Kosher Foods For Passover

• Animals with split hooves or those that chew their cud are allowed on Passover. These include cow, sheep, goat, deer, lamb, addax, antelope, bison, venison, gazelle, giraffe and ibex. Furthermore, milk from these animals is considered kosher.
• Domesticated birds, such as geese, chickens, turkeys and ducks are kosher food that can be consumed on Passover. Also, their eggs are kosher.
• Kosher animals should be slaughtered as per the kosher ritual called “shohet”, wherein the animal dies instantly.
• Kosher animals being slaughtered and processed should be inspected by a rabbi.
• The internal organs must be inspected to check out blemishes that can otherwise determine the animal to be non-kosher.
• Meat and dairy products should not be eaten together even if they are kosher.
• It strictly forbids "seething" a young goat "in its mother's milk”, which simply means avoid preparing and cooking kosher foods like meat and dairy together. It also forbids consuming any derivation from such a mixture.
• Always use separate storage containers, cooking and serving utensils, cutting and preparation boards and pots for cooking meat and dairy products in order to keep the food kosher.
• Fish that have fins and scales are deemed to be kosher. Shellfish is, however, prohibited.
• Fish, too, cannot be eaten directly with meat.
• Though all fruits and vegetables are termed to be kosher, they should be checked for bugs and insects.
• Foods containing a leavened agent must not be consumed during Passover, such as wheat, oats, barley, rye, spelt, breads, crackers and cakes.
• Wine and grape juice cannot be consumed during Passover. Only kosher wine and juices are allowed.
• Some birds are not kosher like the eagle, owl, swan, pelican, vulture, and stork.
• All 'flying creeping things' like insects and other creatures are considered impure including the locusts, grasshopper, acrida, beetle, cricket, etc.
• Certain rodents and 'creeping thing which creeps upon the earth' are also unclean like salamander, jerboa, gecko, shrew, weasel, ferret, stoat, mouse, lizard, crocodiles, chameleon, monitor lizard, mole rat and other worms.
• A kosher food that is processed or cooked together with a non-kosher food or any derivative of a non-kosher food becomes non-kosher.
• One of the main biblical kosher food laws forbids ingesting blood on account of "the life in the blood”. For this, to be observed all meat should be processed by the technique of melihah.
• The status of cheese is complicated, as cheese is made from rennet an enzyme. So cheese made from rennet derived from kosher animal is kosher. And if a kosher animal is not slaughtered according to the halakha, the rennet is also not kosher.
• Gelatin is largely considered as non-kosher and is substituted with food starch from tapioca, chemically modified pectins, and vegetable gums like guar gum, locust bean gum, xanthan gum, gum acacia, agar, etc.
• Many strict rabbis believe that all food items and even the raw materials be prepared or handled by Jews strictly.
• There is also a prohibition on drinking or using water for cooking if the water has been left overnight and uncovered in an area where there might be serpents as it may be poisoned.
• Kosher salt is used for preparing dishes. It has a much bigger grain size and is free from any additives such as iodine.