem. But if you are di- rectly investing in a non-kosher business, like a McDonalds or Wendys, it’s a very big shaila and you need to figure out how you can do it before just assuming it’s a Kosher investment. I believe you can’t.