[562] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
Jell-O and Kosher
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Laura Dilley )
Mon May 15 21:22:30 1995
To: Mike Jacknis <mjacknis@MIT.EDU>
Cc: vsg@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 15 May 95 21:18:56
From: elsiedee@MIT.EDU (Laura Dilley )
When I read Mike's post on kosher labeling on foods, and read further to
the reference to gelatin, I was reminded of an article in this month's
Boston Magazine which is on Jell-O. It seems that *the* Jell-O plant is
located in Woburn, Massachusetts. The article is quite amusing and
enlightening, the latter not in a wholly pleasant way, and I recommend if
you get a chance to browse through it. But there was a reference to the
kosher-ness of gelatin in the article, so I looked it up. Here is the
section:
Author: My quest to unlock the mystery that is Jell-O leads me next to the
hallowed halls of Ivy League academia. Cynics tracking the melt-down of
American higher education might trace ground zero to March 25, 1991. That's
the date that the dissertation submitted to Columbia University for a
doctorate in education by Rosemarie Bria was approved by her advisers. For
the gelatin-inclined, Bria's thesis -- "How Jell-O Molds Society and How
Society Molds Jell-O: A Case Study of an American Food Industry Creation"--
arks the dawn of a new day in the examination of the Jell-O mystique. Bria
brought an insider's view to her project: she had spent three years as an
associate manager of consumer nutritional affairs for General Foods. In
that capacity, one of her many responsibilities was fielding calls from
Jewish food writers who had noticed that Jell-O was labeled "K" for kosher.
Most of them wanted to know what kind of nonmeat -- such as seaweed --
gelatin source GF was using. It was up to her to explain that even though
Jell-O was made from cow and pig hides, it was still not only kosher but
also pareve. (LD: this implies vegan-ness)
"I'd have to tell them how Jell-O is so processed and
decharacterized that it's not considered a meat product," says Bria. "It
didn't always go over so well. "
That experience inspired Bria to write a test chapter for her
dissertation on the tortured logic and compliant rabbis that allow Jell-O
to qualify as kosher. The chapter was such a success, she says, that she
went on to do her entire dissertation on Jell-O.
...
(skipping several paragraphs)
By the time Bria reaches the end of her Jell-O trail, the heavy toll it has
taken on her is evident. Witness her conclusion: 'I saw people growing
sugarcane on General Foods-owned plantations for export to the U.S.,
instead of growing food for themselves. I saw a suffering pig on a factory
farm controlled by Oscar Mayer [a subsidiary of GF], a pig whose skin,
surprisingly few processing steps later, would earn the privilege of being
considered "a fruit" by the USDA [a reference to the federal government's
having defined Jell-O as a fruit when used in school lunches providing it
was fortified with 20 percent of the U.S. RDA for vitamin C.], and kosher
by a certifying rabbi. I saw a society with a food supply consisting of
food products, not foods...What is Jell-O? It is the demise of the food
supply, the distancing of ourselves from the natural world, the demeaning
and deskilling of women, the suffering of animals, and the desecration of
the environment. All in one box.'
Author: How depressing. Time for a Jell-O shot.
---
LD: Time for me to get back to work. :)
