I once lived on a kibbutz in Israel for a year. The saddest sound I ever heard was a newborn calf crying for its mother. That’s the hidden soundtrack of the dairy industry — cows separated from their calves within hours, udders swollen, pumped with hormones, antibiotics, and additives like Bovaer to squeeze out more milk. All that pain, all that chemistry, ends up in our coffee cups.

Enter Remilk, an Israeli foodtech pioneer creating real milk without cows. In partnership with Gad Dairies — one of Israel’s best-known dairy brands — Remilk has just launched The New Milk, a lactose-free, cholesterol-free, animal-free milk identical in taste and nutrition to cow’s milk. The product is now pouring into cafés and restaurants across Israel and will hit major supermarket chains in January 2026.

Related: Israel is the first country to approve the sale of lab meat

While we think safe, healthy, regenerative slow food is the best place to aim for, Remilk might be the healthy in-between until we get there.

Remilk’s milk is not plant-based. It’s real dairy protein, created using precision fermentation — the same process used in the biotech world to make insulin or vitamins. Scientists insert the gene for a cow’s milk protein into a microbe, which then “ferments” and produces that protein without the cow. The result: milk that’s biologically identical to dairy, minus the animal, methane, and moral compromise.

Remilk’s CEO Aviv Wolff calls it “a better, healthier, and tastier world through real milk made without cows.” Amir Aharon of Gad Dairies adds that the collaboration is “a defining moment where generations of dairy tradition meet groundbreaking technology.”

Three products are debuting under The New Milk line: a Barista Milk for cafés, and two retail versions — a regular milk and a vanilla-flavored option. They froth, foam, and taste just like the real thing, yet contain 75 percent less sugar. The milk is fortified with calcium and vitamins and, being kosher-pareve, can be served right after meat meals — a quiet revolution for Jewish kosher consumers long frustrated by dairy separation rules.

What Israelis really think about milk

Ahead of the launch, Remilk and Gad commissioned a national survey with Geocartography Knowledge Group. It found that 92 percent of Israelis still drink animal-based milk, but more than half also consume milk alternatives. There are more vegans per capita in Israel than anywhere else in the world. The main barrier for more people going vegan and dairy-free? Taste. Fifty-five percent said current substitutes “aren’t tasty enough,” while 50 percent of kosher-observant respondents said they’d happily drink coffee with milk after a meat meal — if the milk tasted real.

The New Milk may have found the perfect sweet spot: authentic flavor, ethical production, and a format that fits Israel’s dietary laws and café culture.

Beyond dairy guilt

Remilk’s animal-free protein has already been approved by regulators in Israel, the U.S., Canada (Canada gives the green light to cloned milk), and Singapore. Each market confirmed the protein’s safety and molecular identity with traditional milk. The company has raised more than $150 million USD and is scaling production globally.

Precision fermentation still uses energy, and its total carbon footprint depends on where and how it’s produced. Yet Remilk’s life-cycle analysis shows significant reductions in land and water use compared to industrial dairy. If scaled efficiently and powered by renewables, it could help phase out one of the most resource-intensive sectors of modern agriculture.

Read more on Israel’s uneven contributions to the alt meat and airy markets

Israel is the first country to approve the sale of cultured meat

Israel’s uneven impact in the cultivated meat market

Aleph Farms engineers lab-grown steaks from cattle cells

Slaughter free ribeye steak meat grown in a lab

Is lab meat kosher?

Lab-grown meat telling convenient lies about carbon footprint

Israeli alt dairy startup Imagindairy raises $15M seed

Israel’s Yofix offers dairy and soy-free yoghurt alternative

Vegan protein alternative for dairy industry (Yofix flexitarian plant dairy)

New vegan milk made from hummus (or chickpeas)

The post Israel’s first cloned milk hits cafés as Remilk and Gad Dairies launch “The New Milk” appeared first on Green Prophet.

Each time you sit down to eat a meal with meat products, do you ever take a minute to think about what it took to get this food on your plate? Every year, 70 billion land animals are slaughtered for consumption worldwide. While many organizations and law enforcement across the globe work to ensure the slaughter of animals is done without inflicting pain on the animals, it is nearly impossible to ensure that all slaughterhouses are following these rules. In addition, slaughtering animals in general is an inhumane practice and is done for the sole purpose of feeding us. However, the cultivated meat industry and specifically lab meat is taking the world by storm and may be the end of animal slaughter.

What is lab-cultivated meat?

Lab-grown or cultivated meat uses animal cells to grow meat in a lab as an alternative to slaughter. Labs growing cultivated meat take animal cells from a live, healthy animal in a harmless skin sample. This innovative way of producing meat was originally concocted in the early 2000s but was brought to media attention in 2013 when a cultivated meat patty was tried at a conference in London for a lump sum of money. Later Singapore was the first country to begin sales of cultured meat.

Israel is one of the leaders in the cultivated meat industry. In 2020, the company SuperMeat opened a restaurant in Tel Aviv called “The Chicken” which offered a cultivated chicken burger to see if their customers noticed the difference. Other Israeli companies developing cultivated meat are Aleph Farms and Believer Meats.

Environmental impact

A carnivore diet takes a major toll on one’s carbon footprint. In fact, meat makes up 60% of greenhouse gas emissions. Beef is the world’s most detrimental food product in carbon emissions due to methane production which makes up 32% of greenhouse gas emissions.

After the livestock has been slaughtered, there are additional greenhouse gases that go into the atmosphere from the transportation of livestock, processing in factories, and then the packaging of the final product. In total, the entire process, from the initial raising of livestock to the final destination of stocking groceries stores is a constant carbon dump.

Deforestation is also a major problem when it comes to livestock farming. Much of the land livestock is raised on has been deforested for the sole purpose of raising more and more cattle. In addition, the constant grazing of livestock diminishes grassland productivity to the point where grass can no longer grow. Eventually, farmers need to revert to unconventional methods of crop irrigation by using polluting fertilizers so livestock can be raised.

And don’t forget about the extensive water use that goes into farming. It takes 1,799 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. This comes from the keeping of land, cleaning, and drinking requirements of the cattle. Especially in the heat of summer and in bad drought conditions, water use can exceed a considerable amount and massively increase the amount of water needed to grow livestock.

Is lab meat kosher?

There has been much speculation on the increasing popularity of cultivated meat in Israel. Especially for religious Jews and Rabbis who keep kosher, many are questioning the reliability of the industry.

For meat to be kosher, the animal must be in good health, killed a certain way, drained of its blood, and salted. In addition, only certain parts of an animal can be consumed. All these parts of keeping kosher in relation to meat make the discussion of cultivated meat more complicated.

However, back in January of this year, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Lau declared that the steak made from Aleph Farms is kosher, marking a monumental decision in the cultivated meat industry. He claimed that because the meat was grown instead of slaughtered, the meat is not actually meat, and can be thought of like a vegetable. Because the meat does not contain milk nor dairy and no blood from an animal, Rabbi David Lau declared it to be parve. Dozens of other rabbis from the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization have also called cultivated meat kosher.

While Rabbi Lau’s ruling is particularly for the meat produced in Aleph Farms, it is still unsure if all cultivated meat can be considered kosher as there needs to be a careful inspection at all cultivated meat companies and they need to be certified to be kosher. In addition, many may argue that it is not kosher as cultivated meat has animal origins as it is derived from animal cells.

Rabbi Genack from the Orthodox Union Kosher Division has questioned the reliability of cultivated meat being kosher as he has said that even microscopic specimens of cells derived from a living animal would not be considered kosher. In order for the meat to be kosher, the cells need to be taken from a kosher slaughtered animal.

Another aspect of the cultivated meat industry is the question of how Orthodox Jews can keep their legitimacy when choosing meals to ensure they don’t sin on Jewish law. Rabbi Yonathan Neril from The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development is an environmental advocate for cultivated meat.

While he believes that in itself lab-grown meat is kosher, it should not be mixed with dairy. According to Neril who tells Green Prophet: “If Jews start eating lab-grown meat with cow’s cheese, then they might come to mistakenly eat cow’s meat with cow’s cheese, which would be a violation of Jewish law.”

Neril insists that Jews mixing cultivated meat with normally derived cheese can fray on the principle of marit ayin, which is when the action of an observant Jew may seem unkosher when in actuality it is.

This term is coined by the judgment of others’ skepticism; the Jew is technically adhering to the law. However, Rabbi Neril added, “If lab-grown meat and lab-grown cheese replace animal meat and animal cheese in mainstream consumption, then it could be that over time, it would no longer be a problem in Jewish law to eat the lab-grown meat and lab-grown cheese together.”

Earth or Tradition?

Unfortunately what this means for the kosher community is one’s own personal opinion. With the current emergencies that face our climate, it is important to consider the environmental benefits of choosing cultivated meat. The environmental advantage of cultivated meat is enormous and can massively decrease global greenhouse gases. In addition, kosher law requires slaughter, which is devastating in itself.

The final decision is still in the hands of Jews, which reflects the ideals of modernity. Is it time we update the traditional laws of Judaism and put what’s facing us in the climate first in line? Are Orthodox Jews willing to sacrifice what’s traditional for the sake of our planet?

The post Is lab meat kosher? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Have you ever walked into a grocery store and been confused about what was meant by the kosher aisle? What the symbol was on some food packaging that had a U with a circle around it? Today I will share with you what it means to be kosher and how to follow a kosher diet.

Keeping kosher is the practice of adhering to strict guidelines of dietary restrictions done by Jews for thousands of years. Most Jews that keep kosher are orthodox, however, Jews of all spectrums can keep kosher if they would like to. The Torah, which is the Hebrew bible of the five books of Moses, lists what it means to be kosher and how to do it. As Jews say, “to be pure, proper, or suitable for consumption” is a kosher diet. The Jewish word for being kosher is “Kashrut” which means to be fit, proper, and suitable for consumption”.

Kosher laws are the laws given by God to the Jewish people. One of which is that it is forbidden to mix meat products with dairy. For example, cheeseburgers are not kosher. Secondly, as Jews say, An animal is kosher if it has split hooves and chews its cud.

This means cow, lamb, and beef are all kosher. Pig is not kosher, so no bacon under Jewish law. Sea animals are kosher if they have fins and scales. This means flounder, cod, salmon, and whitefish are all kosher. Shrimp, clams, lobster, and crab are not kosher. Birds need to be non-predators, so chicken and turkey are deemed kosher under kosher rules.

When it comes to fruits and vegetables, it is important to thoroughly wash them because insects are not kosher (which also ensures a safe consumption of fruits and vegetables). Otherwise, all fruits and vegetables are kosher. Unless you live in Israel where the laws of shmita are observed.

It is also important that when preparing food all utensils used are not contaminated by non-kosher food items. So if a knife was used to cut a cheeseburger, that knife cannot be used to eat a kosher meal. In addition, kosher food cannot be cooked with non-kosher food. For this reason, there needs to be entirely separate dishes, pans, and utensils for kosher and non-kosher food.

Even when it comes to cleaning, there needs to be separate sponges to ensure there is no mixing. It is best that a kosher kitchen is kept as a kosher kitchen otherwise it is very difficult to ensure there is no mixing between kosher and non-kosher foods. Or, if you have a mixed household, you should have entirely separate cabinets that designate which pots, pans, utensils, etc. are kosher and which ones are non-kosher.

When it comes to packaged food, you need to make sure that the food item is labeled as kosher. There are different symbols that show that the food items have been verified and given a certification that it is safe to consume in a kosher diet. Some of these symbols include the OU (Orthodox Union), the OK (Organized Kashrut Laboratories), and the KSA (Kosher Supervision of America).

The environmental benefit of keeping kosher

Keeping kosher is better for the environment for a few reasons. Kosher laws skew what Jews are allowed to eat, leaving more room for fruits and vegetables. Although Jews can still eat meat (which is not great for the environment), they cannot eat meat and dairy together, so its own or the other. In addition, it eliminates certain products from the diet so it is closer to a vegan diet than a normal diet would be.

For example, kosher Jews cannot eat pork, which helps reduce their carbon footprint. “Your chances of being part of the sustainable movement by eating kosher is very likely,” says the Orthodox Union on keeping kosher. This is because some of the top kosher companies in the world have put sustainability measures at the top of their agenda.

Overall, the kosher diet is very important to Orthodox Jews and needs to be taken very seriously in the preparation of their food. Just like with any other religion, these practices need to be respected and recognized. Jews all over the world practice kosher diets, and it is very common to see kosher labels and certifications on food products and in restaurants.

The post A non-Jew’s guide to keeping Kosher appeared first on Green Prophet.

Israel is the global hotspot for alternative meat technology. The country’s growing population and limited farmable land, and climate change-induced water shortages have motivated Israeli companies to focus on developing cultivated meat as an environmentally-sustainable alternative. Alternative meat can mean a lot of things: it can be meat made in a lab using original meat or animal cells to create chicken or beef or fish; it can also mean creating meat-like proteins from plants or insects. But cultivated meat is meat that is real meat, made in a warehouse from original meat or animal cells, and which removes a lifetime of misery and pain for any animal by taking the animals out of the story.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog have publicly endorsed cultivated meat by investing $18 million USD and allowing Israel to ultimately lead in alternative meat and protein production.. Israeli start-up companies and academic labs dedicated to advancing cultivated meat technology has become a national research and development priority for Israel. And Israeli rabbis have essentially declared cultivated meat to be “non-meat” by agreeing its kosher status to be parve, the same as bread, apples, and vegan foods we eat today. It is classified to them as neither meat nor milk.

In 2021, Israel accounted for nearly a quarter of venture capital dollars invested in cultivated meat start-ups globally. Consider that three of the first eight cultivated meat companies in the world began in Israel, and today all three of them —Aleph Farms, Super Meat and Believer Meats, along with the new Nasdaq-listed Steakholder Foods—are poised for international distribution once the cost of producing these cultivated meats can be at par with traditional meat.

The top cultivated meat companies from Israel

Believer Meats, formerly known as Future Meat Technologies, is a cultivated meat company excited to scale to feed the world. Driven by a mission to ensure that all future generations can enjoy real and delicious meat, Believer’s technology and process will make meat accessible and affordable to all. Believer Meats culture meat from chicken cells and is working on cultured lamb kebabs and beef burgers. Based in Israel, its main office is located in Jerusalem, while its primary production facility is operating in Rehovot. 

Aleph Farms invested in by people like Leonardo DiCaprio, grows cultivated beef steaks, from non-genetically engineered cells, that are not immortalized, isolated from a living cow, without slaughtering the animal and with a significantly reduced impact to the environment. The company was co-founded in 2017 by Didier Toubia, The Kitchen Hub of the Strauss Group, and Professor Shulamit Levenberg from the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The company’s vision is to provide unconditional nutrition for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

SuperMeat also from Israel is developing cultivated chicken meat, grown directly from cells, in a sustainable and animal-friendly process. 

BioBetter is creating complex proteins for the cultivated meat industry. They apply advances uses in the lab for making vaccines in tabacco plants to procure proteins that can be used for cultivated meat companies. Consider them a raw material supplier to the alt meat industry.

Steakholder Foods, formerly MeaTech 3D  “STKH” (formerly MITC), is developing a slaughter-free solution for producing a variety of beef, and seafood products — both as raw materials and whole cuts — as an alternative to industrialized farming and fishing.

This past month, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drugs Administration approved the sale of cultivated meat in the US, which is a landmark decision marking it safe for consumption. Until now the only country that allowed sale of cultivated meat to the consumer was Singapore. Two prominent US companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat, successfully introduced their “cultivated chicken” at a cost that competes with regular meat. Not long ago companies such as Aleph introduced steaks but at a cost of thousands of dollars an ounce to produce. 

According to the MIT Technology Review, Upside, one of the companies that received approval from the FDA, can churn out 50,000 pounds (22,600 kg) of completed goods annually. It will eventually be able to increase to a maximum annual capacity of roughly 400,000 pounds (180,000 kg). 

How is cultivated meat made?

Compared to meat alternatives cultivated meat is made in a lab from real meat. It takes harmless existing cells from an animal and growing them inside what scientists call a cultivator. This cultivator mimics what occurs inside an animal’s reproductive organs to give the cells warmth and the environment necessary to transform it into meat. This includes proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. A cultivator is very similar to growing plants inside a greenhouse. Eventually, the product produced is the same as regularly processed meat at a cellular level. However, it is made in a much more environmentally-friendly way, according to founders of the company. 

The emergence of cultivated meat represents a significant milestone in the quest for sustainable food production. With the tagline of “meat without slaughter,” these products offer a humane and environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional animal agriculture. Cultivated meat technology holds tremendous promise for resource conservation.They can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and alleviate the strain on land resources.

According to the Good Food Institute, cultivated meat can reduce water usage by up to 78% and land requirements by up to 95% compared to traditional beef farming. 

The Israeli population has also shown a growing interest in alternative diets. A survey conducted in 2017 revealed that 5% of Israelis identify as vegan, 8% as vegetarian, and an additional 23% expressed a desire to reduce their meat consumption. 

Even the Israeli army has embraced alternative proteins, providing vegan meals and animal product-free gear to recruits. While cultivated meat may not appeal to those who altogether avoid animal products, it is expected to resonate with individuals who are already concerned about the environmental impact, inefficiencies, and ethical concerns associated with conventional animal farming.

Approving lab-grown meat for sale marks a significant step towards a more sustainable future. As more countries and companies embrace alternative proteins, cultivated meat has the potential to revolutionize the food industry and address pressing global challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, and animal welfare concerns.

The post Israel’s uneven impact in the cultivated meat market appeared first on Green Prophet.

The quinoa craze turned what was once a cheap, nourishing staple diet for Bolivians and Peruvians into an unaffordable grain for many of the poor locally. Read here about the dirty secret of quinoa. The appetite of western culture, and fanatic vegetarianism has increased demand for quinoa stratospherically: in 2013 the price of quinoa tripled from 2006 prices.

Prices have risen to such an extent that the poorer populations of Peru and Bolivia can no longer afford it and instead substitute for cheaper imported junk food. In Lima, quinoa now costs more than chicken and outside the cities land is increasingly being turned into quinoa monocultures.

Gaga for agar-agar

A similar story is happening in Morocco, El Jadida, with “red gold” a mineral rich seaweed used to produce agar- agar a natural gelling agent popular with cooks and professional chefs, used in pharmacology and cosmetics and an alternative to animal-sourced gelatins for vegetarians and religious groups that ban pork.

Over in Japan, agar is used for sauces, soups, jellies, and desserts. In the Western world, it is used as a gelling and stabilizing agent by meat and fish canneries, and in baked goods, dairy products, and candies as well.

In 2010 over exploitation pushed the fishing ministry to place quotas restricting its harvest, and today rising demand and falling supply has resulted in increasing export prices.

Agar-agar is an important gelling agent for people who cannot consume pork products, like Jews and Muslims. But it is also a staple for vegans.

Yet fishermen and are not seeing the economic benefits from these rising prices, research has shown that fishermen often sell the produce half the price pre-established by the quota  and are forced to dive deeper, with dangerous consequences  in the hope of finding this increasingly scarce, expensive “gold” (which by the way, currently sells at 0.4 USD per Kg- so not really gold) .

Killing Morocco’s ecosystem and society

Aside from the negative social consequences, overharvesting seaweed also has obvious negative to the local marine ecosystem.  Seaweed plays a major role in marine ecosystems , in fact they are considered “keystone species” since they are one of the first organism in marine food chains.

They provide nutrients and energy for animals, either directly when fronds are eaten, or indirectly when decomposing parts break down into fine particles and are taken up by filter-feeding animals. Seaweeds also act as filters by taking up nutrients and carbon dioxide from seawater reducing local coastal eutrophication and ocean acidification.

What was once ordinary red algae, has now become “red gold” with negative consequences on the fishermen and the environment.

We have to remember that nowadays crazes have a more significant impact than in the past. Globalization, increasing communication streams, increasing population, and rising incomes and the concomitant increase in purchasing power means that the decisions we make today have a larger ripple on effect on populations and environments that are far from our sight.

Using exotic foods, supplements and medicine to fulfill health habits, or becoming fanatic about not using certain produce may not be the answer to a more sustainable, global economy.

Looking at your own country’s tradition, local crop and seed wealth and medicinal herbs is just as efficient at supporting health and has a marginal and sustainable impact on local economies.  Like always, balance is the key and the solution lies right next to you.

Image of Red gold seaweed harvest in Morocco by Fadel Senna; image of agar red seaweed from Shutterstock

The post How vegan demand for agar is killing Morocco’s red seaweed appeared first on Green Prophet.

Black, with two mixing containers: a wet one and a dry. I’d heard my step-son and writing colleague praise the blender with fervour (read here on how to make a date shake).

Why are people so excited about a blender?

This machine is an earth-loving, green girl’s fantasy. It’s one of those machines that can replace every other machine on your counter. It gives you the option to make green shakes, juices (but can be messy), ice-cream (yes!), your own ground coffee, home-made and home-ground organic baby formula, vegan pate, fresh tehini, and a pot of soup right in the blender.

Apparently there are stages of addiction with the Vitamix and I am at the first stage: ice-cream. The addiction doesn’t go away, apparently, but it changes form.

Within 24 hours I’d made and eaten five kinds of ice-cream, all of them 100 percent vegan and 100% sugar-free. And boy was it delicious. You have to know that I am neither a vegan nor do I strive to be sugar free. These two benefits are byproducts of my addiction. This is coming from a girl who will eat nothing less than Baskin Robbins, and if given a choice will only eat Hagen Daaz.

I will supply a recipe that emerged from my addiction below. You can try it in a regular blender (the folks that don’t have a Vitamix), but it probably won’t work.

The truth is, my husband is watching his sugar intake and his health. And now we have two little kids that shouldn’t eat sugar.

Vitamix Anon?

And there are a few reasons why the Vitamix blender takes the cake. The size of the motor is apparently strong enough to crush stones, according to my step-son. At a workshop I was on at New Horizon in Israel (one of the only places where they are available in the Middle East), the machine can actually process dried chickpeas. Mixing hummus that’s cooked is a no brainer.

The fact that the blade is non-removable from the container means that it is a breeze to clean. This is a top point for someone as lazy as me. I love to cook but I hate to clean. A few cups of hot water, some drops of soap, a whirl around the engine and the Vitamix is clean.

The last blender I bought died when I was making a milkshake. The three-minute blend was too much for the machine and it died, puking out a terrible smoke. It almost caught fire when we found it smouldering later on. The Vitamix has a special switch that prevents it from heating up. If you are making too many almond butters or ice-cream (he, he), it will switch off before you can do any damage.

With a 10-year warrantee, I may be willing this machine to my kids. But there is loads of cooking to do before then. Over the next months I plan to take on some traditional Middle East cooking projects using my Vitamix. It can freshly grind flax seeds, for instance, but how will it handle hard hummus beans, making fresh tehini or my own secret falafel mix?

Until then, I am offering you my favorite ice-cream recipe, after five different tries.

Middle East fig ice-cream recipe

Ingredients

6 organic, dried figs
Handful of organic nuts, walnuts are good, cashews or Brazil nuts work too
Frozen organic banana
Tablespoon of dried date paste
Spoon of dried coconut
Dash of cinnamon
2 teaspoons of organic flax seeds (unground)
2 tablespoons of organic, sugar-free, fat-free chocolate
2 cups ice

Blend all the above together (leaving out the ice) on high speed, using the black rod that comes with the machine. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s very essential to have this thick magic wand in action while the above ingredients are grinding. Push it into the sides as the machine runs on turbo.

After about 40 seconds grinding with some uniform consistency achieved, add in 2 cups of ice. Then get the black wand ready to start mixing. It takes a bit of effort, but it’s worth it. After about another 40 seconds round you’ll have the finest tasting gelato-like ice-cream you’ll ever find on this planet.

And the health benefits? Don’t get me started. For Jewish chefs the result is kosher, pareve. For Muslims, it’s halal. For vegans, it’s vegan. For raw food lovers, it’s raw. For sugar addicts, it’s a more natural way to get your sugar high. Top it off with some crunchy granola and you’ll find heaven on earth. Even if you replace any of the ingredients above with something else similar, you probably won’t go wrong. Don’t try onions, for instance. But if you don’t have bananas, try a frozen orange. If you don’t have coconut, try raisins… the list goes on.

My step-son tells me that after the ice-cream addiction stage, I will probably move on to green shakes. Honestly, I’m already jones’ing for one but we don’t have any apples left from all the stuff we’ve been making over the weekend.

::Vitamix

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Over here in the Cradle of Humanity Jews are ardently building their sukkahs. The serious ones are already finished. If you happen to be in Israel, or any other country with a sizeable Jewish population look out for small, fragile looking huts. Jews build these sukkah huts every year for Sukkot, or the Hebrew Holiday of Booths.

It is harvest time for the Jews, but to keep things in proportion and all men (and women) back down to size, the Jews build the temporary dwellings to reminisce about those 40 years wandering the desert with Moses. Those times weren’t easy, and even today with fierce Middle East humidity, sand fleas, pesky feral cats, and annoyingly loud neighbors, living for eight days in a sukkah ain’t easy.

The holiday of celebration starts tonight. Men are running around cities looking for the four species, an etrog (which will make a nice jam later – here’s the etrog jam recipe), myrtle branch, palm frond, and willow branch for their daily ritual over the eight days.

Children are busy decorating the huts with chain links, and pomegranates, and traditional women are in the kitchen cooking.

Today’s folk don’t need to stick to tradition to keep the sukkah kosher. For observant Jews there are some very specific specifications which are too complicated for me to get into right now; but you can also get a little fancy while keeping in line (and in God’s good books).

Back in 2010 there was a wonderful sukkah design contest called Sukkah City in New York. We stumbled upon a video today about that event (see above), one that discusses innovative design elements you can put into the sukkah (you can also spell it succah, succah, or sukka), which you can see above. Told by a rabbi, he also gets into the basic elements that you need to keep your sukkah kosher.

I love Sukkot. It is a joyous back-to-the-earth holiday. There are no fasts to endure like at Yom Kippur. No family pressures like at Rosh Hashannah (much like Christmas time for Christians), and with it comes the promise of the season’s first rain. Decorations are usually kept simple and natural, much like the sukkah itself. Four wispy walls, and palm leaves or bamboo for shelter from the sun on the roof.

Happy holidays and Hag Samech to our Jewish friends and readers.

The post Sukkah Design That’s Natural, Gorgeous and Kosher appeared first on Green Prophet.

The European Commission (EC) approved a pork-based feedstock for farm-raised fish.  Next year, your mullet and trout might contain chicken and pork:

Horsemeat in burgers, meatballs and frozen lasagna is startling, but while these products include a “secret ingredient”, they remain as advertised: meat-based foods.  But what happens when the fish on your dish also contains meat?

Wild salmon won’t be tucking in to a pork roast, but their farmed cousins will soon be dining on ground up pig parts.  A variety of animal byproducts are processed into an animal protein powder, also called meat meal, which is now approved as an additive to fish food.  Byproducts include pork-sourced cartilage (from ears, tails), hooves and organs, and it’s not particularly clear that those parts come from perfectly healthy piggies either.

The Middle East is a large importer of European seafood

Seafood labeling is widely a slipshod business: in a study last year, non-profit Oceana performed DNA testing on seafood sold at 74 retail outlets in Los Angeles. Results showed that 55% of 119 fish samples were misidentified. If California can’t get species properly sorted, what’s the likelihood that the Middle East can take it a step further and also identify each fish’s diet?

How’s this swim with Jews and Muslims and pescatarians?

How can you know if your fish purchases are kosher, or halal, or just pure fish? Will the absence of dietary surety mean an exodus of shoppers from the seafood aisle? It could be that the EC is cutting off it’s own metaphorical body part in a misguided attempt to help its aquaculture industry.

In 1997, a similar fish feed was banned for its connection to Mad Cow Disease.  Debate raged over the global food network.  Was it ethical to feed cow products to cows?  Was it safe?  But time passed and rules softened, and in 2008 fish meal was reintroduced to pig and poultry feeds. This latest step flips the food chain, now feeding pork and poultry meat meal to fish.

The news is muffled.  Food Navigator gave it a few paragraphs, as did EurActiv.  But what’s the reaction in Israel and Jordan? Why no squeals from the Gulf states or snorts from Egypt?

Global web mover and shaker Avaaz is raising a stink (appropriate for a subject that combines fish and pigs).

They’ve got a petition in play to pressure governments to stop porkfish from entering our markets. Avaaz has incited over 1 million people to petition against genetically modified food in Europe, and another million to take action against mutant salmon “frankenfish”. Want to join the movement?  Click this link and sign, share with everyone interested in controlling what they eat.

More comfortable sitting back, allowing governments to meddle with your menu?  Then perhaps you should memorize a new take on an old rhyme:

This little cod went to market; this little salmon stayed home, this little tuna ate roast beef, and little tilapia had none. And this little porkfish ran all the way home!

Browse more on this in our archives: aquaculture, Genetically Modified Food, global foodchain, halal, kosher, Mad Cow Disease

The post Are Pork-fed “Porkfish” Kosher and Halal? appeared first on Green Prophet.

The European Commission (EC) approved a meat-based feedstock for farm-raised fish.  Next year, your mullet and trout might contain chicken and pork.

Horsemeat in burgers, meatballs and frozen lasagna is startling, but while these products include a “secret ingredient”, they remain as advertised: meat-based foods.  But what happens when the fish on your dish also contains meat?

Wild salmon won’t be tucking in to a pork roast, but their farmed cousins will soon be dining on ground up pig parts.  A variety of animal byproducts are processed into an animal protein powder, also called meat meal, which is now approved as an additive to fish food.  Byproducts include cartilage (ears, tails), hooves and organs, and it’s not particularly clear that those parts come from perfectly healthy piggies.

The Middle East is a large importer of European seafood.

Seafood labeling is widely a slipshod business: in a study last year, non-profit Oceana performed DNA testing on seafood sold at 74 retail outlets in Los Angeles. Results showed that 55% of 119 fish samples were misidentified. If California can’t get species properly sorted, what’s the likelihood that the Middle East can take it a step further and also identify each fish’s diet?

How’s this swim with Jews and Muslims and pescatarians?

How can you know if your fish purchases are kosher, or halal, or just pure fish? Will the absence of dietary surety mean an exodus of shoppers from the seafood aisle? It could be that the EC is cutting off it’s own metaphorical body part in a misguided attempt to help its aquaculture industry.

In 1997, a similar fish feed was banned for its connection to Mad Cow Disease.  Debate raged over the global food network.  Was it ethical to feed cow products to cows?  Was it safe?  But time passed and rules softened, and in 2008 fish meal was reintroduced to pig and poultry feeds. This latest step flips the food chain, now feeding pork and poultry meat meal to fish.

The news is muffled.  Food Navigator gave it a few paragraphs, as did EurActiv.  But what’s the reaction in Israel and Jordan? Why no squeals from the Gulf states or snorts from Egypt?

Global web mover and shaker Avaaz is raising a stink (appropriate for a subject that combines fish and pigs).  They’ve got a petition in play to pressure governments to stop porkfish from entering our markets. Avaaz has incited over 1 million people to petition against genetically modified food in Europe, and another million to take action against mutant salmon “frankenfish”. Want to join the movement?  Click this link and sign, share with everyone interested in controlling what they eat.

More comfortable sitting back, allowing governments to meddle with your menu?  Then perhaps you should memorize a new take on an old rhyme:

This little cod went to market; this little salmon stayed home, this little tuna ate roast beef, and this little tilapia had none.  And this little porkfish ran all the way home!

 Image of porkfish from Avaaz, and of  salt-water pig from Shutterstock

The post Is Pig-fed kosher or halal? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Look at any Middle East dining table and the humble tomato is usually there front and center, diced into a cucumber salad or sliced in big wedges drizzled with lemon juice and olive oil. No one knows fresh tomatoes like the Levant. It makes sense, then, that the Israeli company LycoRed should corner the market for lycopene, a new super-food and natural dye extracted from the tomato.

Lycopene is quickly replacing artificial and animal-based red dyes across America. Health-conscious, vegan, kosher and halal consumers are paying particular attention to this new “green” red dye.

Red food coloring is an attractive way to add a natural tint to milkshakes (Starbucks does it), red velvet cupcakes, candies and yogurts, but recent evidence on six synthetic dyes, including Red 40, links them to behavioral problems in children.

As savvy parents demand better solutions for candies and snack foods, and big retailers such as Starbucks are searching for natural alternatives for their fruit shakes, all eyes are on Israel.

LycoRed has been making natural dyes — from orange to red to red with bluish notes — for about 15 years using carrots or tomatoes. The company recently doubled production of Tomat-O-Red, its antioxidant-rich lycopene compound from non-genetically modified tomatoes grown in California and Israel.

Kosher– and halal-certified, it is recognized as safe for consumption by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Kicking the old red habits

Roee Nir, the company’s color and flavor global commercial manager says that the “Southamptom Six” — Red 40 and five other petroleum-based synthetic food dyes – were found by Southampton University researchers to be linked with childhood reactions including temper tantrums, aggressiveness, kicking, screaming and a lack of self-control. Children are particular susceptible to the effects of Red 40, while in adults it might cause nervousness, migraines or an upset stomach.

Food coloring makes a wide variety of processed foods more attractive.

LycoRed’s colorings offer fresh hope for the food industry. The company’s lycopene is now widely used in products including surimi, an artificial crab meat; smoothies and yogurts; beverages and juices; and confectionary like gummy bears and hard-boiled candies, says Nir.

And now Starbucks? A recent controversy was stirred when Starbucks declared it would no longer use a petroleum-based dye in its Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino. Initially the company announced it would switch to carmine, a dye produced from a beetle, but vegetarians objected and so did kosher consumers, who are not permitted to eat insects. Starbucks quickly replaced its “bug juice” with lycopene.

LycoRed is the only lycopene producer with FDA approval, so it’s a good bet that Starbucks uses the Israeli product, though Nir can’t name names due to non-disclosure agreements.

Cosmetics and drugs and pizza

LycoRed has had to double its production to meet increasing demands, and Tomat-O-Red is expected to transition from the basic foods industry to cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Tomatoes, rather than Red 40, can color your luncheon meat.

Though other Red 40 replacements from the natural world include a dye from beetroot, Nir says these other solutions are not as chemically stable as lycopene and tend to degrade at high temperatures or over time. They are also more susceptible to damage from UV light.

That puts LycoRed in an enviable position, particularly as public awareness of lycopene’s health benefits for the skin and heart has really started taking off in America, Nir adds.

A new nutraceutrical is launched 

Lycored, the global leader in naturally derived carotenoids for food, beverage, and dietary supplement products, has just launched Lycomato Beadlets 5%—a new delivery format for their premier anti-inflammaging solution. Their flagship wellness extract Lycomato⁶ formerly known as Lyc-O-Mato.

The addition of the 6 in the branding emphasizes the power of the six tomato-based phytonutrients in the formula, including hero lycopene, phytosterols, phytoene, phytofluene, tocopherols, and beta-carotene. These components work independently and synergistically to support timeless aging and beauty from within.

Over 25 published studies demonstrate the effectiveness of Lycomato⁶ full composition in fighting inflammation and oxidative stress and supporting cellular wellness, skin health and beauty, heart health, and eye health. The innovative dry format unlocks additional application opportunities for Lycomato⁶ including gummies, capsules, powdered beverages and tablets, offering brands new ways to introduce the anti-inflammaging power of Lycomato⁶ to their consumers.

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