[Avodah] Girl Scout cookies

[Daniel Israel]

David Riceman wrote:
> My wife recently brought home a few boxes of Girl Scout cookies.  
> They're labeled OU Dairy, but when you read the list of ingredients the 
> only dairy ingredient (whey) is third on the list headed by "contains 
> less than 2% of:".  Is one permitted to eat these cookies after eating 
> meat?  If not, why not?

First of all, AFAIK (as someone else mentioned), bitul only occurs when 
there is a davar issur involved.  Second, we don't do bitul 
intentionally.  For both of these reasons the cookie is dairy, and can't 
be eaten after meat.

(I _think_ if this cookie fell into chicken soup it would count as less 
than 2% dairy, rather than all dairy, so it would be batel in about 1.2 
cookie volumes of soup, assuming that it instantly disintegrated and 
became an non-distinct part of the mixture.)

It is worth noting, however, that the OU (as well as several other 
kashrus agencies) does not employ a "dairy equipment" designation.  So 
when no dairy ingredients are listed on a product which is OU-D, it is 
often worth checking with the OU whether the product is actually dairy, 
or merely produced on dairy equipment.  In the latter case the product 
could be eaten after meat.  In your case, I would assume "less than 2% 
whey" is still an actual ingredient in the product, and actually dairy.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu