Blood is forbidden

According to Jewish beliefs, each animal’s blood contains its soul. The consumption of blood is therefore forbidden, and animals have to be bled out before they can be consumed. To ensure that meat from pure mammals and poultry is suitable for consumption, the animals must be slaughtered in accordance with certain regulations and using specific knives. In the ritual slaughtering process, known as shechita, an animal is numbed and killed simultaneously by a single cut through its windpipe, food pipe and certain nerve tracts.