Comments on: Is Bubbe's Eastern European Diet "Kosher" for Your Health?

By: Green links and the water shortage

Green links and the water shortage — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 19:40:03 +0000

[…] eastern European diet is “kosher” for your health on the Israeli environmental blog Green Prophet.This website points out the lack of Jewish chaplains in the American military and suggests ways to […]

By: ErskineKelvin

ErskineKelvin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:04:47 +0000

Considering that the entire modern world walks toward globalization I am not surprised if cultural eating habits will disappear. Religion is losing it's impact on people and many of these habits were canonical. Everybody is more preoccupied with eating healthy rather than kosher and I can't blame them for that._________________Seattle HCG weight loss consultant

By: Leora

Leora — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:33:11 +0000

I don’t think chicken fat is as unhealthy as one would think (not that it’s so great, either). Crisco, margarine, and the antibiotics/hormones that the chicken ate are worse. We do need some fat.

Somewhere there was a study of people in Holland? Belgium? during World War II. They couldn’t get hold of animal products, and there was less degenerative disease.

Karin, yes, Bubbe didn’t have a choice! There was no supermarket of processed food.

By: Hannah Katsman

Hannah Katsman — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:56:53 +0000

My father grew up in a shtetl (small, mainly Jewish town) in Poland. They ate garden vegetables, mostly potatoes. My father collected eggs from the local non-Jewish farmers and sold them, but I doubt his family ate many. The way he tells it they were close to starving. When he went away to yeshiva they served cholent every day, without much meat. Well, he is in his 80s.
I agree that they ate less meat, but relied on large amounts of chicken fat. At least I suspect that was the case in wealthier families.

By: Karin Kloosterman

Karin Kloosterman — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:58:12 +0000

People everywhere, not just religious or Jewish ones, ate much much less meat than some people eat today. People have taken it for granted due to the cheapness of meat (thanks to new and “advanced” farming methods); I bet Bubbe, even if she didn’t cook meat all that often, made very healthy food.

By: Leora

Leora — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:04:33 +0000

One of the problems I find is the move to the right of the Orthodoxy seems to include eating less vegetables, eating less fresh vegetables (you can buy tasteless bodek in a bag, much easier but then vegetables get a bad name), and certainly not organic.

My paternal grandmother, who was a very frum Orthodox woman, definitely believed in eating vegetables. And a variety, too.

Another issue is that in Eastern Europe, Jews couldn’t afford much meat. Now the amount of meat they buy (at least in the U.S.) is staggering and represents a break from tradition, even if they don’t see it that way.

On the topic of food in Israel, visiting establishments like the one you pictured unfortunately was one of the highlights of our recent trip for our kids. Sigh. I ate elsewhere.