S13. E15: Melissa Hoffman: Eat Your Ethics
“A lot of people think that kosher means that animals were treated significantly better than animals that enter the non-kosher market. And largely, this is just not true, because kosher is very much now a part of the same systems that produce 99% of the animal products that get into our grocery stores, and therefore could be categorized as factory farmed.”
Rabbi Melissa Hoffman is the director of the Center for Jewish Food Ethics, an organization bringing ancient Jewish values about land, animals, and nourishment into the realities of today’s food system.
At the Center, Melissa works with synagogues, schools, summer camps, and community institutions to shift their food practices through plant-based defaults and culturally rooted changes that align with Jewish values of compassion, sustainability, and justice. She also tackles widespread misconceptions — like the belief held by half of American Jews that kosher automatically means humane.
In this conversation, we talk about how Jewish communities can rethink food in ways that are joyful, practical, and deeply values-driven — and why these small shifts can bring people together while transforming the food system from the inside out.
Please listen and share.
In gratitude,
Elizabeth Novogratz
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