Can kashrus be judged by ingredients lists?

Question

I was googling hechsherim and ended up on oheltorah.com. It seems to contain a forum of people posting ingredient lists for products and admins judging whether or not the given product was kosher, for example, this or this. My initial reflex would be to say that this is not consistent with any mainstream Orthodox approach to Kashrus.

Looking into the authorship of the website, it seems to be produced by the children of a R Yitzchak Abadi, who is a talmid of R Aaron Kotler. Wikipedia:

oheltorah.com - A kashrut and halachah website by Rabbi Abadi's sons, including a Q&A forum answered "according to the opinions of their father, Rabbi Yitzchak Abadi."

Am I missing something? Does anyone hold that you judge kashrut based on ingredient lists with no actual supervision of the making of the product?

Actually I think everyone does this for sufficiently simple products. The question is just what is sufficiently simple. Not even the Abadis do it for every product. You have to just know what sorts of issues could be relevant for a given product. — Double AA, Nov 23 '23 at 00:18
I know of a very frum family that did this. But if you're looking for an institutional voice to say you don't need to rely on the institutions, good luck. — shmosel, Nov 23 '23 at 00:20
Worth noting that Rabbi Abadi is rather controversial in the kashrut industry — ezra, Nov 23 '23 at 03:07
relevant: Which rabbis permit food being kosher just based on the ingredients? and Does every thing need a hechsher? — mbloch, Nov 23 '23 at 04:15
ak0000 I encourage you strongly to switch your answer acceptance. N.T.'s answer actually addresses the issue, albeit in very broad strokes. mbloch's answer tells one scare story about how some pig showed up near some food one time in a factory, which completely misses the point of the dispute. R Abadi doesn't believe such circumstances never happen. He's not an idiot. The disputes here surround when we can assume something is nullified and when halacha indicates a theoretical possibility becomes a bona fide safek. mbloch completely ignores all of that, playing to people's fears instead. — Double AA, Nov 24 '23 at 17:51

N.T. · Answer 1 · 2023-11-29T06:49:36.140

Basically, it depends on the product. Meat has to be slaughtered and prepared by observant Jews. Grape juice or wine can only be touched by observant Jews before pasteurization. Certain cooked foods require an observant Jew to perform the cooking (or according to Ashkenazi custom, to turn on the fire before cooking), etc. In these cases, knowing the ingredients is not enough, one also needs to know that the proper rules were followed.

Some foods do not have these requirements, and one just needs to ensure that all the ingredients are kosher. However, many foods have ingredients that are not listed explicitly on the label (often in the context of catch-all terms like "flavorings"). Some ingredients (e.g. glycerin) can be made from both kosher and non-kosher sources. It requires expertise in kashrus to know which kinds of foods can be determined to be kosher from the label and which can't.

In my personal experience, rabbis involved in kashrus are willing to look at a label. Sometimes they say the product is kosher, and sometimes they tell you to verify some information with the company that makes it. And sometimes they tell you you need to get product with a hechsher.

Certain products are known to not be problematic and require no hechsher, such as unflavored water and seltzer, extra-virgin olive oil, etc.

And some products might not need a hechser but require examination at home, such as many vegetables that need to be checked for insect infestation.

mbloch · Answer 2 · 2023-11-23T13:41:04.633

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The simple answer giving by kashrut organizations is no. Many industrially-manufactured products go through complex production processes, at times unexpected. For instance R Elefant, the COO of OU Kosher, said that in some cases, the same steam pipe is used to heat vegetables in one industrial pot, and pork and beans in another, with the hot steam pipe connecting the two ! (listen here at 22'10 - incidentally much of that interview is relevant to your question).

So a box of "green beans, water and salt" might end up being non-kosher.

This being said, some ingredients are known for not requiring a hechsher, e.g., salt, sugar, water, cold-pressed virgin oil. See here and there for sample lists of such ingredients.

As indicated in the comments, expert kashrut supervisors often know products, how and where they were produced, and can advise on whether they are indeed kosher. But it shouldn't be tried by an untrained consumer serious about kashrut.

edited Nov 23 '23 at 13:41

answered Nov 23 '23 at 04:20

mbloch

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A steam pipe seemingly doesn't transfer any actual taste. Either it's closed and doesn't contact the food or it's open and flowing only outward. The fact is no one has ever ever ever ever had a can of green beans and told you they taste the pork and beans in the vat next door. If that's the scariest example you can come up with it's not so scary halachicly. – Double AA Nov 23 '23 at 12:10
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By analogy Jews have been known to heat up shabbos food on an apartment building radiator without fear that somebody else in the building once put pork on their radiator. – Double AA Nov 23 '23 at 12:12
If it is an issue for the COO of OU Kosher, who is well aware of the production process, it is an issue for me who is not. I don't think anyone cooks directly on their radiator, but it is likely the steam is in direct contact with the food in these factories. Did you listen to him? He speaks of the same steam going through pork then beans. – mbloch Nov 23 '23 at 13:37
Interestingly a bit later he quotes R Belsky who told him not to debate halacha based on whether we taste the pork .... my view is that everyone can practice what they want for themselves but when teaching/publishing halacha for the general public, one should teach the correct general rule – mbloch Nov 23 '23 at 13:40
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Argument from authority is just passing the buck here mbloch. Someone can just as easily say if a great sage like R Abadi who has so many stingencies is ok with it who am I to be strict? – Double AA Nov 23 '23 at 14:12
There's really a second implict claim here that isn't defended: not only can we question if the green beans in that story actually become treif (both because of kfeila and because of bittul lechatchila leacheir; certainly there's no deorayta issue) but the further question is does that happen with sufficient frequency to halachicly be worth caring about? We already knew crazy pork contamination is theoretically possible even with a full time mashgiach, but we don't always worry about that (in fact we almost never do) – Double AA Nov 23 '23 at 14:50
@DoubleAA Radiators are closed systems. The steam you get in one part is unaffected by something touching the outside of the system in another part. – Yehuda Nov 23 '23 at 16:44
@Yehuda not sure what your point is. – Double AA Nov 23 '23 at 18:11
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@DoubleAA the way these kinds of equipment work is that there is a vat of stuff getting heated, and then around it a "steam jacket" of steam that heats up the vat from all over. That steam is heated by a boiler and carried through a steam pipe. If the same steam pipe carries steam to a steam jacket of two pots, the blios can go through the walls of the vat into the steam in the steam jacket and back. Effectively, there are two pots connected by a bunch of hot, dense steam between them. As for how frequently it happens: a kashrus expert might know, most of us wouldn't be able to guess. – Esther Nov 24 '23 at 07:02
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@Esther exactly as I speculated above and exactly unlike what mbloch said. Thank you. It's now obvious to everyone and their uncle that the steam carries no flavor between the pots. – Double AA Nov 24 '23 at 13:47
@DoubleAA your logic is sound. Yet, I think you might adopt a more nuanced approach if you see YD 92:8 where steam counts as a very powerful connector (although it's logical that it seems unlikely to transfer taste). Also see Taz S"K 8 in YD 95, where if such close connection can act as a transfer of taam rishon, not even nat bar nat (although nat bar nat doesn't work to permit pork, so even if it didn't transfer that closely it would still be an issue.) What do you think? – Ethan Leonard Nov 29 '23 at 14:01
@EthanLeonard There are a number of halachic issues here for people who are actually trying to think about this instead of just yelling "PORK!!!1!". First, is not everyone even agrees with the Rosh that steam (zeiah) can transfer taste. Second is the question of taste going through the outside of closed pots to the food on the inside, which is also subject to dispute. Third, there are various opinions in the acharonim who limit zeiah in some way, whether claiming it can bring flavor into food but not into keilim, or that it can't extract flavor from keilim, or something else. – Double AA Nov 29 '23 at 14:28
Of course then we also have the issue of stainless steel pots not really transferring any flavor, which we ordinarily wouldn't rely on on its own. And finally on all of that there's the fundamental rule of kfeila that says if an expert can't taste the treif it's batel, which ashkenazim as a custom don't rely on on its own for a gentile taster, but many hold can rely on for a jewish [sefardi] taster (recall R Abadi is sefardic). So right away this whole issue is one of minhag at best. – Double AA Nov 29 '23 at 14:28
That leaves us with the issue of bittul lechatchila whereby the target audience of an intentional nullification can't use it anyway, and we have to define target audience for a giant factory. After all that (lots of room for leniency) there's a general policy (not halachic) of resistance to relying/acknowledging nullification at all when you can buy from factories that do things "right". And to top it off, even then to what extent I as a consumer have to be worried that some of the beans here in a store are pseudo-contaminated when clearly most of the beans in the world aren't. – Double AA Nov 29 '23 at 14:29
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@DoubleAA Did I just yell pork? Read my comment again and have some class. Also, both the mechaber and Rama rule that zeiah transfers taste. Finally, there is a dispute about taste transferring through pots... but the mechaber is actually the most lenient. If you want to discuss that debate, be warned that the other opinions are much, much more strict. – Ethan Leonard Nov 29 '23 at 14:51
@EthanLeonard I did not mean to imply you yelled pork rather I was happy to engage with someone like you who is actually thinking about the sugya. You can find someone machmir on every point i mentioned. But there are also lots of snifim to put together to arguably dispense with the custom of pretending we can't know that the taste didn't physically transfer. Even if you want to be machmir on plain green beans you ought admit someone who is meikil isn't being crazy at all. Someone looking for kashrut chumras probably has better fish to fry than worrying about this (yoshon, glatt, etc.) – Double AA Nov 29 '23 at 14:52
@DoubleAA well, yeah. We wouldn't necessarily want to change communal standards to not follow the books, but there certainly are snifim you could use to permit. (Maybe Shach SK 21 on YD 87 that says fire can perform instant libun on metal and Tur in YD 95 that compares יד נכוית to fire?) – Ethan Leonard Nov 29 '23 at 15:15
@Ethan No one said not to follow the books. We just don't need to combine every possible machmir opinion as the communal standard. (More like every possible machmir opinion in taarovet where it's all just a custom since we all know what a kfeila would say, and every possible meikil opinion on ingredients (yoshon, glatt, chalav yisrael, tuna cans, shellac, bishul yisrael, etc.) where there are real issurim.) At the least we should be honest about what the issues are and what chumras were taking that others might reasonably not take. Saying pork like this Answer is definitely insufficient – Double AA Nov 29 '23 at 15:31

Can kashrus be judged by ingredients lists?

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