The Official Frum Girl Guide to Start Keeping Kosher

 

Hi girls,

Today I’m bringing you a realistic guide on how to start keeping kosher. If you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking “okay, the time has come. But where and how do I start???” Hopefully, this will answer some of your questions. Also, check over any halachic questions that may come up with a rabbi, as I’m for sure not really qualified to answer them (I suggest the app InstaRabbi for that). Two important things before we start with the actual guide:

Remember to go one step at a time

Don’t try to go from eating non-kosher to kosher overnight. While your wanting to commit fully to this mitzvah is really amazing, and Hashem is proud of you, if you get too ahead of yourself, you might trip. So this guide is basically in steps of  “importance.”

Learn how to cook, if you haven’t already

Girls, I can’t tell you how monumental of a difference it makes to be able to cook your own food. You won’t have to be bothering your parents to cook something different for you, and you’ll avoid mixups and accidents. I know, you might think that cooking is hard, but I promise you, there’s plenty of things that are fast, easy and nutritious you can learn how to make without much stress. BzH in a future post I’ll bring you my go-to recipes.

1. Cut out the “real” treyf

Start by taking on to stop eating the most non-kosher stuff. While all of kashrus is equally important in the end, not eating the forbidden animals is the basically the foundation of kashrus. I would say to start from the things you eat more often and try to find some suitable substitutions. If you often eat ham sandwiches, try to switch them for turkey or pastrami instead. You can also try vegan substitutes, which are very often kosher certified (bonus points). Then there are those things you may eat occasionally, like fancy types of seafood. So if a situation presents itself where say, you’re invited to a restaurant and most people are having lobster, try to have fish instead (remember, not all fish are kosher. The most common common and “straightforward” kosher one is salmon. Here’s a list of types to avoid: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2998673/jewish/Non-Kosher-Fish-List.htm). 

2. Stop eating milk and meat together

If you think you can handle it, merge this with step one. It really depends on if this is or not a staple part of your diet. If you only occasionally have a bacon cheeseburger, then switch that for a regular burger. If you’re really adamant on your love of this combination, go very literal at first. Don’t boil (and eat obviously) a kid in its mother’s milk. So maybe switch the beef stroganoff’s sauce for non-dairy cream. Don’t fry meat in butter, use oil instead. Then go to not having the Parmesan in your Spaghetti Bolognese. Afterwards, you should try to not have the two things on the same dish, like having steak with mashed potatoes and butter. Don’t forget, that while this is only a prohibition on a rabbinical level, it also applies to chicken and any other (land) animals. So try to also follow the steps above with all possible combinations, whenever you feel ready (at the same time as with beef or not, again, depends on what you regularly eat). 

3. Wait between eating milk and meat

After you have mastered the steps above, start waiting between eating milk and meat. The standard practices are to wait 6 hours between eating meat to have milk, and half an hour between eating milk to have meat. You can start by waiting an hour to have milk, then increase gradually. There are some who actually have the custom to wait less, BUUUUT please don’t actually take these customs upon yourself if it’s not your tradition. Please make sure you actually have ancestry that would back this up, or it’s your rabbi or mentor’s custom. Try to find pareve deserts if you like to have sweets after a meal, like vegan ice cream or dairy-free cookies. Also, some cheeses with a stronger flavour also require you to wait 6 hours (here is a list: https://oukosher.org/blog/consumer-kosher/aged-cheese-list/), so again, start gradually. 

4. Try to start having only kosher slaughtered meat

Maybe start by eating strictly kosher meat on shabbos or some other specific day only, and then gradually switch to eating strictly kosher meat. If you think you can handle it (instead of eating kosher some days and non-kosher on others), I would suggest going into a sort of vegetarian diet for a few days, and then only eating meat if it’s kosher. I’m not going to try to convince the carnivores out there that you’re going to love it, or anything, but yes, it’s healthy, and yes, you will survive. Give it a try. I guess needless to say, taking this upon yourself also involves eating vegetarian food only when you’re at a non-kosher restaurant (the infamous “eating dairy out”). 

5. Try to start having only kosher certified dairy products

Depending on where you live, this might not be crazy hard for a lot of things. In the U.S. and Canada a lot of packaged milk has a kosher sign, or hechsher. Rav Moshe Feinstein ruled that in the U.S., the government’s laws against mixing different kinds of milk acts as enough of a certification to thus allow any pure cow’s milk, even without a kosher sign. This might also apply to a lot of more countries with such laws, so check to see if it does where you live. It also might not be uncommon to find kosher butter, heavy cream and even cream and cottage cheeses at most places in North America. At this step, you’ll probably also want to begin gradually cutting eating in non-kosher restaurants. If the situation ever arises, your safest option is to eat something vegan or fish. 

6. Start being mindful of different foods’ specific problems

When I was still eating at non-kosher restaurants, one of the things I always made sure not to eat was bread. Why something that could seem as unproblematic as bread? Because whenever you eat bread, and other foods made from flour, like pizza, you must wash your hands, and say Birkat Hamazon, or Grace After Meals. This is a really important blessing, a mitzvah directly from the Torah. So knowing that I wasn’t going to eat something 100% kosher, I never had bread. Something else to be careful with is wine, grape juice and things like wine and balsamic vinegars, since these have stricter laws than other drinks and/or products (honestly this is a bit of a complex issue and I couldn’t really find a good article explaining it, will update if I do). 

7. Start eating strictly kosher certified products

At this point, you should start to make sure that everything you buy and eat is kosher certified. There are certain products that are always kosher, even with no sign on the package. Here is a list: https://www.star-k.org/articles/kosher-lists/3502/no-hechsher-required/. This means, you should no longer eat at non-kosher restaurants. This is a pretty big step, so only take it when you truly feel ready to do so.

8. Go fully kosher, to the best of your ability

If you’ve made it to here, shkoyach, chazak u’ baruch to you, really! This is a huge accomplishment. Now, I will let this great PDF sent to me by a friend take over. This step in of it self has its own steps, so take your time with it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-cJPRMKLgo7clV7572Nh6szMpcaZxZ4U/view?usp=sharing 

If you take all of these steps, after some time, you’ll be eating completely kosher. Remember that every little step you take is impressive in the eyes of Hashem.

Wishing you all success in your journeys,

Batya V