[Avodah] Halachic Policy Guidelines of the Kashrus Authority of Australia

[Zev Sero]

On 15/12/2011 9:18 AM, Chana Luntz wrote:
> -	Note what is not being checked here.  That the coffee pot is not
> located too close to the burgers, in case bits inadvertently fall from one
> to the other, or steam intermingles.  Or that the Burger flippers wash their
> hands between touching treif greasy burgers and filling up the coffee pot
> (eg opening the lid, which might cause some of the grease to slide inside)
> or other problems, these being problems that we are just not choshesh for in
> approved products, since we rely on the probability that such scenarios are
> unlikely to occur, and hence an object that starts out mutar remains mutar,
> and if they do occur there are usually "reasons to be lenient" which can
> include bitul (but it is not bitul being fundamentally relied on).  In a
> hechshered product, can you imagine allowing the same worker who works with
> one product to also work with the other in close proximity, knowing that the
> second is vadai treif?
> 	
> 	
> It seems to me it is this kind of analysis that characterises approved
> products rather than certified products, where all these assumptions are
> diminished if not completely eliminated

I have mentioned before that I once asked the OU (in the person of
"the webbe rebbe") about raw cashews.  The answer I got was that there
are potential problems, but that these are so uncommon that I needn't
worry about them, and may buy raw cashews from any source without a
hechsher.  However if I do see an OU hechsher on them then I can know
that they have checked it out and the problems (at least the ones they're
aware of) do not exist.

In the terms of this discussion, all raw cashews are "approved" by the OU,
i.e. they have told me that I can consume them in good conscience, but
they are not certified, and thus it is possible (though unlikely) that
klapei shmaya galya that they are treif, or at least contain a bli`as
issur that is batel.  This is the sort of thing that would appear on the
LBD or KA lists.  Whereas "certified" is the next level where the OU
positively asserts that this particular packet of nuts is kosher; and
to say that they must verify that it really is so, and they can't rely
on bittul.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon