Kosher Eucharist / יוקאריסט כשר

Imagine a country in the South Pacific. Let’s call it… Zew Nealand. It’s larger, more populous, and more developed that other South Pacific nations, and it has a reasonably stable government. This government has the free time to create a number of useful agencies, including, say, a Food Safety Authority.

Now let’s imagine that someone from a blog - let’s call it Halal Shahadah - works there, and gets to read emails from people who write in:

“hi my name is _____ if someone is 25 weeks pregnant and there fridge has defrosted and the chicken has defrosted and become infected there is a smell and flies from the fridge will this affect the baby?”

Think about the fact that this woman will make a New Zew Nealander in less than four months’ time.

“hello how are sheeps slaughtered thanks”

Food Safety Authority, honey. Not butcherfaq.com. Why do you need to know this?

I had a request for all the deer slaughterhouses in the country (from “Team Meat”), and one man from India wanted to know the name of every place - every single one - that sold dairy products. A doctor in Hong Kong reported “oily diarrhea” in people who had eaten something called “oilfish,” and wanted to know the rules for labelling it. A man angry about genetically modified corn - which is not sold in Zew Nealand, to my knowledge - asked if “you are a Human being or an alien who doesnt care about health and your communitys.” Someone found rat shit in his cereal, ate some, vomited, and told us. A woman sought permission to import a “calming paste” for dogs and horses, to treat “anxiety, nervousness, distraction and stress.” The active ingredients are B-vitamins, tryptophan, and chamomile. A woman and her husband had eaten some fish and left some out for the cat. The next morning, they found the cat had disdained it and that it emitted a bright green glow. The woman asked if this meant it had mercury in it. (The terrifying answer is that there are some species of fish that glow when they decay.)

Sigh. The things I put up with to keep food safe here in Zew Nealand…

Hypothetically.