Kosher Blog

Some comments:

There is no halachic requirement that kosher cattle be fed only organic feed, be hormone and antibiotic free (although many are one or the other), or be free ranging until time of slaughter. The current trend in Orthodox Rabbinical circles seems to be to reduce the scope of the laws against animal cruelty so that they only apply to sadistic mistreatment of animals, as opposed to mistreatment for profit. See recent teshuvot on the kashrut of pate de foi gras for an example.

While I believe that shechita is the least painful method of slaughter available at low tech levels, it is misleading to say that this is the underlying justification for shechita. I’ve never met an O rabbi who would consider a cow killed with a hypothetical painless deathray to be kosher – shechita is ‘humane enough’ and there is no need or allowance to go beyond those limits even if it were possbile.

Orthodox Jews are unable to change what kashrut means – I can give up meat (as I have veal) if I conclude that kosher meat is being produced in a way I consider ‘naval b’reshut haTorah’ – scandalous but within the bounds of halacha, but I can’t switch to humanely raised, naturally fed, painlessly but non-kosherly slaughtered meat. The Reform, Renewal, and Reconstructionist movements however, are experimenting with the idea of eco-kashrut – either requiring ecologically sound practices in addition to the halachic requirements or more commonly replacing one with the other. For those non-Jews who are seeking a way of making eating holy, I suggest investigating those paths as well as the following the suggestions given by the author.

On taste:

Kosher poultry tastes so good because the salting and soaking is equivalent to the ‘brining’ method of preperation that is currently getting a lot of publicity in gourment cooking circles. Unfortunately, the same technique leaves beef tasting fairly dry and leathery. The average kosher chicken is above average in taste compared to all chickens, but the average cut of kosher beef is below average for the set of all cuts of beef. Additionally, as you noted above many of the best cuts of meat are unavailable in kosher form in the US.

You’ll note that I didn’t say “best cuts” of the hindquarters, as it’s entirely subjective. The tenderloin is incredibly tender, but very lean. No fat means no flavor, which is why tenderloin is either heavily spiced or served with a rich sauce. In my opinion, having had my share of filets, a prime rib eye that’s thick, well-marbled, and aged is the best steak you can get.

Of course, any piece of meat can be divine if prepared properly. Stay tuned for a fabulous short rib recipe.

What can I say, I miss filet mignon. :>)

jabbet:

With regard to your comment that “no fat means no flavor” and “prime rib eye that’s thik, well-marbled…” you should see the recent article in Slate that taste tests grass-fed beef. The conclusion of the article was “Marbling, schmarbling. The steak with the least intramuscular fat tasted the best—and was also the cheapest. That said, the steak with the most marbling came in a not–too-distant second.”

You can find the whole article at http://www.slate.com/id/2152674/?nav=tap3

HB– great link, interesting stuff. Grass-fed is definitely the best tasting. Marbling, in my experience, has been a good indicator of tenderness. I’ve got some sub-par rib eye steaks in the freezer right now with giant globs of fat that are as tough as anything. Could’ve just been a tense cow.

Just the facts that an animal must be healthy before shechita and there’s no hunting should convince people that kosher is better.

“Could’ve just been a tense cow.”

I hope tense cow isn’t a precursor to mad cow!

Slitting the throat does not render an animal instantly unconscious. There is the time (and pain) associated with the initial slitting of the throat, then time required for the blood to drain from the neck. If someone gave you a choice between being shot in the head or having your throat slit, which would you choose?

Furthermore, large ruminants (e.g. cows) have an accessory blood supply to the brain via the vertebral artery. This artery remains intact when the throat is cut, which only opens the common carotid arteries and jugular veins. As a result, cows killed in this manner remain conscious significantly longer than other animals would.

I must say wise kosher is very good.
Also it drips very little fat.
As for widely available, whole foods carries it.

Since I’ve previously gone 10 rounds with Jonathan Abbett and other frummies over various kashruth issues (e.g. Cabob cheese), I was surprised to find myself reading his thoughts and nodding my head the entire time. This article marries intelligent thought with religious devotion and produces a sum perhaps greater than the parts. Yasher koach, Jonathan, and thanks.

Interesting expose video on kosher slaughtering. Would be interested in hearing other’s comments.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-7330038074290819722&q=is+kosher

BS”D

Yitz, and this video is relevant how? How does that video address the question of whether or not the kosher meat is better from a quality standpoint? All I know is that from a religious standpoint, kosher meat is better for Jews to eat than nonkosher.

Frankly, I don’t care whether it’s beef or foie gras, animals are ours, as people, to use in any productive way, and as long as kosher slaughtered kosher animals provide tasty meat relatively inexpensively, I’ll continue to buy it an eat it. Frankly, I don’t know whether kosher or whether nonkosher meat provides a better dining experience, because I’m relegated to kosher. I do wish more kosher meat were graded, and specifically “choice” or better (most kosher meat is ungraded). But I’ll continue to buy kosher meat because I’m a carnivorous-leaning omnivore. And I’m not particularly worried about the treatment-style of the animals within the slaughterhouse, as long as the meat comes out kosher and relatively free of pathogens. Just as in foie gras production the animal is not being mistreated, just processed, kosher slaughter, like all slaughter, is a dirty, violent process.

“Frankly, I don’t care whether it’s beef or foie gras, animals are ours, as people, to use in any productive way…”

…as governed by the laws of Torah as explained by our sages and later rabbinic authorities. As such, Foie Gras would not seem to be kosher given the prolonged “treatment” of the animals before slaughter. Given that R. Moshe Feinstein Z”T ruled that veal raised in a tightly bound/caged setting could not be kosher because the animal could not enjoy eating/living, one has to wonder if the exact same dynamic would fit the period of forced feeding of the poultry. The Israeli Supreme Court appears to have seconded that emotion and banned the production of foie gras in a 1983 decision that took affect in 2005.

Slaughter is indeed a dirty, violent process, but that doesn’t mean that kosher Jews therefore have carte blanche in that setting. The laws of Torah, thank God, still apply – perhaps even more so. I’ll take my Solomon’s buffalo burger medium done and cruelty-free, please.

Nice post, Nathan.

Is foie gras as bad as the vegetarian terrorists make it out to be? Chef Tony Bourdain and author Michael Ruhlman wrote an interesting back-and-forth on the topic for Salon.com last month. I think it’s in a similar spirit to this thread, and the end of the piece really puts the debate in perspective (apologies for the length):

BOURDAIN: The worst thing is that foie gras isn’t even one of the more horrible examples of raising animals — and it’s such a small sector of the food supply. But it’s an easy target because it’s fancy, and associated with the French, and the videos people see are lurid.

Cruelly raised foie gras — the poor animals you see in the videos in tiny pens with tubes being, as they always say, “shoved down their throats” — is bad foie gras. None of us would buy that stuff. That’s not what we want, and that’s not what D’Artagnan sells. In proper foie gras farming, the same feeder tends the duck every day, and more often than not, it’s the duck who approaches the feeder. They have room to run around, to live a good, natural life — even a pampered one — compared with the horrifying and vastly more widespread practice of raising battery chickens.

RUHLMAN: Most Americans seem only to hear about foie gras bans relative to the so-called inhumanity of their force feeding. Just a little investigation reveals the fact that these ducks have to be super healthy to support all the weight they gain. It’s also been widely reported that they have no gag reflex and their throats are naturally tough due to the way they eat in nature. And accounts by the journalists who’ve had unrestricted visits to these farms — like Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune and Lawrence Downes at the New York Times, for example — all suggest these ducks are far from inhumanely treated. The opposite in fact.

BOURDAIN: They live much better lives than any chicken that’s been sold by the colonel, that’s for sure. And really these ducks aren’t doing anything that a porn star doesn’t do on a regular basis.

RUHLMAN: Funny. But we are in agreement. In my opinion, the four farms that grow ducks for foie gras in this country — especially the largest ones, in New York and California — they ought to be made examples of by our legislators, not as places of animal torture, but rather as models of humane farming. Unlike factory hogs, which have their tails painfully cut off and never see the light of day before winding up as cheap grocery store pork, the billions of chickens that live packed wing to wing and live in their own ammonia-reeking waste, or the feed-lot antibiotic-laced beef — if I had to come back today as an American farm animal destined for the dinner table, I’d choose to be a Moulard duck raised for my fat liver in a heartbeat.

BOURDAIN: Yes, it seems to me that the activists for whom the suffering of animals is unbearable, their lobbying against foie gras is not just bad time management, it’s cynical time management.

Billions of chickens, hogs and beef are being harmed — that’s carnage on a far vaster scale — but big agribusiness is a difficult and powerful target. They don’t get much bang for their buck, from a political standpoint. It’s much easier to go for the small artisanal farmer with little resources and no lobbying group in D.C.

And as an aside, as a reader of the news, I have to say it disturbs me that while people are being force-fed in Guantánamo Bay, politicians are wasting an hour or a minute complaining about poor ducks. Hell, Whole Foods is worrying about freaking lobsters and mollusks.

RUHLMAN: Yes, I did hear that the conditions the oysters used to live in at Whole Foods were just deplorable. But now they each have their own personal trainer.

BOURDAIN: Look, if you don’t want to patronize a business that serves foie gras, don’t go there. Running full-page ads telling people how evil you think it is — that’s also a legitimate enterprise, in my view, and one that’s been effective in the case of anti-fur activism. But particularly as I travel so much and have come to know so many other cultures older than ours — to criminalize ways of eating, to suggest that we’ve all been wrong since Roman times, well, that kind of interference scares me. It’s like an American tourist traveling around the world stopping over in different countries, and saying, “This is wrong and you should stop that — because me and my privileged, well-fed, white friends in our comfortable shoes think so.” I respect people’s decisions. You don’t want to eat foie gras? Don’t eat it.

But the intended bill on foie gras in New Jersey is not a breath of fresh, sensible air, it’s a whiff from the crypt.

BS”D

Obviously, I agree. Much ado about nothing. And I’m not concerned that Israel’s court was swayed by the mishegas. I do thing that they cut their own throat, as goose liver was an important and lucrative export product of Israel, and not having it stresses the Israeli economy, but they can do what they want. I’m not concerned about Rav Moshe, Zt”l’, psak concerning veal, because animals raised under those conditions tend to die before slaughter to a far greater extent than normal, and those which make it to slaughter have a far greater chance of sirchos. Fact is, kosher veal has rarely been produced that way, even pre-psak. Not good business to have half the animals die before they’re even shechted.

I’m so glad I came across this extremely informative post. I’m not Jewish and my interest in kosher foods (primarily chicken) is based largely on taste. The Wise kosher chicken at Whole Foods is the best chicken I’ve had in the U.S., but it is awfully expensive at $5/lb. Can anyone recommend a similarly excellent chicken for less?

Thanks,
Pierre

Try Empire, Pierre. It’s much cheaper and similarly flavorful.

Wise Kosher chicken is both 100% Organic and Kosher, which is why it taste better and cost more. Empire is only Kosher, which means that the chickens are not free range and they consume feed that has been treated with pesticides.

From its website:

Empire Kosher Poultry raises free roaming birds, naturally without growth stimulants. Our birds eat healthy and live healthy…so you eat healthy!

It sounds like semantics or word tricks to me. ie, free roaming doesn’t equal free range…but it sounds better.

Just so you are aware, whether you care about how animals are treated or not (and when you hear the stories about how animals are treated in industrial food lots, it is hard to imagine that anyone would feel fine about that no matter how little of animal advocate they may be), grain-fed animals are considerably healthier. This means that they require fewer antibiotics (creating fewer antibiotic resistant organisms to infect humans as well — it is widely believed that feedlots will be the source of superbugs due to their indisciminate use of abx). This also means that their meat will be lower in saturated fat and higher in omega 3 fatty acids. It is widely thought now that grain-fed meat (aside from being sicker and in pain due to the fact that this isn’t a natural diet for these animals) are also less nutritious and in fact harmful to our health. Aside from the obvious dangers of saturated fat, in neurology we are finding that an abnormal omega 6 to omega 3 ratio is likely associated with neuropsychological problems such as ADHD and learning disabilities. This concern about the raising of livestock is not just theoretical, but also very much in the self interest of our public health.

In my opinion, it is a farce to say that an animal that was raised in an incredibly cruel environment could be called kosher, when it is clear that animal cruelty is forbidden in the Torah. When you learn what is happening in industrial feedlots compared to a traditional farm, it is difficult to imagine that this could be kosher.

BS”D

Luckily, we go by the Torah rather than by your opinions or feelings, Miri. We have objective criteria for kashrus, and those criteria are the only criteria used in determining kashrus. It’s fine for you not to eat kosher meat because you consider it less healthy or more cruel or whatever. I have no problem with that. But I couldn’t care less about your opinions about the farcical nature of the objective criteria of kashrus. And by the way, I believe you meant that grass fed animals were more healthy. Maybe, but they’re scrawnier and tougher. I like more tender meat.

“We have objective criteria for kashrus, and those criteria are the only criteria used in determining kashrus.”

Sure, and no kashrut authority has ever told his followers that a product/restaurant/butcher was no longer acceptable for reasons that didn’t strictly speaking have to do with the “objective criteria” of the kashrut of the food itself. Nobody has ever politicized kashrut before… Although you obviously don’t agree with the concept Miri is advocating, at least have a realistic view of kashrut as it is actually practiced.

Jeepers, HB… rough weekend or something? :) It is not unreasonable to say that big-K “Kashrut” is made up of objective criteria, halakhot derived from the Torah. The politics of individual certifiers is a different story for a different thread, just like the politics of Miri’s comments.

Getting back to tastier matters (your earlier comment about lean, grass-fed meats)… I grilled up a buffalo burger a few weeks ago, and it was quite delicious. It didn’t taste like a different meat from beef, it just tasted a lot beefier.

Kosher Meat at Star Market in Brookline, MA
vs.
Non Kosher Meat

Kosher Drumsticks $3.19 pound
Shaws Drumsticks $.79 pound

Any thoughts?

The Costco in Lawrence, NY has both the traditional Costco 5 pound Purdue bag of frozen chicken breasts, and, for about ONE DOLLAR MORE, a similarly sized bag of Empire frozen breasts.

(I think it’s five pounds. It may be 8 or 10. It’s the standard meshuggah Costco size bag.)

Perhaps y’all in Boston should petition your local Costco to carry this product, seeing as how Empire already manufactures it and has the means of putting it into the Costco distribution system.

—matt

First of all, even before it comes to the slaughtering, let’s talk about the raising of the animals. Here’s a surprise for you, a cow has actually lived somewhere for years before it was slaughtered and so does the chicken for some time. And they do it at the same CRUEL CONDITIONS as the other animals that are slaughtered by regular methods CONSTANTLY ABUSED, at least in the U.S. As long as farming is an industry, this trend will continue. And everyone who eats inorganic kosher meat is contributing to this trend.

Second, apparently not all the kosher meat slaughterhouses adhere to the standards either. Watch http://goveg.com/jsfkosher.asp to see one of the gruesomest pictures shot at one of these slaughterhouses unveiled.

Third, no matter how the animal is slaughtered, if it didn’t have a normal life, growing process and and so on, it cannot be healthy for you. You are what you eat. Remember that. And you can never be sure where that meat you have on your plate really came from. Was it really organic or did they lie to you as usual? Did it run free? Or did it have its beak cut off and put in a cage whee it couldn’t move, breathe grow, walk, etc. Did they let this cow out of its smelly cage or they restricted its movement so that your meat is tenderer? Think about these things next time you eat that steak.

Couldn’t disagree more,Yael. Especially the part about the cow’s beak being cut off. I think you should learn some biology. But be that as it may, having witnessed many cattle ranches, I’ve never witnessed cruel conditions. No, commercial farming requires animals to be healthy, because unhealthy cattle waste feed and cost too much in veterinary costs. Unhealthy animals cost money, and you can be certain that the industry standard is to avoid such unnecessary costs.

Craig, That was awesome!

It’s rare that I get to witness that great trifecta of obnoxiousness: rude, arrogant and hilariously ignorant of basic economic concepts. Let’s unpack this a little:

1) I could possibly forgive the cow / beak comment except for that small thing about how Yael never… err… you know… wrote that. Try reading the post again (you may need to put your thinking cap on for this one as she discusses *two* kinds of animals and occasionally uses pronouns).

2) It’s pretty spectacular that you’re looked at some cattle ranches and didn’t observe any cruelty – ergo, there is no animal cruelty anywhere. Let us ignore all of the evidence to the contrary – the veritable plethora of pictures, videos, etc., from both kosher and non-kosher commercial meat sources. Yes, let us ignore all of that because Mr. Winchell has personally witnessed some cattle ranches.

3) And now, we move right into my wheelhouse: economics. Yes, it is undoubtedly true that unhealthy cattle (assuming they are sufficiently unhealthy that they can’t be sold to consumers) would waste money. It is further true that industry probably wants to avoid unnecessary costs. So far, we’re doing well. Here’s the thing though – wouldn’t treating the animals better by giving them a lot more space to roam around, smaller cages, etc., cost a whole lot of money? Any particular ranch / farm has a fixed amount of space, so smaller cages = more animals that can fit in the space. If cramming animals into very small cages rendered 99% of them unfit for human consumption, then industry wouldn’t do it. If some sufficiently smaller number of cattle were rendered unfit for consumption, the number would likely still work in favor of the cruely conditions. It is entirely possible (and, based on the evidence, rather likely) that some level of what many perceive to be animal cruelty is profit maximizing.

Many (most) of us choose to eat meat, myself included. This does not mean that we should bury our heads in the sand when evidence is brought about the suffering of the animals that become our dinner.

BS”D

Howard, beef cattle are not raised in cages. In feedlot farming, they’re raised in large pens, with plenty of room to get around, becaue after all, all of the cattle need to get to the feeding station. There’s plenty of food and water, and extra water when the weather is hot. There are salt licks to keep up electolyte concentration. There is regular veterinary inspection and if necessary, intervention. There is range living during a portion of their lives. Remember, we’re talking beef cattle here, not veal. Of course, how many cattle die terrible deaths on the free range, either from starvation or thirst or other exposure? Which is more kind- to give the animals plenty to eat on the feedlot or to leave them to their own devices on the range? Survival is easier and better assured on the feedlot. Cattle may not get much exercise, though. Then again, even on the range, all they do is stand in one spot and eat and poop, and occasionally lie down. In a cow’s life, there really ain’t much difference between the 2.

BS”D

Debeaking is designed to eliminate cannibalism from flocks of egg-layers, due to the fact that egg laying varieties often exhibit extreme cannibalism, while it has largely been eliminated from meat varieties of chickens. See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debeaking . Just as with the specialization of cattle varieties for milk or meat production, chicken varieties are specialized as well into laying varieties and meat varieties. So when one makes arguments about slaughter varieties based upon practice in egg production, the argument is ludicrous. And when one makes arguments about beef production based upon practices in veal production, the arguments become ludicrous. And when one makes film productions about production of one product using images specific to another product, the arguments promoted in the films become invalid. These people are playing to emotion rather than intellect. It’s their right, but I don’t need to buy into their positions.

Surely it is a Torah-true concept that we effect our cells and the world around us with conscious thought. Surely therefore it is true that a misused, badly treated, dirty, badly fed animal will produce spiritually unclean meat. When you eat that animal, you are consuming it’s history. Surely then we should be deeply concerned about the animal’s conditions if we are to consume it?

So I would like to ask a couple of questions, for the opinionated and knowledgeable to comment on:

1-Is this not the essence of being spiritually aware and using common sense in looking to consume healthy meat?
2-Does kashrus say anything about this, or is it subjective?
3-Is the primarly concern about an animal’s life, or an animal’s death?

BS”D

To my knowledge, that’s not a Torah concept, or a Jewish concept in general. That doesn’t mean it’s not admirable to consider things such as that, or that it’s inconsistent with the Torah. That just means that the Torah gives us guidelines for holiness, and we keep kopsher to be holy for our G-d, not to be spiritual. But if spirituality can help you in solidifying the concept of holiness, by all means be spiritual. In general, we become holy by performing mitzvos and refraining from aveiros, as they’re understood, and if we require sprituality, we get it through prayer. But I suppose anything one does to connect with G-d is OK as long as it isn’t inconsistent with Torah. So to answer your questions, 1) Being spiritually aware is not what we’re trying to do- we’re trying to be holy, 2) I don’t think the halachos of kashrus say anything about this,but kashrus is of course subjective, reflecting only the Torah perspective 3) the primary concern has nothing to do with either animals’ or peoples’ lives, but rather with sanctifying G-d. In that, we’re given the guidelines. As long as we follow these guidelines, anything else we do is ok. From a tzar baalei chayim standpoint, we’re worried about the life of the animal in the context of using the animal. From a kashrus standpoint, we’re worried about the death of the animal, that it was done properly according to Jewish law, that the animal be neither treif nor neveilah, and that the animal have a minimal standard of health so that their are few lesions or adhesions which would make the meat unfit for our food.

Please indulge me. Where in torah does it lay out the precise method of slaughter? Or is this Talmud, subject to much debate and change. I dare say that the carefullest and most precise cut will only extract most, but not all of the blood which I pressume was the intent of ha shem. And for the record marble is fat. Where do we draw the line?

BS”D

The Torah tells us to slaughter the animals in the manner G-d prescribes, without ever telling us what that manner is, leading to the conclusion that there was an oral tradition brought down at the same time as the written Torah. Not all fats are prohibited, and the marbling and white fats are permitted. Finally, you’re correct that not all blood is removed by “bleeding out” from the shechita, which is why there’s also nikur, which is removal of the forbidden parts, which includes large blood vessels which may contain pooled blood. Blood left in the meat after the soaking and salting is defined as “juice”, not “blood”, and the soaking and salting is done after vessels are removed.

Wise Kosher Chicken (which is both kosher and organic) is by far the best chicken I have ever eaten, and in fact has “made” me more observant because I can’t bear the thought of eating a non-kosher “non-Wise” chicken these days. It’s true that it is far more expensive than other chicken (both kohser and non-kosher) but seems to me to be worth it if used sparingly in soup or to compliment a dish. The problem is getting it — at least here in Chicago, where only few Whole Foods stores have it, and the few that do seldom carry it non-frozen, often forcing us fans to order it in advance.

To write the animal is instantly unconsious after the throat cut is untrue; there is great variablity in onset of unconsciousness, particularly in cattle and calves. Occlusion or ballooning in arteries causes delays in bleeding and there may be additional cuts required to increase bleeding time. Unconsciousness may be delayed for up to several minutes. There are many variables: the swiftness or slowness of the knife cut, the skill of the slaughterer, the level of excitement of the animal, the tendancy in some animals for their arteries to occlude. For more facts on this issue go to Dr. Temple Grandin’s website. In her study there were no animals that collapsed instantaneously; the shortest time was 8 seconds in the “best” plant and the longest was two minutes.

BS”D

I don’t think that anyone claimed the animal loses consciousness immediately upon shechita. Nevertheless, a properly rendered throat-cutting leaves the animal halachically dead, as far as I know, even if it may have be conscious. Just as a beheaded person’s head must retain consciousness for some period of time, yet the person is halachically dead. It may serve the industry’s purpose to do things according to methods endorsed by Temple Grandin or for that matter, Dr. Doolittle, but it’s still just generating meat for me to sink my teeth into.

Thanks for your comments Carol. I’ll keep them in mind while I eat the brisket left over from the second seder. I prepared it with a rub of spices including cayenne pepper, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, honey and black pepper. It was roasted with leeks and dried apricots in a red wine sauce. It was delicious. You can find the recipe here at epicurious.com
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/234425
I’m with Craig. Shechita is ultimately a process that generates meat for carnivores to consume. It’s irrelevant to me to discuss how much more or less humane it is. It is simply what we believe to be G-d’s instruction intepreted by our Sages on how to prepare meat.

To the posters here who posted in a mocking, derisive or otherwise negative fashion towards those advocating certain standards of treatment for animals, I ask that you take a more open-minded, comprehensive, and indeed stricter view of the kind of person your religion asks you to be. To base flippant remarks or actions on the authority of few passages in religious texts calls to mind various tragedies committed by religious zealots during the past dozen years. I am not suggesting you are committing tragedies, but I am suggesting you have greater potential as humans and as Jews than you are exhibiting.

I recall a report in Consumer Reports or something like that where they tested different store-bought chicken for salmonella. As I recall, the Empire (kosher) chicken was slightly more likely than the non-kosher chicken to be contaminated, but the salmonella in the Empire was a much weaker strain than that found in non-kosher chicken. Apparently, whenever non-kosher producers find salmonella in a single chicken, they use antibiotics on the entire flock just in case, which leads to antibiotic-resistant strains. Empire apparently doesn’t do that. I don’t know if there is a halakhic reason for the difference.

Part of kosher law is the animals must be ruminants (chew their cud). Modern cattle have been bred, fed, and medicated to mimic a pig. They no longer chew their cud.
Industrial corn feed also includes chicken, beef, PIG, and fish meal for protein.

How could anyone say a carnivorous cow that likely fed on an un-kosher animal and no longer has any cud to chew is kosher?