What are you smoking?

If you don't smoke, this won't make a difference to you. If you do smoke, it probably also will not make a difference to you - there are enough reasons to nt smoke that this one is unlikely to be the straw that breaks the camels back..

It seems that researchers have discovered that cigarettes contain pig hemoglobin. Perhaps the amounts are "bateil b'shishim", or perhaps not. Either way, it is repulsive for a Jew to be ingesting pig...

The Dutch research found pig haemoglobin - a blood protein - was being used to make cigarette filters more effective at trapping harmful chemicals before they could enter a smoker's lungs.

Prof Chapman said while tobacco companies had moved voluntarily list the contents of their products on their websites, they also noted undisclosed "processing aids ... that are not significantly present in, and do not functionally affect, the finished product".

This catch-all term hid from public view an array of chemicals and other substances used in the making of tobacco products, he said.

At least one cigarette brand sold in Greece was confirmed as using pig haemoglobin in its processes, Prof Chapman said, and the status of smokes sold was unknown.

"If you're a smoker and you're of Islamic or Jewish faith then you'd probably would want to know and there is no way of finding out," Prof Chapman said.