What is meant by "Jesus made all foods clean"?

The following is a discussion that came up obliquely in both my New Testament Environment class and Galatians.  What follows is a fairly detailed discussion of Mark, Chapter 7.

Daniel Boyarin in Chapter 3 of his book The Jewish Gospels makes an interesting point about the declaration in Mark 7:19 that "all foods are clean."  

While I can't say that Boyarin is always right on the mark, in this case he's right on the Mark.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.  Please forgive me...)

In the Hebrew Scriptures there is a distinction between those things that may never be eaten by a Jew (lo muttar), and those things which may not be eaten by certain Jews under certain conditions (lo tahor).  Many of our English translations don't make this distinction clear, and some of them use the same word for both concepts.

	lo muttar i.e. not permitted (Pigs, Fish without scales, carrion eaters, etc.)	muttar i.e. permitted(Cow, Chicken, Sheep, Goats)
tahor i.e. "clean" (not defiled)	Can never be eaten	Can always be eaten by any Jew
lo tahor i.e "not clean"(defiled by contact with a dead human, or a person with an emission, or something that had had contact with such)	Can never be eaten	Can be eaten while in a ritually unclean state, but purification would be required before entering the Temple. Forbidden to the Priests in any case due to their role before G-d.

Boyarin maintains, based on the context of the discussion in Mark, that the issue at hand (pardon the pun) was not muttar vs. lo muttar but tahor vs. lo tahor. This makes a great deal of sense, considering that the original issue was the disciples not performing the ritual hand-washing which the Prushim expected before eating, in their halacha. 

Therefore, Mark's comment should be understood “Jesus declared all foods tahor.” (i.e. ritually clean for the common Jew.)  This is consistent with the Greek as well, since the Greek verb καθαρίζω (katarizo) used in Mark 7:19, comes from the Greek καθαρός (kataros).  In the Septuagint, καθαρός is used to translate טָהוֹר

Here's the kicker: Most Jews were lo tahor most of the time, since the only way to be tahor would be to purify yourself immediately before. While the Pharisees sought to extend the ritual purity requirements of the Priesthood to all Jews, albeit in a more manageable form, nobody could possibly be tahor 24/7, since contact with anything that was lo tahor made you lo tahor.  Imagine how you could keep a common insect from landing on you in 1st Century Jerusalem.

Handwashing, according to some of the prushim (Pharisees), was required before eating bread, so that you would be tahor when you touched the bread.  That way, your hands didn't make the bread lo tahor, and thus make the next person who picked up the bread lo tahor as well, even if they had been tahor a moment previously under their halachah.  No sliced bread in the 1st Century, remember.  Bread was picked up and torn off.

In reality, unless you were a Levitical priest, or about to enter the Temple it didn't matter one iota.  Even so, if you were a Levitical Priest, or about to enter the Temple, you would be doing the ritual washing anyway.

The upshot of all of this is that Yeshua was arguing against a specific halachic decision, of the specific Pharisees He was confronting at the time.  He was not stating that the rules in Torah for permitted and not-permitted foods for Jews were abandoned.