Nutricious Kosher Cooking

For generations upon generations, kosher cooking focused on feeding large families using a scant amount of low cost ingredients. Jewish mothers did not think about the carb and fat levels of their chopped liver, fried schnitzel, stuffed cabbage and potato kugel. They did not mull over the calories in their cheese blintzes and mushroom knishes. And taste was their only consideration when they decided how much salt or sugar to use in their chicken matzo ball soup and babka cakes. If the food's make-up did cross their minds, they probably thought the heavier the food the better because who knew what tomorrow would bring.

Fortunately today most kosher cooks can afford to buy plentiful amounts of luscious ingredients and do not face life-threatening anti-Semitism. Unfortunately most 21st century kosher cooks confront health hazards as a result of today's highly processed food and sedentary lifestyles. We worry about obesity rather than pogroms, cancer rather than forced conversions, and heart disease rather than exile.

Kosher cooking is evolving in response to our changing world. Whereas kosher food was a matter of survival for our ancestors, kosher food is a matter of healthier bodies and souls and higher quality living for us. Today an increasing supply of kosher cookbooks and recipes merge ancient Jewish dietary laws with the latest information on nutrition.

• Nutrilicious, by Edith Rothschild
• EnLITEned Kosher Cooking, by Nechama Cohen
• Low-Fat Kosher Recipes