Kashrut refers to the Jewish dietary laws, found in description in the Torah in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus . In English, kashrut is commonly known as Kosher, meaning "fit for consumption." In a broader sense, Kosher means genuine, acceptable, legitimate or permissible. Kashrut describes what the Jewish people can and cannot eat.

When shopping at a grocery store, kashrut foods can be identified by a symbol that implies that the food has been certified as kosher by a rabbinical authority. Many kashrut certification symbols are accompanied by additional letters or words to indicate the category of the food. Often times, the letter K is sometimes used as a symbol for kosher, but as a letter cannot be trademarked, so it only indicates that the company producing the food claims it is kosher.

In the United States, some states (Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Virginia), have defined the meaning of Kosher and established a law making it illegal to mark and sell food under the Kosher label if it was not processed in terms of the Jewish guidelines. The court eventually ruled that this created a religious practice in the states, while those opposing believe that kashrut is just a food standard by which is prepared by, such as labeling food "fat-free" or "high-calcium."