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    25 Feb KASRUTH QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK WITH RABBI MOSHE ELEFANT

    Posted at 17:01h in by
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    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 supervision is not
    to be compared to kosher supervision.
    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 consideration, 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 permitted 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 directly 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.