[Avodah] Coca Cola ingredients

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Martin Brody wrote:
> The shiur is 1.6%. Chazal knew what they were doing.
> Very few tastes can be identified below that level

The problem is with the word "identified".

Is that how Chazal described the process? That's not a rhetorical question; I haven't learned Taaruvos in-depth, and I honestly don't know, and I really think that this is the crux of the issue.

For example, lets take the example of a small amount of milk that falls into chicken soup, and the taster says, "There's something in here that's no chicken. I don't know what it is, but it's not just chicken soup." Is that enough to render the soup assur, even though the taster was not able to identify the foreign flavor as being milk?

Ditto where if some ground pork fell into a vat of ground beef. If the taster would say, "There's some pork in here", it would obviously be assur. But if he merely says, "There's something other than beef in here", what then?

I think this is exactly the situation we are asking about. An average person is not able to *identify* the component flavors which the manufacturer added, but they make a real change in the taste of the final product. If the critical point is the ability to *identify* the non-kosher ingredient, then we have an awful lot of leeway, because they can't be identified. But if the critical point is whether or not the component is *perceived*, then these things which are added specifically for flavor cannot be batel, even after the fact.

So here's the question for you YD experts: When the psak rests on whether or not the ingredient is noticable, does that mean (A) whether or not it tastes the same as if this ingredient was not added, or (B) whether or not the taster can name the extra ingredient?

Akiva Miller

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