New York – Elk meat is about to become available to kosher consumers.
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Noah’s Ark Processors in South Dakota, which sells kosher meat under the Solomon’s Finest Glatt Kosher label, is expecting to slaughter its first elk for the commercial market on Monday. It will be shipped to supermarkets including Fairway and ShopRite the week of July 14, according to owner Ilan Parente.
Those stores have been carrying the company’s kosher buffalo for the past 10 years, he said.
Parente said Noah’s Ark has been raising elk for 11 years and exploring the idea of processing its meat for the kosher market for at least six.
“It took that long for the rabbis to say yes, it’s kosher,” he said.
Elk is a member of the cervidae family, which includes deer.
Rabbi Seth Mandel, who oversees Orthodox Union-certified kosher meat processing in North America and South America, says this is the first commercial production of kosher elk meat.
Although he says elk is “good meat, not as tough as deer,” Mandel expects elk to be a specialty product like buffalo that will “take a while” to penetrate the kosher market.
Parente disagrees.
“We don’t look at it as exotic,” he said. “These animals have been here before the cow was introduced to North America. They’re native to this country.”
In addition, Parente points out that elk is “70 to 80 percent leaner than beef, it’s tastier and a lot healthier.”
Do we really need more megusham fressers eating and chowing on all type of luxurious meats when we have achenu benei yisrael starving in some parts of the world? We are a bunch of self centered , selfish baalei taivah and we will fress and give in to our desires no matter what the cost is. We have thousands of people in New York that eat out at restaurants and spend thousands of dollars in restaurants like prime Grill and the likes without any kind of gevul. WHat a low bunch of society these people belong to. Meat is to be enjoyed on special occasions not chowing on daily by these baalei taivah.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hQLEtXYtLWZHD3WnUw5OrbaMG7UAD91OJN5G0
What a vicious , mean spirited comment. How do you know what the cost$ will be? If it is much healthier than beef, how do you even figure out the long term cost (in healthcare, heart attacks, high cholesterol??
First buffalo, then elk and before you know it reindeer. Where is the mesorah. Their must be a chumrah thats been overlooked somewhere.
If this kkeps up they will be screaming for Slav before you know it
the smaller you make the circle the more people find themselves outside the circle;;and living in america with it all its freedom and people still want to eat kosher they should be commended
Great idea! It will help fill the void created by the loss of Agriprocessors!
6:38 You are a numbskull. If it is kosher meat and someone wants to eat it, al pi halacha they should be allowed to eat it. Your grandparents ate goose all the time. When was the last time you ate a goose? Or shmeared a bread crust with goose fat? Tastes change over time, and based on what’s available. If Elk can be processed kosher, what’s the problem. If you want to be a tzaddik and refrain from eating it, fine. But if I want Elk stew for shabbos, what’s the problem?
“ich bin”, no, reindeer are not kosher. Quail (slov) has been available for years, but it’s expensive; you can get it at Levana.
There’s no need for a mesorah for mammals – the Torah gives the simonim explicitly. If an animal has the simonim it’s kosher, and anyone who says it’s treif is contradicting the Torah and all the rishonim and acharonim.
Some have raised a shayla about elk becuase it has two tusks in its upper jaw, but this isn’t really a shayla: first of all they’re not teeth, and in any case the simonim in the Torah are clear, and the siman of teeth that the gemoro adds is only if you can’t see the other simonim.
Milhouse: It’s not so simple, it’s a big machlokes haposkim whether nowadays animals need a mesora (either for kashrus or for beheima/chaya status).
That was the basis of the Zebu shaila from a couple of years ago.
Milhouse, you idiot, check the chochmas odom. He’s an acharon, if you haven’t heard.
Forget about Elk-Does anyone know where to get some Kosher Locusts and Girafe? I understand both of these things are in fact kosher, is that correct?
I’m not a rav or a posek, but I will say this-anom 6.38, who do you think you are to judge other people? If elk is kosher and I want to eat it, who are you to have a problem with me?! I’m a baal taiva? We all have taivas and halevie evryone should direct their taivas to eating good meat as oposed to other things wich I need not mention! Shame on you for being such a angry self centered person with an apparent-if I can’t have it you can’t have it-attitude. And btw its not even a chumra not to have it, cuz a chumra is by deffinition something which is allowed but better not to do, and as far as I know there’s no problem eating meat every day so long as you can afford it. If anyone disagrees with me feel free…cuz at the end of the day you know that I’m 100% right.
Murray, giraffe is definitely kosher, but it’s not available anywhere. You can’t even get traif giraffe meat, let alone kosher, because nobody eats it. Probably because it doesn’t taste good. The OU was going to shecht one last year, just to demonstrate that it is indeed kosher without any shaylos, but the cheapest one they could find cost $25,000, and it was over a year old, so they were afraid it would turn out to be a treifa and all that money would be wasted.
The status of locusts depends on whom you ask, and whether we can rely on the mesorah of the Temonim. R Kapach a”h paskened that we can, and personally approved locusts for the consumption of Ashkenazim, but most Ashkenazi rabbonim disagreed with him.
Anon, there IS NO SHAYLA about the zebu. It is a complete and utter narrishkeit. A zebu is a breed of cow, just like a longhorn or a holstein or an angus or any other breed. NONE of these breeds existed in 17th-century Poland, so if you really think the Shach ruled that we can only eat the same animals that he did then you’re in big trouble.
Do you remember the chicken shailoh & that includes the eggs, & what about the milk, the worms on vegitables & insects in water, Gebrocks on Pesach , machine Matza, hand matzah, you name it the list goes on?
Bottom line Loi Nitno Torah L’malachai Hashoreis, but remember Kdoishim Thiyu.
What a socialist concept from comment #1 . Jews starving all over the world? True, many Jews can’t afford beef or even chicken. Does that mean that people who can afford meat shouldn’t eat it just because others can’t afford meat? Should I not buy eggs because so many can’t afford eggs? Or let’s just assur rib steak altogether because it’s so expensive. If elk is glatt kosher and it’s available, then those who can afford it have no reason not to buy elk.
murray has got a good idea. i don’t care how much giraffe costs, i want some. what say we found a sort of co-op to fund a giraffe that we can schecht and share? S&S CO-OP. sounds pretty good.
the zebu is indeed without shayla implications, many folks in order to facillitate its marketability among certain niches refer to it intentionally by mistake as a brahma cow.
You ‘chachomim’ are all a bunch of morons & you are talking out of your hind quarter.
We know what a kosher animal is… PERIOD. Ken zayn we dont know grasshoppers or birds which are more difficult but amimals, thats not an issue. The mesora is one from Moses on Mt. Sinai.
Millhouse is not too crazy. I had a friend a”h who when he lived in Kenya was going to shecht a giraffe as once upon a time, they used to eat giraffe in Kenya. The problems with giraffe is NOT where to shecht as most people think, its that the meat really isnt that good and it is VERY expensive.
The original poster is very off the mark. HKB”H in His infinite wisdom gave us what to eat and we were told in the torah to eat it. There is a mitzvas a’say to eat the kosher species etc and thus we get a fairly ez mitzva.
tootired Says:
Milhouse, you idiot, check the chochmas odom. He’s an acharon, if you haven’t heard.
07-07-2008 – 12:19 AM
Too tired to be civil? Why don’t you watch your loshon and not call people idiots?
Anon. 6:36/6:38?PM. Speak for yourself, sir!!!
We all know what a great ONOV (UNEV) you are! As a matter of fact, WEE always knew! But now the entire [Yiddishe] world knows!!! Still, it’s preferable to say VIDUY (VIDEEEHHH) B’Yechidus rather than in [a] public [forum]!!! Because you did all [or most] of the Aveiros enumerated, doesn’t mean that everyone has to participate in you acts of Teshuva!!!!!!!!! Thank You
Elk is 100% kosher. The Zebu issue is not so poshut. There are many rabbonim today, talmidai chachomim, not meshugaim, who assur Zebu, and even any bovine breeds that have significant Zebu blood in their bloodlines, like the Angus!
I am not clear on the issues involved, but have been told there is also a problem with the zebu and India. I have no opinion myself on that, other than the simple fact that rabbonim whom I highly respect are very makpid on that. The BaDaTz is also makpid on that.
But, an elk I would eat tomorrow. This is not new. I have already eaten elk, shechted privately by a reliable shoichet. It is delicious. Nothing I can think of is comparable to a good elk steak.
I would love to see it here. I know I would happily buy it and eat it if it were shechted by someone I trust.
Chaim S, what an idiotic response to a truthful but hurtful comment. The point is, .as they say on Shabbos, bosor vedagim vechol matamim. meat is a luxury and should be treated as such. The Torah never forbid meats, on the contrary it encourages consumption of meat but on special occassions. What we see in America is a disgrace. We see the consumption of fancy meats by people on a daily basis. Because you fail to recognize the truth , only strenghthens my position that Americans are a bunch of spoiled brats and have to have every form of luxury at their disposal.
Mark my words, extremely tough times are ahead and there will come a time when people wont afford this luxury and all these fancy restaurants will have to close shop because of the economic hardships and chaos thats headed our way
Anon 2:58, if you have a problem with zebu then kol sheken you have the same problem with elk. The “issue” with the zebu is that the Shach wrote that we only eat a few animals that we all know about. Since the breeds of cow available to him did not include zebu (or *any* of the other breeds we have today); but if you worry about that then you must surely worry about elk too. At least the Shach did eat some kind of cow, but he didn’t eat any kind of elk!
reindeer are kosher
I cant wait for someone to learn how to halachically shecht a giraffe. I’ll take the neck bone, please
No, Morris, reindeer are NOT kosher.