When my cat lays down in loaf position, is she leavened or unleavened? Is my cat kosher for Passover?
Last I checked, cats contain no wheat, barley, rye, oats, or spelt. Neither does it contain anise, ascorbic acid, aspartame, beans, black eye peas, buckwheat, canola (rapeseed) oil, caraway, cardamom, carob, citric acid, chickpeas, coriander, corn (maize) and corn products, cottonseed, cumin, dextrose, erythrobic acid, fennel, fenugreek, flaxseed and flaxseed products, hemp, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, kasha, kimmel, lecithin, lentils, licorice, locust bean gum, lucerne, lupine, malto-dextrins, millet, MSG, mustard, peas, peanuts, polysorbates, poppy seeds, rice, safflower, saffron, sesame seeds, snow peas, sodium citrate, sodium erythorbate, sorbitol, soybeans and soy products, string beans, sunflower seeds, teff, vetch, vetching, wild rice, or xanthan gum, so they should be 100% okay no matter what.
Might check the cat food to be sure.
Whooo boy did this post inadvertently throw me down a rabbit hole.
As a non-Jew, I got curious how pet food works with Passover. If you’re also a non-Jew who’s interested, I learned the following:
Only humans have to follow kosher rules. Pets *explicitly* can eat non-kosher foods.
Feeding one’s pet is considered an activity from which one benefits, and thus pet foods used by Jewish pet owners must follow some restrictions. For example, a Jewish pet owner cannot deliberately feed their pet a cheeseburger, but there’s no problem (religiously, at least!) if that pet ate a cheeseburger that had fallen on the sidewalk or if a non-Jewish person fed that pet some of a cheeseburger without seeking permission from the pet’s owner.
It is not permitted to eat, own, or derive benefit from chametz during Passover, so pets should not eat foods that contain chametz unless they are so inedible-looking and -smelling no human would ever consider eating it (the example I saw was some fish foods, but apparently not all fish foods).
For Ashkenazi people, it is not permitted to eat kitniyot during Passover, but it is permitted to own and gain benefit from it, so pets can be fed foods that contain kitniyot.
There is a kosher-for-Passover dog and cat food line which has been verified to contain no chametz (some do contain kitniyot, but again, kitniyot is completely fine to own and to feed to one’s pets, just not to eat oneself if one is Ashkenazi).
I was kinda curious what would happen if you had a pet that would only eat a chametz-containing food. The only answer I found–sell the pet and its food to a trusted friend who will care for the pet and hopefully let you buy the pet back after Passover–
seemed to be somewhat sarcastic in its delivery, so I don’t know.
Erm. My cat is on prescription kibble and I consider not feeding the prescription kibble to be harming the animal, AND since he’s semi feral sending him to live with someone else is also harming him. So I feed him the kibble.
You can call me insufficiently observant if you like. I’m okay with that.
(Also I’m vegetarian so his prescription kibble DOES look unappetizing. I can’t speak to whether anyone else wants to eat it.)
Paging @lauraantoniou and @anauthorandherservicedog–I think the sell your pet and buy it back thing is legit? That is, it’s a ritualized way of putting your pet in someone else’s care temporarily and then getting them back that was done by some Jewish people in some places at some times.
I’m pretty sure that you “sell” your pet the same way you “sell” any chametz still in your possession—by giving your Rabbi a power of attorney to sell it for you. There’s a handy mail blast that goes out about the chametz; I’m basically too slackerly to discuss my pets with him.
Also, see above.
Yeah, if I were in your position re: a pet, I wouldn’t want to hand it off to someone else, either.
As a Jewish kid whose education was heavy on “the rules” but never went into the reasons behind the rules, this was INCREDIBLY traumatic to discover. “What? We have to SELL THE DOG?” I mean sure, I was like eight and didn’t particularly *like* the dog, but seriously WTF WAS THIS NONSENSE?
And yep. We had to “sell” the dog to the temple, and then we’d “buy” the dog back after Passover. The dog never left the house and he kept eating the same food, but we had to go through what seemed, to my child’s mind, like a REALLY shady deal to loophole our way around the rules.
wupacing 