I agree with your take. Applying the rules does limit the choices of ingredients and hence the finish product which becomes by tradition a taste of its own.
I've been part of R&D development of meat products and I have tasted superior hard salamis using beef blood extracts but since it is not kosher then these new products do not make it to the shelf. That is just one example.

@Lukian the kashering process leads to a specific taste. Even kosher-style beef products such as Sabrett and Nathan’s (their regular non kosher product) do not taste like kosher ones. As to non meat kosher products I’m indifferent, a hechsher is a hechsher. I have Hasidic friends that have loyalty to specific kosher brands of things because of taste and do not buy American mainstream brands that are certified. There are other products from Israel such as Osem which taste different from domestic products but for the most part those things are pareve like many domestic products are. It’s only when it gets into meat and dairy products the hechsher becomes important to those folks.

Funny how different we all are. I got a lot out of this discussion. Thanks for sharing your knowledge Lukian

The only standard that Kosher assures is that it abides by the religious rules. It tells practicing Jews that the food respects their food regulations (like not mixing milk with meat). It is irrelevant of the quality of the ingredient or the manufacturing. I am not implying a kosher certified manufacturing plant has inferior quality practices only that it is irrelevent.

Thank you @LadyAlyxandrea, I was also waiting for that comment. Kosher salt should actually be referred as koshering salt. One rule for meat to be kosher is that it is drained of all its liquid blood. To do that, large crystalline salt is sprinkle on the meat to draw out the blood. This is referring as koshering meat (think pastrami is very salty because it is kosherized with lots of salt). Salt does not need to be certified as Kosher if it comes from a mine (Sea salt cannot be used religiously to kosherize meat but it can be called kosher salt because of its appearance)
[thekitchn.com]

lol

rugglesby!!! I thought we already discussed this??? lol

@crazycurlz yes, I remember it well, and have you noticed my words are a bit different this time? I didn't mention them being unnecessarily cruel, I deliberately left that out in deference to our discussion. But they are still ritual, and they still require a religious person to be paid.
I am still against it.

@Rugglesby I'm just ribbin' ya! The more I learn the more I become a vegan and the more this is something I have questions about, too.

oh...the jewish tax! OP explained that it's not passed on to consumers.

@crazycurlz yep, I am also into the slow transition to vegetarian.

hahaha the Jewish food I've eaten over the years is anything but. Maybe your boss was trying to get rid of you? lol

That was the comment I was looking for actually: that's a stricter guideline or it's a sign of quality. Kosher is a set of rules on the provenance of the food and type of food. For example: only fish with scaled are kosher to eat so you cannot have trout kosher. The kosher supervision is mostly looking at the recipe of the food and make sure that each ingredient is itself certified as kosher. The problem arises when one kasaruth community refuses the authority of the kosher certification of another.... Oh and of course there is money involved.

@Lukian what? bickering in Jewish communities?

So, what can you tell us about halal?

ALSO, while we've got you here...my grandmother actually changed out dishes every Sabbath. Would this have been part of keeping kosher?

I'm not bickering. I want to point out that Kosher certification is not a quality standard but a religious adherence practice. It is a misunderstood concept. There is a price tag for a company to become kosher but the additional cost to the food is trivial. There is no conspiracy. here is a good reference that explains the myth of a Jewish tax. (I am not implying that at all)
[en.wikipedia.org]

@Lukian lol it was meant to be a jewish joke...ask a question with a question.
Never heard of Jewish tax myth. Thanks for posting

So...it's not about quality?

@crazycurlz Correct it's not. It's for religious quality not food safety quality.

@Lukian great, thanks...I found your explanation of 'religious quality' above.

It is a type of pickle used in delis with a specific flavor profile. They aren’t sweet pickles, they have a strong brine and garlic flavor

if you've eaten (almost) any packaged food from the supermarket (in the US), then you have purchased something Kosher. It is prevalent in commercial food.

almost any mainstream packaged food brand is kosher: soups, cola, ketchup, mayo, chips. In reality, there is less non-Kosher foods than kosher. There are a wide variety of tiny logos on packaged foods that say they are kosher certified.

@Lukian Oh, okay. I was thinking more like foreign food.

Funny that he would say that. I just checked my pantry, both Campbell and Progressive soups, Heinz and Hunts catsup, Kraft and Hellmann's mayonnaise and NONE of them have any indication on their labels about anything about kosher. Are we being deceived by the food producers? Because if we are, I am very pissed cause I don't want any of that BS mojo on my food.

@theliberalgent I can assure you all the brands you named are kosher. You are looking for a small seal behind the bottle. usually it's a K in a circle, K in a star or a U in a circle are the most common. If you can't find it then I will try and find a link to tell you as such.

@Lukian Sorry dude, no go. I even checked all again with a magnifying glass, Nothing.

@TheLiberalGent Is this post true?

@theliberalgent
reference for Hunts: they are certified OK (read circle K)
[ok.org]
OK for Kraft
[ok.org]
Heinz ketchup is circle U (look beside the pickle on the face of the label)
[kosher.us]
Hellmann's is kosher (see description)
[costcobusinessdelivery.com]

I have not found any kosher reference for Progresso

@Lukian You're right but it annoys me to no end that fairytale believing people have so much influence over the food I eat. And at what cost is the consumer paying for this religious interference?

@TheLiberalGent He says we're not paying anything for this and that it serves the people who eat Jewish and Halal.

@TheliberalGent @crazycurlz The company does pay a price to be Kosher certified and hence that cost is passed on to the consumer but it is a small amount (although the price of the service is never advertised). It does generate a lot of revenue to the Kosher supervision body (and the religion as a whole) in the end considering that every ingredient that goes in your recipe and manufacturing facility must be Kosher so the revenu accumulates.
All of North America is cut up into territories and sometimes as a manufacturer, you can get caught in the middle of a turf war which happens when you buy an ingredient, from say, France but your Kosher supervision doesn't recognize the kosher supervising body of the French ingredient so they want you to buy from their cousin in Poland. There is a lack of consistency.

yes, correct. That is mostly true for Halal.