Q&A: Salting and Rinsing According to Modern Chemistry
Salting and Rinsing According to Modern Chemistry
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi,
Recently I came across a video explaining that the process of salting meat does not really remove blood from it, but mainly water, and perhaps only a very small amount of blood, through a process of reverse osmosis. In your opinion, could we dispense with salting and rinsing if there were sufficient evidence that blood molecules are not removed from the meat by this process?
Best regards,
Answer
Absolutely. There is nothing sacred about salting. It is a means of making the meat kosher, just like the laws of absorption in utensils and the like.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t think it’s correct to say that it is no longer blood. This is not a case of dashing on the altar. Blood that congealed or thickened is forbidden to eat.
Oren, you would have to prove that not a single blood molecule is removed by salting. It is hard to believe that such a thing could be proven.
I wrote above that a little blood is removed, but most of it is not.
Rabbi,
If such a thing were proven, would studying the laws of salting (which are a substantial and complex part of the Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De'ah) be considered Torah study, or neglect of Torah study?
Right, so as long as salting removes a little blood, one can say that this is what the Sages intended salting to do (to remove that minority amount), and therefore it cannot be dispensed with.
If it removes only a very small amount of blood, that has no halakhic significance.
As for the question whether this counts as Torah study, one must distinguish between facts and halakhic norms. In the factual dimension, nothing is Torah. Therefore all factual determinations are not Torah, even if they are correct. The norms derived from them and relating to them are Torah, even if the facts are incorrect. They teach us what to do in any other factual situation, including those that are correct.
I have brought here more than once the example of the presumption that a person does not pay before the due date. Search for it here on the site.
So if salting does not remove the blood, then it would be forbidden for us to eat cooked meat, and we could only eat meat roasted over a fire???
Not necessarily. It may be that blood that cannot be removed is not forbidden. It is considered part of the meat.
I also thought that perhaps from the standpoint of Jewish law, blood that has dried out is no longer considered blood (for example, because it is not fit to be dashed on the altar). So maybe for the purposes of kashrut it is enough to dry out the blood, and there is no need to remove it completely.