The Orthorexia Question

In my time online, I’ve rarely interacted with Talia Lavin. There’s no personal reason, and no vendettas either, we simply don’t travel in the same circles. But I respect her, and consider her a valid voice in the Jewish community globally. She’s also a great writer, based on what little I’ve read. I mention all this in case I’m accused of belittling her.

Recently, Talia wrote a piece dissecting a book from Trump’s Surgeon General, Casey Means, explaining why “Make America Healthy Again” reeks of orthorexia. I’m no health expert, but I agree that obsessing excessively about what you eat is dangerous. My late-Zaidy was ahead of his time with food, limiting his consumption of red meat early on, but he also owned a bakery briefly because you can’t deprive yourself of every indulgence. When he was diagnosed with diabetes in his mid-80’s, he’d already stopped caring despite his appetite dwindling by that point. He lived to 92, by the way.

Depriving yourself of pleasures in an attempt to be disciplined isn’t great. Not that you should fill your body with complete trash, but discipline and pleasure shouldn’t be mutually-exclusive. Interestingly enough, Judaism, the religion Talia and I share, understands this. There’s a reason we bless food before and after consuming it, as well as why we’re obligated to not be boorish when we eat. If we’re to live as decent, moral individuals, we need to respect our bodies too. After all, they were given to us on loan from God.

Anyway, let’s discuss keeping Kosher, which is what prompted me to write this in the first place.

In her critique of Means, Talia draws parallels between orthorexia and keeping Kosher. She admits it’s not a 1:1 comparison, even explaining the differences, but in doing so I feel she sells Kashrut short. Yes, Kashrut has many weird laws and regulations that are confusing to outsiders. There’s a classic joke involving Moses and God on Mt. Sinai where God becomes frustrated with Moses’s questions about not boiling a calf in its mothers milk and yells “You figure it out!”, underscoring how Jews tend to overcomplicate everything with minutiae. It’s a great joke, but ending it there does Kashrut a disservice. Talia may not have meant it, but there’s a less-than-zero-percent chance her correlation between orthorexia and keeping Kosher does that for the uninformed.

I’ll admit I’m biased. Unlike Talia, who left this practice largely behind when she got older, I became stricter about keeping Kosher as an adult. I blame part of that on my brother becoming a rabbi and going to Yeshiva University, but also part on me growing up with the Jewish educational system. Regardless, there was always a mystique around Kashrut’s strictness that intrigued me as a teenager, enough that it started as my way of “rebelling against the system”. I definitely see the correlation Talia made, and agree that violating Kosher laws is merely a personal affront, but I feel she sells Kashrut short here.

Remember that joke I referenced? While it’s definitely great, it intentionally ignores how Kashrut, like everything in Judaism, is meant as a living conversation that evolves. Having separate dishwashers for “meat” and “dairy” came about as dishwashers became standard in households, coupled with the rise in a middle-class that could afford such distinctions. Before then, people ate what was available to them and washed utensils by hand, so separate dishwashers was a nonstarter conversation. Even now, if you don’t use certain meat or dairy utensils for a certain period of time, you can theoretically get away with flipping their status. I haven’t even gotten into “Parve”, or “neutral”, utensils, because that’s a separate issue…

The rules of Kashrut are as conversational as they are rigid. The Talmud, every Antisemite’s favourite punching bag, makes a ruling designating poultry as meat. The rabbis agree with this unanimously, with one exception: Rabbi Yossi Ha’Galili, whose community ate chicken parmesan. However, he’s the minority opinion, included to facilitate discussion, and his stance didn’t last. Kashrut, like every other law in The Talmud, is a general consensus, even when it doesn’t make sense or, as with the case of a clay oven, is objectively wrong in God’s eyes.

Essentially, it’s as much communal as personal, and the more you understand, the more you know its ambiguities. I don’t think Talia’s review of Means’s book addresses that nuance, which is unfortunate because she had the potential to teach her readers about it. Not that she should revise her thoughts, especially when her goal was to critique orthorexia, but I consider it a missed opportunity. It’s why I felt I needed to respond to her at all. Which leads to my big point:

The rules of Kashrut go out the window if it means saving your life. If you’re forced to eat pork at the hands of death, you’d better eat it. Of course, there are scenarios where eating it would be murky, especially if you doing it is meant to make a mockery of Judaism, but God would forgive you anyway. This is because Jewish law’s meant to be practical, and common sense still applies. In this I think Talia also missed an opportunity.

One more point that throws a wrench into the orthorexia-Kashrut comparison is that Kosher food being “healthier” than non-Kosher food’s a debate. Maimonides believes there are legit health benefits, but even he was challenged by his contemporaries. Outside of that, Kosher food can be equally as unhealthy, if not more unhealthy, as non-Kosher food, as evidenced by “gribenes”, or deep-fried chicken skins. Even still, goose liver and veal can be Kosher, despite the ethical ramifications surrounding them, which is why I avoid them personally. Kashrut doesn’t guarantee healthy living.

I’ll end with a personal anecdote: even when I wasn’t strictly-Kosher, eating what my family calls “milky-treyf” (or dairy food that hasn’t explicitly come in contact with meat), I couldn’t stand certain non-Kosher smells. Bacon being fried gave me a headache, enough that I once had to excuse myself, while shellfish still makes me want to gag whenever I see it on someone’s plate. This aversion’s probably psychosomatic, but it helped me not develop cravings for treyf food. I’m not exactly hankering for a cheeseburger, as the thought of eating one makes me nauseous.

Maybe this is why I felt a need to respond to Talia. Again, my goal isn’t to judge her, as that’s between her and God. We all have our vices, and I’d be hypocritical to chastise her for that. Rather, my points are to stimulate conversation about Kashrut’s nuances, especially in relation to Means’s orthorexia. I only hope Talia’s receptive, as opposed to offended.