[Avodah] Kosher

[Zev Sero]

martin brody wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 10:08 AM, Lawrence Teitelman 

> FDA and EU laws require all ingredients to be listed in order of volume. 
> The only exception is if an ingredient is so small and is part of 
> another ingredient such as natural flavours(if one of the flavours was 
> significant it has to be listed).

This is not true.  There is no requirement that an incidental ingredient,
which doesn't need to be listed, be small.


> These natural flavours are batel b'shishim,

If it's nosen ta'am, how can it be batel?


> Equipment is aino ben yomo.

Says who?  In a commercial environment you can *not* rely on "stam
kelim"; on the contrary, the chazakah is that all equipment is used
every day.


> Besides, when factories cross produce, they 
> sterilize equipment between usage.

And this sterilisation is not usually up to kashering standards.


> And see Rav Moshe YD 1, 55. He trusts the ingredient list.

That teshuvah says no such thing.  It doesn't even mention ingredient
lists, let alone discuss whether they can be relied on.


>> "To take one example, some canneries (in China) have been known to
>> steam their fruits and vegetables together with treif fish. How
>> would you know by looking at the label? And what about companies who
>> use that in their production lines where you don't even see the cans."

> So what? Can you taste it? Does it really happen? Is it really a kashrut 
> issue?

Of course it's an issue.  How can it not be?  If vegetables and treife
fish were steamed together, who would permit it?


> Bishul Akum from factories is not an issue according to many opinions.

Which opinions?


> Agricultural produce from Israel could be a problem, but at the moment 
> such produce is a suffeik d'Rabbanam, or even suffeik suffeika when 
> purchased abroad.

Not if it's efshar levarer.


> And just to remind you there is a Gemara in Brachot discussing the 
> blessing on caperberries. I think it is around 38, sorry I don't have it 
> with me. There they decide a certain bracha was on a mixture that was 
> imported from India. No reference to the ingredients being suspect or 
> the keilim. Of course there are other examples of this.

It's 36B, a page after the discussion on tzlaf.  Rava says "the hamlata
that is brought from India is permitted, and its bracha is ha'adama".
Rashi translates "hamlata" as "letuario", which in English is "electuary".
On "permitted", Rashi says that it is neither bishul akum nor treif;
Machtzis Hashekel 203:4 explains that it's not bishul akum because it
can be eaten raw, and it's not treif because of nosen taam lifgam, and
in brackets it explains that he meant stam kelim einam benei yoman.

I don't know whether this bracketed note is from the Machtzis Hashekel
himself, or from the Bochur Hazetzer; it seems to me that NTLF is more
appropriate here, because any taste of meat or fish would not go well
with an electuary.   In any case, production was simpler before the
last few decades.  Factories only made one thing, with simple ingredients,
and when there wasn't any of that one thing to be made they lay idle.
And in Chazal's day they didn't even have factories; these Indian
electuary-makers surely either used a dedicated keli (because they didn't
want a meat taste to get in) or else a clean keli that they took from
their kitchen, which stam would not be ben yomo (because in a household
kitchen that assumption can be made).  NTLF can be applied in commercial
settings too, but stam kelim can not; in a commercial setting the
chazakah is that every piece of equipment is used every day.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                    - Margaret Thatcher