DNA Barcoding Determines If Food Is Kosher

Rabbinical experts from the Orthodox Union, an organization that certified food products for the Jewish community, sought the help of experts at the American Museum of Natural History, to determine if the presence of parasitic worms in canned sardines and capelin eggs would still make the food considered as kosher.

According to Mark Siddall, a curator of the Museum, the key to determining if the food was improperly handled is in the worms' life cycles. "Some species of worms live in the muscles of fish when they're in the larval stage," he said. "Other species live in the fish's intestines when they're adults. We already know the life cycles for these parasites, so all we have to do is figure out what species were present in the canned food."

The researchers used a technique called DNA barcoding, which is based on relatively short region of a gene in the energy producing part of the cell's nucleus that would help them identify from which piece of meat the worm came from. Based on their findings, the Orthodox Union issued a decision that the food remains a kosher.

"To our knowledge, this is the first application of DNA barcoding to an obviously cultural concern," said Sebastian Kvist, one of the paper's authors and a student in the Museum's Richard Gilder Graduate School. "This paper really exemplifies what science is all about—helping people."

Read the complete story at http://www.amnh.org/science/papers/worms_2012.php.