Yeish m'vatlin Dairy l'chatchilah?
Or
Ein m'vatlin Dairy l'chatchilah?
This question has fascinated me for over a decade.
Background:
Equal used to come in tablets that were certified OU-D
Halachic question:
After eating meat, may one drop this OU-D equal tablet into one's coffee or tea w/o having to wait the proverbial 6 hours?
What's the Potential Heter?
The amount of dairy in the tablet is probably rather small - furthermore when measured against the cup of coffee/tea it's almost surely less than 1:60. All this is still "heter". Now may I proceed to consume this coffee/tea w/o having to wait?
Fast Forward:
Whilst preparing Hilchot Pesach in the Mishnah Brurah et. al, I chanced upon a parallel case. [BTW this is no co-incidence because I've been aware for some time that there is a large conjunction of Halachot between Passover and Issur v'heter - especially bassar b'chalav]
See first O"Ch Rema 487:6 then Ba'er Hetev and Sha'arei T'shuva 447:26 talking about [ex-Yankee Hideki] "Matsui" See the Ba'er Hetev who quotes the Tzemach Tzedek 86 that
"It's prohibited to add Milk of an animal or Cream of Wheat to wine to make it white and clear... Even if less than 60 because it is m'vateil issur l'chatchilah"
Surprisingly enough, some posqim disagree! Including Magen Avraham and Pri Hadash, but apparently the Hoq Yaakov is with the Tzemach Tzedeq
The Shaarei T'shuvah quoting the D'gul Meirvavah splits the baby - Hametz no dairy yes because "adayin heter hu" [see above re: the Equal Bittul]
The entire genre here is a BIT different than my Equal case - because - All things being Equal - we are m'vateil once and drink it. In adding minute amounts of "milk" to wine, there remains a slight possibility of future enhancements - chazi l'itztarufei.
BE"H I plan to research this further, but in the meantime here's the opening gambit.
Shalom
RRW
3 comments:
Interesting question, but as everyone has known for at least a decade, an OU-D does not mean that the item is dairy, nor does it mean it was even dairy equipment necessarily. It just means it was processed in the same plant as dairy and you have to ask the OU about the particular product to see what its status is. They respond to email quickly; I do it all the time. Most of the products are ultimately totally pareve.
Hosever, from hilchos Pesach we also learn that one can mevatel chometz in shishim before erev Pesach because at the time one is doing it, there is no actual issur that you're mevateling. Then since there's no chozer v'neor (assuming it's not yavesh b'yavesh) on Pesach, the chometz remains nullified.
So in this case, when you add the Equal to the drink, you're not doing it to mevatel any issur so the Equal gets mevateled by itself. I would assume it's not chozer v'neor so therefore it remains nullified.
Ah, but then the whole thing changes since it gives a taste to the drink like a spice which is never mevateled so you have to wait 6 hours anyway.
Skeptic:
"Interesting question, but as everyone has known for at least a decade, an OU-D does not mean that the item is dairy"
True enough?
But 10 years ago when the problem first bothered me i was unawre of this factoid so I though OU-D meant it DID have dairy ingredients. And I was working within those parameters - albeit they indeed may have been flawed
GI:
"Ah, but then the whole thing changes since it gives a taste to the drink like a spice which is never mevateled so you have to wait 6 hours anyway."
Good Catch!
The assumption I had - but did not articulate - is that the dairy was NOT a taste enhancer like a spice - due to the fact that Equal in non-Tablet form was labeled pareve
I should have clarified this.
Thre is more to this in Hilchot Bassar beChalav. I am happen to be teaching Hilchot Pesach now.
There is a meta issue of needing be'qiut. Meaning that to REALLY know hilchot bassar be'chalav one really needs to master other related topics such as the Issues of Hameitz.
RRW
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