Hello rabbi,
First I would like to thank you for putting this list and forum together, making Passover cooking much easier. I would like to ask however, for many products you state in your reply that simple ingredients don’t really need to be asked about. Is this true across the board? I was under the impression that certain brands/ manufacturers were looked into and therefor approved, but it seems like if the ingredients are basic it’s okay. So I just want to make sure that products that state familiar ingredients don’t need to be asked about, independent of the brand? Thank you
👍👍
Thank you for your response!
Thank you for asking this.
If the ingredients say “rice, sugar, and corn”
We all know what rice is, we all know what sugar is, and we all know corn. There’s nothing to be concerned about. Every ingredient in a product must be listed. We know what is in the product and we know that there’s nothing else inside. No need to ask.
However, when it says “yeast” or “vinegar” or “mono and Diglicerides” or “enzymes” or “alcohol” or “malt“, then a person may feel that they don’t know what that is or what the source of it is. Then it is recommended to post it. There’s no huge magic for simple ingredients. I read them just like you read them. By FDA law every ingredient must be listed except trace ingredients less than 60 parts per million. Pretty much everything is listed.
I don’t mind answering the questions but there’s two problems. First of all, people are given the false impression that there’s some rabbinical magic that I can perform, which is what we are upset at the typical certifying agencies for giving that false impression.
The other issue is that my time is somewhat limited and coming closer to Pesach, I will get a few hundred posts a day, and I’ll miss out on responding to a lot of them.
As a general rule of thumb, if you are confident you know the ingredients and they’re relatively simple, trust yourself. If it isn’t simple, or your not sure if it’s simple, don’t fret, just post it.
I have been doing this for over thirty-five years and I see many people that used to post a lot of questions, that now only post a few, because they got the hang of it.
Best way to learn might be to highlight the ingredient that you aren’t sure of, and I’ll give you a clarification on it. Maybe next year I’ll set up an ingredients reading guide or something. Life is so much simpler when you can walk in a store, pick something up, read tHe ingredients and buy it on Pesach itself.