[Avodah] Kellogg's Products containing gelatin & interesting story

Akiva Miller via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Sun Aug 20 07:17:27 PDT 2017


'
R' Zev Sero wrote:

> No, the issue is exactly cholov yisroel. Schmant *is* a type
> of milk, and according to those who permit cholov akum in
> Western countries one may buy it without question (or at least
> one could before modern food technology made everything
> complicated).  There is no halachic difference, according to
> *anyone*, between plain milk, cream, skim milk, half-and-half,
> etc.  Either one can buy them all, or one can not.

Summary: I concede.

Longer version:

I think RZS is writing from the Aruch Hashulchan's perspective, back
in the 5600s. I have polluted the conversation with my perspective as
a resident of the 5700s.

I still maintain that Cholov Yisroel is NOT the issue here, in the
sense that the kashrus problems did not result from the type of milk
that was used, but from the other ingredients that were added to that
milk. But I do concede that the AhS included this story to teach us
that IF those people had been makpid on cholov yisroel, they would
have looked for a Jewish grocery, and as a *side* benefit, they would
have been protected from those other ingredients. Alas, they didn't
even realize that there might be other ingredients, and I think RZS
and I agree that they were halachically entitled to not be concerned
about such things.

I wonder exactly when it was that this started to change. Back the,
there were many items that were considered innocuous, and no one
considered them to be problematic. In my memory, pickles were a
typical example. RZS includes cream and half-and-half; while I
remember warnings about additives to these in the 1970s, I freely
concede that it probably wasn't a problem in the AhS's day. Clearly,
there was no cutoff date to all this, but it developed along with
developments in food manufacture and our awareness of them.

There was a long and slow educational program over the past hundred
years. (The OU's first certification, Heinz Vegetarian Beans, was in
1923.) We've been taught about how foods are manufactured, and about
which ones need hashgacha, and about which ones don't. I'd like to
think that the incident recorded in the Aruch Hashulchan was among the
drivers for this change.

Akiva Miller



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