OU event Rabbi Rotberg Shul - The Lakewood Scoop

this idea yeah perfect I always say this is something which is a very very long time waiting for this we're here in the community for almost seven years and the fact that this is the first time we're doing it is not a TI on you it's a on me but uh whoever is not here I'd advise you before you eat in their homes you should make sure that they know the it is almost impossible today to keep a kosher home if you don't know it's not something that you could today with the vast amount of pro products that are out there with the complete inability for the lay men to be able to know what yes and what not we are absolutely dependent on on knowledge and learning saying I don't know is no longer an excuse when you have organizations like the you who agree to come out to educate the public like we spoke about on chabas this is the Bedrock of yish K our body our gof is that is every single thing we do every Mitzvah we do every we learn is only with a goof and whether it's either AER or not let this be a tremendous for our entire community that we came together and this is the first of a of a series and I want to really thank the you for coming out here let's use this opportunity you know when sometimes in the middle of sh in a question a sh this this is the time to make sure any question you have all the things you assume that you could look at an ingredient that if it's vegetarian it's good don't call me with it don't send your wives to call me with it I don't know these the you does so let's let's don't have any ra on them this said they they know they get paid the big bucks to know the real answers so with further Ado we'd like to again thank though you and this be the first of a few different sh thank you ra rber my name is R El I'm the managing director of community relations for UK kosher I'm not speaking too long okay um I'm just going to be introducing today um we have a wonderful lineup some of our very best are here to answer your questions today first off our to our topic today is called demystifying kasas people also ask the questions it seems to be that the Casas exists in the lft in the cloud for those of us that are a little younger um and how does it exactly work with what's going on why what might be the issues so first we're going to have pleasure inki one of our top Rabin coordinators who specializes in ingredients nutritionals who will be giving you the ba the basic building blocks of kous what is that's going on behind the scenes what could be the problems and then we're also today to have our chief operating officer elephant who came this morning after St Shar in bar Park to be with us to really answer the questions that you have for those that have questions and I'm sure a lot of you will have questions the best thing to do do is in be able to email us you can email us at kosher education.org and I'll be able to pull up your questions they come along or we'll have a pad and Pen we'll have papers and pens at the beam over there we can take them and then hand in the questions so that we can control um instead of everyone jumping at once so again that email address is kosher education ou.org or we'll have a pad and pens at the beam over here where you can write down your questions and we'll go through them because a lot of times people have the same questions we'll be able to review them as we go along so with any further ado I'd like to introduce meski a uh kind of a local he's from Whispering Pines which used to be the outskirts of lak Once Upon a Time when he first moved there now that's considered I think you know like three Comm three uh three Towns over or something like that from here but uh we'll discuss the the basics of kous and kosher certification thank you have the other avish introduction they say Works say about Harry Truman that he want time to get a very nice introduction so he got up and said I wish my parents were here to hear that my father would have gotten a kick out of that my mother might have actually believed it so is Hing out the the hand out after Kroger's pulled a random Kroger's donut holes I assume donut holes are not the air inside the donut I assume it's the little piece that was inside the donut so we look at a ingredient label you know my parents generation Circa 1950s growing up he ate Mars he ate Snickers you look at the ingredient label if it didn't say lard and it didn't say gelatin you figured you're good to go you know to know about potassium sorbate and and um Mano glycerides was just not in their framework who knows what those are anyway so let's take a look before we get to ingredients you have when we look at a plant we look at two things can we certify a plant initially and ongoing we look at two things ingredients and mind status equipment status ingredients of course all the ingredients have to be koser pretty basic line status also that they can't be shared equipment if there tra ingredients in the plant then they can't be run on those on that same equipment B of course if not the equipment has to be cashed so you know you can look at a tuna fish can well looks just an ACC it's tuna fish well you know says can have fish without also and more to the point you can have just a basic corn canned corn can beans caned chickpeas I mean what can it's it's one ingredient yeah but all cans for for processed reasons bacteria reasons they're cooked in retorts retorts is as big if you ever saw like one of these what you ever saw a movie about World War II and you see this big these submarines and you see these torpedo tubes that you stick so think of that that that torpedo tube it's called in food technology a retards an autoclave what happens is you put these things you you put in these these cans into them and they're cooked with steam under pressure and in these same retorts you have other tray for things you have pork and beans cooked over there so you can have literally pork and beans going into a retort cooked up with steam cooked up with water they save that steam of course you don't want to throw out you know good utilities so to save that steam that water and then put in the next batch put in beans put in corn put in anything anything which is you know you would think is pretty much innocuous ketchup ketchup pretty basic again tomato sauce a little bit of vinegar which vinegar is not uh not what we call group one ingredient it's not you know it's it's needs you know there might be one vinegar in a plant but white distilled vinegar pretty much I mean there might be ethanol it's made out of ethanol it might be grape ethanol but pretty unlikely so vinegar there vinegar in the Tomato in the in the in the ketchup but this same this this same to again it's cooked in a kettle a ketchup ketchup is cooked in the same Kettle with um meat sauce or cheese sauce or both together meat and cheese sauce and these various things you see an ingredient you see it looks fairly innocuous it looks just about I mean all these ingredients are pretty basic and straightforward but anything but because even even all the ingredients of kosher and that's you know sometimes a jump even if that's true still is cooked on the same equipment as trafe or potentially cooked on the same equipment as trafe um look at the handout we gave the the Kroger ingredients so we have for this dut holes we have ingredients enrich flour whole parentheses wheat flour with all the various enrichments that's worthy of a she on itself there's folic acid sugar water palm oil dextro soyan oil defatted soy flow whey leavening egg yolk salt weat starch M protein concentrate Mon Mon glycerides natural artificial flavor Arabic enzymes then the glaze has some other ingredients who by I I only copy 30 I'm sorry um bigger Ambitions for next time um what can anybody Hazard a guess as to which possible over here and which possibly are in this I mean this month's ker C you see the OU on it there's a UD but what you say oh so flavors are always going to be bful so very good oh we get that in a second what what be over herein how do you know the milk is from a cow milk protein presumably is from a cow it might not be but that's AO on itself but a PO potential sensitive topic that the milk milk anything but stand one thing one thing to say there's a standard of identity s so you can't just call anything you want to call it by law so if something is called for example red win vinegar it's not that you took apple juice and fermented into a cider a corn which is by which by definition is wine and then you call it red and you made it into vinegar it's red wine vinegar it's not because the standard of identity and as a matter of fact skippies had to change used to be a standard of identity for peanut butter had to be a certain amount of peanuts and then skippies wanted to add some peanut oil so they love you to change the standard of identity yeah have for example talk about milk for a second you have the the the American dairy industry has a hard time competing in some aspects with the European dairy industry so specifically um casine casine is the protein in the milk so they Lobby the government and the government was agreed to call that a non-dairy item and practically allergenic that's the most that's the most milk part of the milk so okay that's an example of perhaps but again it's it fits a standard of identity H identity is actually a little off my my point is when it's milk it means C milk okay anybody else uh has any guess sayel what way a b the cheese production way according to even if the ingredients were used in making cheese and we getting ahead of ourselves really each each one of these is worthy of a she but let's look this way is not way will not at least the only be and at the on a the evid level it might even be fine what about powder what powder milk powder milk powder it's a potential issue but it would be issue of B because maybe it's a shared equipment a shared spray dryer or a shared powder dry with other things usually not it's usually not the case because milk is a commodity and they make so much of it they usually have dedicated equipment but potentially need to have some but potentially man what I'm looking for is mano glycerides manod diglycerides so look at the hand there look at the at the back flip flip over the label and you'll see the Big E the e e is a triglyceride there's a glycerin core top right corner there a glycerin core glycerin spine and three amino acid chains on on every oil is called a triglyceride some are median chain triglycerides and just means that the fatty acid chain is not that long maybe only 10 carbons long and palm oil and coconut oil and lard and Tallow are long chain Tri glycerides longer chains about 18 to 20 um carbons long so the the the better Cuts come out of lard and and Tallow you could do it out of vegetable as well you look under there anybody has anybody know the American history knowing what was the connection between PNG practor and Gamble and Coca-Cola story is like this there was rep GE otherwise known in literature as reab toas gin he was a r started off in he he an immigrant he started off in New York he went to Canton Ohio health reasons he moved down to Atlanta and in the mid-30s get in the South wanted to drink Coca-Cola wanted American eyes the appearance for The Greener ones were able okay with Sela they wanted Coke and and they approached him to give a he on coke and he approached Coca-Cola and wonder of Wonders Coke she had with him the secret formula supposedly not supposedly not the percentages but the ingredients and he identified glycerin as being an issue and even though K short him don't forget it's in the syrup then they put in water afterwards and K short him this is all public information you typed on the web Coke and PES or Coke and have a GE and Coke and PR again but it's all there um it's the G is gonna be bottle bottle maybe but not for now when when an ingredient is put in deliberately it's not bottle if so this this glycerin practor and gimbal now practor and gamble uses the fatty acid is not for food purposes practor and gamble of course makes detergents so the process of making detergents they take the fatty acids they put it through um put it through a hydrolysis hydris a fancy way of saying that you you break apart you break apart with water usually you break apart the ging core from the fatty acids the fatty acids go through saponification just means to make soap out of them and they will left with glycerin they needed the soap they didn't want the glycerin glycerin it just happens to be a valuable byproduct and any suspension including childrena Tylenol including Coke obviously a lot of liquids will have glycerin glycerin is a it's a thick it's a thick liquid sweet liquid it's used as a carrier it holds you can mix a lot of things in it it can hold it in shape so glycerin is indispensable ingredient in food production and in this case they were using glycerin from Tallow now by the way anybody knows the difference Tallow and lard so we have on the hand out yeah if it says oink it's large if it says moo it's Tallow so either way no practical difference they're both noas and traas either way um noas and trus the case of the cow and just in the case of the case of the O it's so they they Coke actually approached practor and Gamble and practor and gamble agreed to change the source of their soaps to to palm oil and coconut oil and they broke that apart and they end up with glycerin and the fatty acids and that that gin went over to to Coke obviously for their ingredients now another thing we mentioned before the flavors flavors flavors the three C's we wrote it down over here the three C's civit castori I think I spelled it wrong I over there and Carmine Carmine actually a four SE because Carmine comes from a coach Beetle did you know that no no coach nail Beetle my friend from whing points I guess he wer guess we smooz enough about this so coach the coach Beetle so we used to be that one of the colors the red color was found to be a found to be a carcinogen and a lot of companies doing red food use Carmine Carmine comes from a beetle called the coach Beetle it's not p is that it's a that colors are even though of course it's B of course it's a small amount P colors are not bottle so you have civit and cium in flavors just to mention this is the three SE just to mention a few there are many which can impart flavor of course is not bottle level but you know us in Lakewood and Tom we keep theiron as well not just their ises so so it's where they getting harvesting cats 100% civit is a is a it's a cat it's a cat-like thing is actually for this oh definitely yeah it's used in many the purpose the purpose of the civit civit is a in found in many many flavors butter flavor caramel flavor and rum flavor today in the flavor house you look in your store and traded Joe you look in your natural and and and just to bring out this point you look on the label it doesn't say what's in it it says natural and artificial flavor in these flavors are going to be potentially no one ever heard of that okay czy that's why that's why you pay us um curum is used a vanilla ice cream using raspberry Karma of course like we said is using colorings so just to bring out the point why I just want to take you through Mano glyceride for another have another five minutes really just want to take you through manod glyceride a process I find it particularly fascinating they take palm oil overseas usually because we don't have enough Palm in the US to to use commercially so they come from Indonesia from Malaysia from the Philippines they come in boats and palm oil is um is a salad at room temperature which is why it's used as an ingredient in cookies because it it keeps it chewy it's an oil but it's not not liquidy it keeps it chewy so your big cookies you're going to see all these palm oil is going to be in there the it's shift it's so it has to be it's a salad at room temperature it has to be shift as liquid so it's heated so the O Keepin we work with our shipping companies to make sure that we know that the holes that are kept in are not were not used for trade for things before so right away before they even come onto American were involved to make sure that they're not getting bleed of Tire fa um the that put into a column I just was involved in cashing one of those they use outside of Boston a plant that had Tallow now it using kosher they switched over to veg and veg includes soy concludes um like we said coconut palm they it's 107 ft High under high pressure they they they put in Steam and water and that hydrolized it the fats go to the top and the glycerin which is now mostly water falls to the bottom it's called Sweet Water then it goes through a process so the fats go to the top separate we'll get that in a second the glycerin goes to the bottom and gets goes through an EVAP an evaporated system evaporated system I'll just take it through it quickly 30 seconds it's particularly fascinating because if anything under pressure as we know raises the boiling point raises the boiling point so it's still a liquid um on the vacuum the other way around the low is the boiling point so the boiling point is less so here the boiling point can be very high temperatures but it's under heavy pressure so it goes out to the EVAP system and by the EVAP system it just right away drops atmospheric pressure so the water flashes off in the form of steam that that steam is captured that's the first effect goes to the second effect where that steam Heats it up again and so on the third effect the fourth effect until it comes out of this EVAP system add about 50% glycerin 50/50 water then it goes to a Refinery system it gets it to the rest of the way by the way this sounds a little esoteric who you all have this in your houses multiple units of this form of Machinery pressure and you have in your car at least one some might have two air conditioner and refrigerator it your Freon which meets the hot ear in the head house through the coils the F blows the hot air through the coils so the fre gets hot and that's of course a heat exchanger which is another thing in cashes we deal with all that um it takes the Heat and that goes through a compressor it compresses it makes it very hot um it blows a fan from outside to cool down that Under Pressure now makes it room even hot not room temperature makes the outside temperature 100 degrees 90 degrees and Under Pressure so now when it goes through expansion valve it becomes very cold and there's no flash off it's all self-contained system but the point is the same that it goes through this how fridge air conditioning work I confess I didn't understand all the hard Hebrew words over there but it's uh it's all there he explains the whole thing somebody said he went to speak to speak to and each one of them he wasn't sure if the sack that he got was 100% not because he doubted the in he doubted his own if he can explain to them properly no problem as soon as he started interrupted and explained the whole machine to him so that's the the point of this the point of this um of this EVAP system if he said gets glycerin okay that's glycerin which like we said the other side and this is what we want to get to the other side that comes out the top the light of the fatty acids the fatty acids go through many processes hydr hydrogenation to hyd to hyd to hydron them make them hydr hydrogenated vegetable fats of course be one use food shortening which it's a Bard wrath these days because it's obviously it's not good for arteries um and in in um in it's used in one of the one of the fatty acid which come out of steric acid another one is AIC acid steric acid is found in many many products including monod glycerides poate 80 P emulsifiers emulsifiers are Mal is another word for emulsifiers they take water oil you know like we mentioned here last time in they us that oil and water nothing mixes getting out of oil they rise to the top but that's always true except in the case where is osif osif keeps it together and these osif all foods will have anytime there's oil and water in there has needs to be MiFi to hold it in suspension if it's not held in suspension it's you get you know mayonnaise get the oil RIS you have to shake it up so that those are all fatty acids fatty acids again could come from steria could come from town even if you know for sure that this is this came from vegetable oil doesn't make a difference they reuse it in the same equipment and it's not water soluble you can't clean it the one that I cashed used with 15,000 lbs of steam spraying every bit of it until that was and yes I checked it personally I have a picture of be on the top of it so otherwise it doesn't stay clean there could be significant amount of toow in this vegetable oil and just to get to our a second Point even if you have even if even if um even if you even if you have and that's that's as far as as the poid as as the triglyceride as the M glycerides demulsifier you had the mayonnaise picture of mayonnaise over here mayonnaise is soy oil with water it's held together by an emulsifier everybody knows that emulsifier is a mayonnaise egg you put only m the m the mif fire in good mayonnaise is eggs and eggs they first put the water in and the vinegar the spices they put the egg and they put in the the the oil at at with a high sheer mixer to give that frothy look and it's held together at that the the when you go to the store the are many many of these issues we just touched on a few now and believe have the elephant thank you what thank you everybody stvi again um you can email we have a pad going around with different questions if you have questions you'd like gra elephant to address hopefully we'll have time now to discuss them we have already several questions that have come up um also I would just let people know that the OU publishes every year a guide to payack guide to Passover we do have by the beima uh several copies that are available some wives may have taken them home when here for ladies program uh a week ago but we have complimentary copies available for people to take home to help with their pay out preparations uh start with the box that's open on the bottom and then we can go to the other one um just switching over I would like to introduce my boss the Chief Operating Officer of U kosher mosha elephant who oversees the U's Global reach which means just to give you an idea of the scope the OU currently certifies 1.3 million products produced in 13,000 facilities in all 50 states and 106 countries around the world overseen by a team of 50 re coordinators and 200 some OD support staff in our offices and 1100 Mas globally it means someone is doing something every minute of the day we even have Mas that are in factories aner nid they're blowing Sher they're having they're having P factories in order to make sure that there is in food that you have so without any further Ado I call upep to thank you I didn't know I had such a difficult job myself till now um thank you for having us it's it's real move it up I know that Rabbi El told me last night that the R would like us to concentrate on answering questions which I'll be happy to do I just want to make um a number of introductory remarks and and that is as follows the first is as everybody's getting ready for y and everybody's going shopping I presume there's going to be a lot of shopping today I presume there are a lot of people here today so they shouldn't have to be shopping and this point that I want to make is so critical and there when you're going to the store whereever whichever store you go to and whichever product you buy the point is not which store the point is not which product and the point is not which he those are your decisions but what you have to look for you have to look for is for the k p symbol just because it's being sold in a Kos pesak store or a Kos PES section does not mean that it's Kos p and the assumption that it is could get you into a lot of trouble um the story I always repeat but there are so many more I could give you is the woman who called me on ER of pesak who had cooked 24 rolls of gilter fish because she bought them or assumed or whatever that they were all k p and an Arab PES after the after the man she realized that they were notos so all of those roles were obviously fish that's not she didn't have fish for the pots and pans that she cooked those fish in were not anymore they were used for and after this man on P you can't even Cas anymore and there's even a question if you could do a com on it that's a sh but I'm not here to give you a sh I'm here to tell you to look for the symbol and this is not just for P for p it means that even if you're finding a symbol you have to make sure that it has the Kos PES designation but I can't tell you and this is mamish every single day that I get calls from people that go to stores whether it's in Brooklyn or here in Lakewood in from neighborhoods and in stores that are catering to the to the from but the store is not a he and the hhas that appear in stores don't give HH to groceries they give HH to the takeout section to the bakery section to the fish section there is's a which we could talk about what it is or what it isn't but groceries the assumption is that you the consumer are buying what you feel is kosher you're relying on the he whatever you're relying on you're relying on what your told you but they're not taking a that it's kosher there's no one taking a that anything in those sections is kosher at all or a he that you are comfortable with and I can't tell you how many people tell me I still remember I got a call one day I live in bar park for somebody went to a local store near where I live and said I'm so happy to hear that storo became p and I said what makes you think that stor cookies and he said well I S it being sold in the supermarket in our neighborhood so they wouldn't sell something which isn't that's that's not true and nobody did anything wrong the supermarket doesn't have any s saying that everything here is and therefore it's your and the customers are to make sure what you're buying is a he that you're comfortable with is it P labeled with the proper P not that you should have frustration and real serious shist as y of Cs the one other issue I'd like to say as an introduction which is I think critically critically important you know I may be one of the oldest people in this room and I've seen the world of kasis go from here to here to here what do I mean Rabbi seski who's much younger than me and spoke about the world that we grew up in where you looked at the ingredients and you think that you knew everything that the ingredient panel said and you ate it I remember a number of years ago the U certified tootsie rolls and they sent a whole big bag to the OU to give us a treat but TOs RS are not and I'm so somebody came over to me and said don't you feel bad that you can't taste the Tootsie Roll I said actually I already had it said what do you mean I already had it they just became certified last week I said yeah but when we were young everybody ate Tootsie Rolls so I already had Tootsie Rolls so that was the world that we grew up in and I'm just talking historical then the world and there are a lot of Heroes in the story not me but there are people who devoted their lives to kasas I don't know if anybody here is from Chicago there was a r in Chicago his name wasw this was a man who worked for the OU for 50 years and wasn't homeab shabas he traveled the world I remember one day I'm sitting in my office and he's in India and he calls me I say what's doing he says we're stuck in a ditch because I got stuck in a manso and I say to him you know if you call me from a factory I had such a story also I was working for all you two three weeks just two three weeks and it's 2:00 in the morning and I get a call from K goldw and he's in Hawaii and a factory and he had a Shiloh and I said to him you're calling me at 2: in the morning you're the expert he says you're my boss now I got to call you he said 2: in the morning he says that's when I call and then he was a sadic he had it was a it was a company called manaloa madenia nuts they sent me a case of nuts cuz he told him I made the rabbi I woke up to Rabbi so he calls me and he says to me I'm stuck in India and a mansoon in a ditch he said sir what should I do for you he says if I'm suffering you're going to suffer with me so these were people that buil castas these are people that built castas in America and around the world and they did a fantastic job job and the level of conscientiousness regarding Cas has changed dramatically and there's the world of I look at the ingredient panel as RAB starki just spoke so eloquently about assuming and making all sorts of assumptions and you don't even know how to pronounce the word so if I don't how to pronounce the word it must be a chemical andish Mish we went away from that and that's great but what I'm finding now what I'm finding now based on the the questions that we're getting and I don't know if some of those questions will be in today's list is people want to have everything now being kosher means I want to really be koser the said his introductory remarks that that's the side of a Jewish Home we at the OU every year have a conference every you have a conference of old ra and the M usually during the sphere time and a few years ago we try every year to invite to address us a few years ago I had the to have my son is here he learned the NOA I had with no so I invited the Nob to speak and said exactly what you said said I come here to the I come here because I CL owes you a thank you he says if there such barem the Lakewood and there such a expansion and and growth of Li you could only have that type of in bodies that are only eating kosher food and if there wasn't kosher food we couldn't have so many learning and growing and learning and we live in a time where people are interested in eating what they're supposed to eat but the problem is everybody wants to eat everything and what's starting to happen and it happens a lot before PES and that's why it's appropriate to speak about today what could be wrong that's words I hear all the time what could already be wrong with this product why why is this product if it's koser all year not Kosher for p what could be about this product SOI gave you a small taste of what could be wrong but the the the list it was really just a small taste you didn't want to take away from my time I guess that the list is endless the list is endless whether it's whether it's ingredients that you don't know where they come from how they're made the world changed ra mentioned that we give as in 106 countries around the world the way they make things in different countries are different than the way they make it here I'll give you a simple example glucose citric acid are all fermentations in America we're used to everything like that to be made out of corn CU there's abundance of corn in the United States in Europe there isn't corn so they're using wheat to make those ingredients so you have simple ingredients the basic food ingredients that could be kets or could be derivatives of kets and you'll never know from looking at the ingredient panel so I need to implore you and ask of you don't make assumptions and don't say what could be wrong I'm not going to go into the other element which is the element the of our children who we want to be them to have to know what Cas is about and to live a life of koser it's not a good that when a child sees something on the table and it doesn't have a he and you tell him well I know it's kosher anyway or even he'll he'll say I spoke to a or I spoke to he and they said it's kosher anyway they might have said that I'm sure that if you're saying that it's true but children don't understand those nuances and bringing into your home a a attitude that we can make our own decisions and that food is kosher without a he is is not a is not a good attitude and the last I noticed there's plenty of kosher food available nobody is going hungry and therefore that attitude should change and should be part of the way we think okay we'll start with a breakfast sh from the that is does coffee need a hat both regular after PES okay so coffee is a follows so plain regular coffee plain regular coffee caffeinated or decaffinated all year round does not need a he but there's a number of points I'd like to add to it number one for PES certainly the caffeinated coffee needs a reliable because there are many that there are many places that have different ways of decaffeinating the coffee and alcohol is a method of decaffeinating coffee and of course whenever you hear the word alcohol you need to be concerned if that alcohol is C pesak alcohol or not that's for pesak and that's simple coffee let's take flavored coffee styi touched upon flavors so obviously after now that you've heard that flavorings need H every flavored coffee needs a h but I want to tell you two more things we have now discovered that the coffee companies would a roast coffee so roasting coffee is garnish M garnish you just take the Coffee Bean and you roast it what could be wrong but most of these places are also selling flavored coffee and we were always the under the assumption and that what was always usually the case that first you rul stood the coffee and only after you roasted the coffee if you wanted to make flavored coffee you then added the flavor and there was already after there was no heat involved and there were no kalum issue we've discovered that some factories have actually reversed the method of roasting coffee and they first add the flavor and after they add the flavor they then roast the coffee so now if the flavor is not Kosher then you have a problem with Caleb moreover what's become popular is whiskey infused coffee you have coffee be beans that are infused with whiskey which is and that whiskey fused coffee afterwards they're roasting regular coffee beans on the same line so it's it's not common I'm not going to tell you something that's common that's not but on the other hand there's barem much certified PES coffee so it goes back to the point I made that you should probably buy if you can decaffeinated coffee for certain but even non decaffinated coffee if it's available with a heure that's what you should buy there's one other RAB starki um in his talk kept on speaking about subjects that we're not going to speak about today so I'm also going to tell you a subject that we're not going to speak about today but is a very very important subject that you can't ignore when a question about coffee is asked and that's Starbucks so besides having a problem with spending $6 for a coffee again I'm giving I'm giving away my age but besides besides with that I don't know how a Ben Tyra buys a coffeine Starbucks I don't know how Ben Tyra a person who person who learned in Yesa a person who's bringing up children alra buy a coffee in Starbucks and bar and certainly not a lwood there's probably plenty coffee in lwood with a he and people I hope to rub his mask and okay but I'm giving muser um should not be buying coffee and Starbucks anytime the Cofe cof is is so that's a good is there Bish Bish so that's the sh right so that's the sh if you consider roasting Bish or you consider roasting a doesn't go through another no doesn't doesn't just goes through Rus dunin Don as well now Rabbi elf is running the show I'm only there's a lot of questions everyone everyone's got questions we're gonna we're gonna keep we're keep moving along the next question once we've had our coffee for the morning whether it's the Dunka Donuts or Starbucks are not there we're not we're having peeling okay is is there a problem with something that says that's 100% vegan it has no Ash on it but it says that it's 100% vegan so again this is one of the most common mistakes vegan so vegan means it's vegetarian but let's think about vegetarian so certainly if it's a food that could be Bish lum vegan doesn't vegan doesn't solve the problem of bish vegan doesn't solve the problem bisham and if it's a food that so rice so I would guess I I don't know if I've ever been in a vegan restaurant but I guess if you went to a vegan restaurant the most popular food on the menu would be rice because it's vegan and you could do a lot of things with rice but rice has all of the reasons that there should be it's it's a significant food it's not you can't eat rice raw so there so the fact that it's vegan doesn't solve your bisham issue but then okay it's vegan we're using vegetable oil but vegetable oil doesn't mean it's kosher because the same oil that's vegetable oil that supposedly is coming only from a vegetable Source can be refined on the same equipment that they're refining animal fats and that would be M for vegetable oil so making any assumption that because it's vegan it must be kosher it must be par and then of course the most important point to make and a point it's an it's not an emotional point the point to make here is that don't have is a doesn't have an Theus and if a tells you everything is so or so they have known the monus that you have that you could believe them so even if they were going to make all sorts of claims those claims cannot be believed according to the basic Al and therefore of course just eating something because it's vegan or going into a vegan restaurant and saying what could be wrong is unacceptable again R the B again everyone everyone's got questions if you have we can either email us coaster education .org write down there's a pad of paper going around with questions again everyone's got questions we're try to get it to as many as we can but to move along the next going around yeah someone WR had a question that they've bought many fruits and vegetables they've never seen a bug on any fruit and vegetables so why isn't that enough to make a CO it's a great question it's a very very good question the question I have never seen a bug on any fruit or vegetable so why isn't that sufficient to make a CER and just be able to eat it it's it's it's a it's a great question and and it's not a simple question I actually gave a sheer in our shore last week about this again this is one of the things that the world has changed and we grew up we grew up in a world where everybody ate every vegetable and every fruit the only thing everybody knew was the rain lettuce for PES has to be checked but everything else was eaten so this is vegetables is not a PES issue vegetables is an all around issue first of all there's a reality fact and the reality fact is that when we grew up they used in the United States DDT a DDT is a very strong disinfectant of cleaning pesticide thank you of cleaning vegetables DDT became illegal in the 60s and 70s so you don't have that strong pesticide that will clean your vegetables the reality is that the reality is and people who know what they're looking for people who know what they're looking for do see do see on vegetables and fruits different things now what's the it's It's always important to approach a sh with what the so the is very clear the was not given to Not only was the not given to you're only obligated to pay attention to what you see and therefore does not require that even though your have to be perfect square there's nobody that I know of that every day brings some sort of a device to check if the fill is a perfect square and says it says that I know in lakid this may not work but to put your estri under a microscope you're not to do that M Bru says that however and that and that's why we're allowed to breathe the air in this wonderful Sho even though I don't know who built the beautiful shoe but whoever built it wasn't able to prevent that there aren't any organisms in the air CU I assure you all that there are organisms in the air that we all breathing right now but there's no problem because we don't see them and what you don't see you don't have to be concerned with the issue is if you see something what do you have to do so if you're from New York if you see something you ignore it but now I'm in New Jersey and New Jersey has a different attitude they don't just ignore anything they see and that's why I had the myself to speak with about this sh says if you see what you think is Schmutz you see a black B you think it's just dirt but if somebody has a trained eye he'll be able to notice that it's not Schmutz it's actually walking and talking there you have to be mmer that is our position and that's why the world of vegetables changed okay some more early morning questions and that is what is the story with tequilas are all Tequilas ker and are all Tequilas K all tequilas are tequila for all year round is kosher tequila for PES not you should only buy but and there are many certified Tequilas of P you all be fine going going back to the bugs for another second because I guess it's bugging a lot of people is triple washed enough to make something absolutely not absolutely not I I I want to make a very important point I was just on the radio last night I was asked the same question you are not obligated to buy vegetables from the companies because of a vegetable or a lettuce rain lettuce that's washed or it's not washed at all is not user there's nothing non kosher about it what you need to do is wash it and check it and hopefully you know what you're doing I would recommend you give the job to your wives um to make sure that they're clean but on one hand you could there are people that tell me all the time that they buy Roma lece and different brands that they find are very clean and they just wash them and check and they're fine and and but the fact that was Triple washed doesn't make a difference it may make it easier but it's not something that you could rely on for itself to assume that just because it's triple washed I could eat it without any Shila I also want to make a comment if you're checking you know you don't want to buy especially because now before PES it's very expensive and you use a lot of Roma lettuce at the salad at the Seder and other times and I don't want to buy the brands with the with the I want to buy it myself and wash it and check it which I'm supporting but if you buy it if you buy it a not certify brand and you and you come back and you tell me I never found anything then you're not checking right a light box is very useful it's a big help how to check and they're very all sell them they're not a big deal okay can we buy Farm Stores also can we buy Kosher fish and a non kosher store if it has the skin on it technically you can technically you can buy Kosher fish if you see the fish but the issue now is two things one is the counter so you have to make sure that the counter on which they're going to cut the fish is going to be completely kosher and the other thing is the knife if that store is using the same knife for Kosher fish a non Kosher fish so now there's into the non Kosher fish so if you da want to buy fish in the non Coosa fish store again when you come you have to come yourself and see the fish you have to make sure that the counter is completely clean wiped down and you should bring your own knife and I want to make a point if the storekeeper you know he's in a Jewish neighbor there was a store two blocks away from where I live in bar Park tell me not long ago there was a non Kosher fish store that had that had a sign had a heure on the co koser fish and what was the he the Kosher fish he said that he has a knife that he only uses for kosher it goes back to what I said a few moments ago a go has no nus and the telling you that this knife is only used for Kosher fish you can't trust when he says it and he has a lot of fish there and a lot of n Kosher fish and he's not Jewish and he's not observant and he couldn't care and there's certainly no much there so how do you know that he never uses that not that it kosher knife for not using it for the non Kosher fish okay um the most popular question that we get at the OU and we get it here as well several times so far what's the story with the OU are things dairy are they dairy equipment and especially Oreo cookies okay so in terms of Oreo cookies because we got to get that off the table you know we get that question we we have two rabot at the OU full time all year round one is answers question on the phone and one answers questions that come in by email or whatever obviously as this time of the year comes around we increase the staff we increase the hours but the most popular question we get is what is the status of Oreo cookies we get that question about 300 times a week we think it may be one person asking it but we get we we get the question three about very often so all the plane or cookies are UD a dairy equipment not dairy that I only could take AAS for the regular Oreo cookies I there I I've never eaten Oreo cookie I'm okay um but apparently Oreo cookies have all sorts of Specialties and they and they coat them and they color them we those are not necessarily made in Oreo's main Factory Oreo's main Factory is a factory in Chicago it's the biggest commercial Factory in the world the the belt that goes into the oven the belt that goes into the oven to cook to bake those Oreo cookies is two city blocks long and just to make it interesting for you imagine cashing that CU we did because Oreo was M Oreo used to be made with L and then they stopped using the L and after they stopped using the L that's why they decided that we might as well become kosher and the ingredients we worked with them but now we had to figure out how to cash that Bakery and we did barem so that Bakery does not use Dair they only use it's only Deary equipment so before somebody asks so why aren't they labeled the E it's a great question because they don't want to label them the E and the reason they don't want to label it the E is they want to have the ability to switch back and be Dairy and if they're going to start labeling them de and now they're really Dairy all that labeling that they're going to have is going to have to be thrown out so they're willing to forgo the customer who doesn't know it's de and wants to eat it in bar park or Lakewood they're willing to forgo it and keep the label and not take a risk on losing labels but right now they are de and yes if that were to change which we don't see it changing but you never know if that were to change we will notify the public in many different fashions that it's not de anymore but currently they are de in terms of the general question about D and de first let explain what D is and what D is the way I always explain it is as follows if you have a pat a Milat and you cook spaghetti in that Milat could you eat that spaghetti together with fles no could you eat that with fix could you eat that spaghetti right after fix yes that's the definition of De that's the definition de there's one more wrinkle because what does it mean when so when we certify that something is De it was made on that also baked Dairy but they were cleaned proper properly in between there's no residue of dairy and therefore it's de the next product however there's a very fundamental which I'm not going to pass him for you you should talk to your about the K that was used to to cook to make to bake Dairy and now it's clean what how does the look at that K because it wasn't and you're so if you're what is your attitude towards is your attitude towards that is if that's the case you have to cash and the equipment is not Cas I told you it's clean but it's not cered if on the other hand I I I only eat but I'm not so mic and I don't consider so casing isn't required then you could de so just to give you some history at the OU we never had a de designation for a number of reasons first of all not everybody is as sophisticated as this audience to understand what the allows or what the E doesn't allow number two companies weren't always sophisticated to understand it and the M we spoke to M over the years they it's a bigger to make sure that the equipment is perfectly clean if you're going to call a dairy Factory to make if you're going to allow a dairy Factory to make product at the you m have to take the that the equipment is really clean and many of our told us you know let's not take that if we don't have to but the reality is more and more consumers were calling us about the de status of foods and the makes was a number of years ago Kelloggs Kos for supervision and Kell has a number of Cals that are Kosher and the de and they said we're only going to come to OU if you'll agree to put on a de designation since we weren't sure what to do that was the ma PES and that's when we decided to start using the de designation and that's why you'll find products with the de but what we did this year is to take this a step further there are companies that the products are de e but like I gave you the example with the Oreo cookie don't have the product list don't have it the symbol AS o UD the symbol is O UD but they're really de so we now began and we have on our website a section of all the de products even if they're listed as the product says de they're really de and you can look that up and you'll see on the OU kosher website that list again I I urge you to check to check that list on a periodic basis because things change and you can't rely on the symbol on the product because the symbol is UD last point is again as I keep on repeating as I keep on repeating don't make an assumption based on reading the ingredient panel reading the ingredient panel will not be an indication if the product is D or de there are many ingredients that you think are power of or what could be about them I go back to by st's paration flavors being the best example okay the uh O is a very large certifying agency so is it you know smaller Pockets or is every product have the same level of are there some products that are more and some more well we don't give bed me we never rely on B that we say there's just a drop of this ingredient in the product and therefore it's fine there's there's no such a thing there's nobody of it again you're entitled to your standard the best example I could give is regarding you could be the U doesn't make a secret that we're not but nobody at the OU is ever going to tell you that a product that's not is and nobody to use going to tell you that you shouldn't be we're going to be transparent about what we do number two as Rabbi El said we're a very large organization and we have factories that we certify in every one of the 50 states and 106 countries but there's only one OU headquarters in downtown Manhattan and the reason it was done that way and there were many many times there were suggestions and ideas that we should open up Regional Offices in different places around the country and around the world and we've avoided doing that because of the need for consistency and the way we're able to achieve consistency is that everybody who's running the Haj everybody who's running the is concentrated in our headquarters in Manhattan this is not the time and place to give you a management course how we established the management structure at the OU but suffice to say Raab gak is the CEO of the OU I'm the co everything funnels towards a triangle on the top so there's one consistent policy that is followed throughout all you okay um couple question about vitamins and medications what's does vitamins need what about medications um first of all General and PES a general and PES so let's talk about medicines the first thing I need to tell you about medicine and I and I hope the Rob gives me just to say this anybody who has a chronic condition and the definition of a chronic condition is not that you laid up in bed or you're laid up in hospital but you have a heart condition you have blood pressure condition kidney you know I'm not a doctor and we don't have to mention all the M that there are but anybody who has that type of a condition and is taking a medicine which is a pill that you swallow not a chewable nor a liquid what I tell you I I tell you is to take that medicine take that medicine all year round and take that medicine on P and don't look at list they all don't mean anything anyway and there's no point there's no need there's no point just take the medicine and it's not being from when you don't take the medicine it's not being from when you don't take the medicine there are too many issues that I've seen and heard and I'm sure to R and every other person who's in this world of rabanus have seen people who thought they were being FR and weren't taking medicine over pesak and ended up with a stroke because they weren't taking their blood pressure medicine or ended up with a heart attack because they weren't taking their heart medicine just take the medicine and don't ask shus now that's in terms of medicine pay I can all you around now when it comes to a liquid medicine or chewable those are a little more complicated those are indeed a little more complicated and that's why I always recommend especially with dealing here with adults that could all take pills to swallow try to get your doctor to prescribe medicines that you swallow and that there's and you don't have a problem if you can only take a medicine because it's only available in a liquid or tual or it's your child that obviously you have new issues these are difficult shist um there's room to be make there's certainly room to be make the more unwell the person is the more you could be make but that's already a question that you ought to speak to your of both whether it's around the year or PES in terms of vitamins vitamins is a very very complicated issue so the good news first let's talk about the good news the good news is that there are many companies that have very extensive lines of items with reliable I don't work for any of them so I'm not ad advertising any Maxi health and zers and Frida and there's some smaller ones that don't have such extensive lines and their companies in at tea which is one of the largest Pharmaceuticals in the world has some um vitamins that are certified byus so there there's a very decent decent amount of product that certifi and that's what you should take and you don't have to have a sh what is the so P it's much more of a complicated question I would much more prefer that this be deferred to the to the RO he should take a k because the question is is a vitamin A was a vitamin A medicine and it has a lot of different conclusions if you consider it a Mel B then you could take it on chabas this coming shabas is going to be on this okay so I'll let after okay so you'll come to the sh and you'll hear let's goad okay um this fresh cut up fruit sold in major supermarkets not a koser supermarket but a regular Supermarket a Trader J and like is just plain fruit so typically you don't really have to worry in a supermarket I want to be very very clear on what I'm saying people ask about cut off fruit and there's two places that the question comes up one is in a supermarket and one is in a restaurant where people feel that they need to go to a naosh restaurant for business meetings again it's something that you that everybody should be thinking about before we talk about what you're going to eat in the restaurant is it appropriate that a person with a yamaka a person benra is eating in a non-culture restaurant I have to tell you a fantastic story we at the OU have batam all raotm have to have batam right so we have babam and there's a committee of baltim Who oversee our activities and there was an individual who I was very very friendly with and was a prominent babos at the OU and he calls me one day he says I made a decision that you're not going to be happy with but I feel I have to tell you what I did okay I was worried he's firing me or cutting my salary he says no no nothing like that he says what I I was asked by the president of the OU to be the chairman of the casis committee and he was a very good friend of ours and he he really was a good person it would have been fantastic to have him as the chair he says but I declined I said to him how do you do that to me he said I told you you're not going to be happy say taka why did you decline you like hash and you involved why did you not take it so he says he's a wealthy man a big businessman he says I sometimes have business meetings in a non- koser restaurant and I may even eat a fruit salad here and he says I'm not asking you I'm telling you this is what I do he says he says I'm not asking you this is what I do he says but it does it's not appropriate that you should be the that I should be the chairman of U kosher the largest Haj in the world and be eating in a tray for rest it do that doesn't work together and that's why I had to say no and you know that that that conversation had a lot of impact on me and I think it's important for everybody here to think about is this is where you want to be seen in a non kosher restaurant I just was asked should you we a yamaku when you go to the n koser restaurant you know what if you have to be asked that question then in SAR you shouldn't be there but in terms of the fruit salad that was off the topic now we'll get back on the topic we're at the fruit salad in a restaurant anybody who's ever been in a kitchen of a restaurant particularly as things get busy in the kitchen of the restaurant see that it's it's it's Mish M and because they see that it's really crazy they just trying to fill the orders the the customers are sitting at the tables they want their food and whatever knife is there that's the knife that they're going to use so if somebody ordered a fruit salad and a minute ago that knife was used to cut tray for meat or tray for whatever nobody's paying attention we just need to make we just need to make the fruit salad and since we need to make the fruit salad in a restaurant I don't know how you could eat a fruit salad without being concerned what was the knife that was used to cut it up okay um some more product questions also what about products I just say again mentioned this before but again beer repeating it says natural product is only one thing it's not say just chia seeds are just nuts those are easier for pesak we tell people the most raw nuts are fine besides the peans right peans peans yeah's no the way that they the way they're produced again there are people that said that they've seen Ammons that are pasteurized it's true that Ammons are pasteurized many times but the equipment that they use to pasteurize the Ammons are used only for Ammons panut penut is actually most people now when I came to the OU we certified peanut oil for PES but now more and more people in the community don't eat peanut on P it's really just interestingly a between the lure and the community they considered peanuts kitne in the LI they did not consider peanuts kitney but I guess the see them one that's why there's no more peanut oil L there's no food so they they I guess they peanuts give them peanuts the hour is getting late so we're going to just do a few more questions before we break because I'm sure everyone has their wives waiting for them at home to uh get ready for PES off including but a few other questions um what's the story with soft drinks are all soft drings have Ash can I get them in any bottle without Ash can I get them in a fountain can I get slurpie okay slow in terms of o o soft drinks soft drinks are divided in a number of categories there's the cold fill and the Hat fill the cold fill is like soda that's called cold fill there no issue on cold fill beverages but there are issues about the flavors and the ingredients used to make the cold fill soda and that's the same question that comes up at the Slurpees the Slurpees everything is all cold but the issue is are the flavors that are the different flavors that are available are Kosher and there's a list printed on the OU website I think other ASAS also have it on their websites which flavors are Kosher some are Kosher but are mil and some aren't certified at all and a very important Point well let's say there's a certain flavor of a certain drink that you always drink and you know it's kosher that doesn't mean that the that that flavor when it's used to make a slurp is kosher it could go in both directions it could go see it could go it could go in both directions and since it could go in both directions you need to look at the list but there's no issue because it's all cold and because when you buy a Coke let's say a Coke flavor you don't have to worry that you're going to get the previous person's flavor cuz they don't want want your Coke to taste orange so they're rinsing it between flavors Coca-Cola all year round and again very very important not for PES but Coke for all year round in the United States is always kosher both Coke and D Coke that does nothing pesak of course that's not the case pesak you have to look for the certification usually with a yellow cap on the Coke and on the diet coke that's not available everywhere that's the cold that's what we call the cold fill now we have the Hat fill the Hat fill again is like Snapple what that goes through a pasteurizer as it's filled Rabbi starki is in charge of one of the largest companies in the country that makes Hat fill Beverages and this company all these companies that do this don't only typically don't only Hat fill one type or one company they what's known as hatrack Packers you come to them and they and you say I want to make somebody here has a great idea I'm going to have the next Snapple all I um so he has the next Snapple how and he goes he's not going to build a factory with this type of complicated equipment he goes somewhere and he has a contract with them that they're going to fill it but it's Caleb because it's all hot filled so now you have to make sure that when they're going from a noncertified flavor to to a certified flavor that they're curing the equipment properly and therefore there for certain you have to make sure that it has a reliable H and even the same flavor it's not like Coca-Cola if you buy Coca-Cola anywhere in the United States during the year it's fine you could have the same product which has a h in one part of the country because it's being hat filled in a factory that has a and then in another part of the country that same company with that same food flavor is being battled in a non-certified company and therefore you can't drink it certain PES products have M I'll have promly displayed in which is but then some the other say or that doesn't call P what's the story with that is it certified p is it not certified for p why would it write that so first of all anything that has op on it is certified for PES but L can you eat it I think so um in terms of the other saying not the sh usually usually it's not a cashous issue because they wouldn't let their product have that type of a symbol if they really thought that the product was not Co this came up mostly in which is moving also but as I years ago were very very maed that they didn't certify a lot foods for PES even though they were perfectly Kosher for PES because say who says that on PES you need to eat pickles and who says on PES you need to have chewing go and therefore even though they knew that the practi was 100% Kos P they wanted they didn't want to have their symbol saying that this product is Kos Pak that's why it has that kind of disclaimer um I'm not sure what stories with this sh kitchen but someone sent it question can you can you rely on a kit that does not have or lock on the door I I don't know a good answer to that question question the question is what is the status of Sho kitchens I have to tell you myai that this is a huge huge issue I'm actually on a committee there's an organization called AO AO is an association of kosher organizations uh I'm a me the U is a member of AO raak and I are both members of the executive of AO and we have there's a committee now in AO that is working on this very issue you come to and there's a KES on and who is giving who is watching and I've seen this in shoes were i d that the plug didn't fall out from the heat from the warmer during the night and when the waiter comes in the morning and he sees that that plug fell out doesn't just stick it in and you'll never know the difference who's watching all of the different Chas and then of course there's the issue and again everybody should do what they need to do I know in my sh where amov I stopped allowing homemade Co cakes in the shoe I don't allow homemade cakes and I have a small shoe and I only have really from people in the shoe you know I don't know what's doing in anybody's kitchen and the only cakes that are allowed in the shoe are cakes that come with a and the same thing should be with salads we spoke earlier about what's involved in checking vegetables I don't know what's doing in other places I still remember and I give this person credit many years ago when I made a when I made weddings and I made Chev brus in a hall and my wife wanted to have salads and the h was charging an exorbitant price for the salad so my wife said I'll make salad at home and her sisters said we'll make salads and bring it to the Sim and we called the hall and they said you know the r doesn't allow outside food without a he that he's comfortable with I have to know that ra very very well and I called him and he knows me he's eating in my house he says Ro elepant I know you I know what you do he says I'm not making an exception and maybe at that point I wasn't so happy but I respect that decision I respect that decision because once you're relying on everybody you as a rob you can't say well this person I know they're very mogic and they're checking the vegetables and this person I don't know and then one final part to this discussion which is a whole new conversation which I don't know if we have time for I don't think we have time it's something called party planners party planners are allergic to Casas party planners are allergic to kasas and they are many Simas you have a party planner they don't have a he typically they bring all sorts of stuff I maybe we'll end with this story because it's a great story you'll remember it a in a in Miami told me this story he was there was a there was an affair taking place in Miami at in in a hall and this was under very reliable there everything fine and well it's a couple minutes before his man and a woman walks in carrying boxes unmarked boxes just boxes with food in them salads and cakes and says that this is for the and the M says to this individual to this woman who is this what are you she says I'm the party planner and I was hired by the B to to do this offense and who are you he says I'm the m and my job is to not let anything into this kitchen that doesn't have a reliable and she says and he says and this doesn't have reliable and it can't come into this kitchen so she goes running out to the who obviously had hired her and paid her and says this is what's going on and the the rabbi what are we going to do here and he's standing firm I'm not letting it in and is there and is getting upset don't ask and it came to the point that we have having this altercation this nothing to do with the OU this is just a story I'm repeating they were having this altercation and they did nothing else than called the police they called the police and the police came and said what's the problem here and she says my food has been kidnapped and to make a long story short the they explained the two parties here explained to the police what's going on and there was a smart policeman in New York the policeman would have come would have been after shabas already but the the the policeman said you know what set up a table outside not in the hall and there you can put your food was a good idea but this is the problem of party planners and if you hire a party planner and she brings food and you don't know where that food is coming from so you have the most wonderful Sim but you don't know about the KAS of the food and they could be set up beautifully and this really is a good way to end because this where we began these are things that we take for granted but we shouldn't take that for granted and we should be thinking all of the time about what we eating and the cashes of what we EA h