To the editor:

This week I became aware that many candies on the market today, our most popular and favorite brand name candies, use pork in an important ingredient: Gelatin. I have Jewish and Muslim friends whose meat-loving kids are not permitted to consume any pork due to religious dietary laws. It is a very big cultural deal to break that law.

So Easter is coming up, a fun Christian holiday that features baskets of chocolates and other candies. Christmas is recently past, with all its candies. My Jewish and Muslim friends’ kids have trick-or-treated from me, and I never checked those Halloween candies for being kosher or halal.

Kosher is a Jewish idea meaning “safe to eat,” according to Jewish food safety laws. No pork is among the benefits of kosher food. Look for the “K” or “U.” Halal food is the Muslim complement: Its meanings include “no pork.” Look for the “M,” “halal,” or Arabic script.

There are other benefits of kosher and halal food including a quick efficient death supervised by a rabbi or imam, as appropriate, for the animal to be consumed.

There is so much going on in the world, I know this letter to the editor may seem trivial because we are a mostly non-Jewish and non-Muslim region and “it’s not an issue here.” It is an issue. We have Muslim and Jewish families living here in the Adirondacks.

When it’s about children, it’s worth raising awareness of the issue, however picayune. Thank you for your time.

Martha Pritchard Spear

Lake Placid