Sheldon > writes:
>There's no extra costs for keeping kosher,

Hogwash. Kosher meat is more expensive, because it is produced in
lower volume, because the people doing the slaughtering in the kosher
slaughterhouses are better paid, because extra salaries are paid to the
rabbis supervising the slaughtering, because the process of koshering
the meat adds labor and material costs, because the rules for
transporting kosher meat are complicated and cause additional expense,
and probably for a number of other raesons I'm forgetting.

It's patently ludicrous to assert otherwise. Just one of the reasons
mentioned above, the fact that more time is required to prepare kosher
meat to be sold than is required for non-kosher meat, proves that
kosher meat is inherently more expensive due to labor costs, if nothing
else.

Kosher cheese is also more expensive, primarily due to increased labor
costs and lower volume.

Generally speaking, only people who keep kosher buy kosher meat and
kosher cheese, exactly because they are more expensive and there is
less variety in the meats. This, of course, is yet another proof that
the "kosher tax" conspiracy theory is absurd -- because the companies
that manufacture meat and cheese products would make less money if
their products were certified, they're not.

There are some people who like the taste of kosher chicken and kosher
all-beef hot dogs better than their non-kosher varieties and therefore
go out of their way to buy them, even though they're more expensive.
This is YET ANOTHER proof that the "kosher tax" conspiracy theory is
absurd -- where there are real differences between kosher and
non-kosher products, there are actually people who go out of their way
to buy the more expensive kosher varieties. Isn't it lovely how
capitalism works?

>And most who claim to eat kosher meats don't, there are very few
>kosher butchers anymore... many go through the motions of salting is
>all, same as before there was ever a kosher butcher shop... kosher is
>primarily a mindset, a very plastic mindset that stretches as far as
>one chooses.... it's really like kids playing marbles, folks make up
>new rules and bend the old rules on the spot as they go. Kosher costs
>nothing extra.
>
>The only time one pays more for kosher is eating at restuarants, but
>then all specialty restaurants are expensive.

I don't know where you get all this crap from, or the crap about
keeping kosher in your other postings in this thread, but the fact of
the matter is that you don't have a clue what you're talking about.
There are kosher butchers in pretty much every significant Jewish
community in the world. It's pretty easy for any Jew living in a
Jewish community of any size to get kosher meat. Very few people salt
their own meat anymore except in a vew small, extremely religious
communities scattered throughout the world (e.g., New York City,
Baltimore, Jerusalem). Most communities in which keeping kosher is
normal keep a common standard of kosher adhered to by the members of
that community.

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