ack!

[cellio]

Last week I was in Giant Eagle and picked up some peeps (mmm, peeps), because I'm a small-scale addict (not Laura-class). I remembered a claim on the peeps web site that they are kosher, so I looked for the hechsher (certification mark) on the package and didn't find it. I wrote to them suggesting that they add it.

Let me digress for a moment. We are talking about the peeps web site -- the marshmallow candy, and a site published by the manufacturer. This is not their general web site; this is about peeps and peeps only.

This is the reply I got back:

Dear Ms. Cellio,

Thank you for your recent e-mail. We hope you enjoyed visiting www.marshmallowpeeps.com.

All of Just Born's jelly candies (Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales, Zours, Teenee Beanee Gourmet Jelly Beans, Peeps Jelly Beans, and Just Born Jelly Beans) are certified kosher by the Orthodox Union. The gelatin used in our marshmallow candy is derived from pork products.

Again, thank you for your taking the time to contact us; we hope this information is helpful.

When I first read this today, I assumed a typo -- that they meant to write "...is NOT derived from pork...". After all, their site said peeps were kosher.

Then I took a closer look. Note the list of candies above. Note that peeps are not on this list (but peeps jelly beans -- which I have never heard of -- are).

So I went back to the web site. The last entry in the FAQ at http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/fun.html says: "All of Just Born's jelly candies (Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales, Zours, Teenee Beanee Gourmet Jelly Beans, Peeps Jelly Beans, and Just Born Jelly Beans) are certified kosher by the Orthodox Union." This is the same text as above, except that it fails to provide the warning about marshmallow peeps, the specific candy this web site is about!

So peeps are not kosher, I accidentally ate pork last week, and I did that as a result of reading a true-but-misleading statement on their web site.

Lovely.

Comments

[amergina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, gelatin is usually pork. I remember this from my non-meat eating days. I used to buy kosher jello. (Note to self. Buy kosher jello)

Sigh. And I *like* peeps, too. Oh well. I wonder why they need to put gelatin in marshmellows?

[cellio]

What frustrates me is that I thought I was being cautious, but I read something that wasn't really there when the statement that was there was completely irrelevant (thus contributing to my mis-reading). The failure to read closely is mine, but the failure to actually talk about peeps on a peeps web site is theirs.

I assume that gelatin is what gives marshmallows that cohesive spongy "sproing" quality. It's not absolutely necessary, because you can get kosher marshmallows. I presume that the kosher substitute, whatever it is, is more expensive or something.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

I always thought that gelatin was derived from horse hooves. What I've read recently affirms taht because it is the cause of the debate between Orthodox and Conservative authorities... Orthodox argument is that it comes from a non-kosher animal, period, end of story... the Conservative argument is that after the amount of processing it goes through, gelatin is a by product of the horse and not a problem. Regardless, I won't eat non-kosher gelatin, so it's not an issue for me.
Maybe they also make it from pigs hooves? Hrm....

[cellio]

I always thought gelatin was derived from animal bones, with the Orthodox concern being whether (1) the animal was kosher to begin with and (2) whether that specific animal was slaughtered in accordance with halacha. I also think that the resulting gelatin is far enough away from "meat" to really count as an animal product, but I still don't want to eat non-kosher species.

So does the OU certify gelatin as fleishig rather than pareve? It would be consistent. Or rather, if gelatin is far enough away to no longer be "meat", then why worry about shechita?

ding ding ding

[goljerp]

So does the OU certify gelatin as fleishig rather than pareve?

Nope, it's parve (if I recall correctly).

This is the same logic which allows "kosher rennet" in cheese.

(Goljerp warms up for a rant, please skip to the "***" if you've heard me say this before, or if you'd rather not know too much about your cheese. I know I got turned off of a type of cheese when a friend told me something so horrific that I've totally repressed most of the incident, other than the fact that I should never talk to him about cheese again.)

Rennet is, for the sake of this argument, that which turns milk into cheese. There are three sources for rennet: plants, bacteria, and cows. From the kashrut standpoint plants are a no-brainer. You might think bacteria are tougher, because they've been genetically modified to express an enzyme found in cows. But as far as I can tell, there's no difficulty with this either. The third category, cows, is the toughie. Basically the standard way you get the enzymes by taking some cow stomach (dunno which one, sorry) and boiling it in boric acid for a day or two. Filter, and voila. Rennet. In my book, anything you can buy from fischer scientific isn't food, it's chemicals. And definitely anything that's been boiling in acid for a day isn't food. There's even a rabbinic category for this: basically things that dogs won't eat aren't food. (Now, I know some dogs which will eat anything, but what can you do about those wacky rabbis?) The resulting rennet is pretty strong; as an enzyme I think that it's typically something on the order of one part in 1000. (The 1/60 rule would be tempting to trot out here too...)

As far as I know, "kosher" rennet is one which comes from plants, bacteria, or cows which were slaughtered in a kosher way. Why the third category is allowed at all is a good question. As far as I can tell, the answer is simple: at the time that these rules were made, there were two very serious considerations.

(1) People ate a lot of cheese
(2) People didn't know about methods #1 and 2.

So the rabbis came up with something.

Another factor, that of using "kosher milk" isn't a problem in the US where there are serious rules about mixing pig's milk in with cow milk, not to mention the fact that most milk is probably produced on large farms with nary a pig in sight.

I decided to do some more research (I have, of course, done research on this before, but most of it was several years ago. Things like boiling in boric acid stick with you though.)

According to "The Jewish Dietary Laws" (The little green book from the Conservative movement with stuff about kashrut), another rationale for rennet is

Pirsah b'almah -- mere secretion. Thuis notion is applied by the rabbis (Chullin 116b) to secretions from the animal which have no food value. The classic example of this is rennet which is used in the curdling of cheese. Though this product may come from the organs of an animal, it ceases being considered an animal substance because it is not a real food but a secretion.

For geletin, they suggest looking at Klein, 1969 Proceedings of the Rabbinical Assembly, pp. 203-218. Presumably, if one had Klein's large book on conservative practice and halacha, there would also be a mention of this issue.

***
Did I let it slip that I feel strongly about this? (Also I'm procrastinating my pesach cleaning yet again... sigh...)

Re: ding ding ding

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Hey, this was interesting.

A.
who has made sausage, let alone watched it being made, and is otherwise hard to squick on food issues. :)

Re: ding ding ding

[goljerp]

Glad you liked it... I did want to warn off the squeamish among us...

Re: ding ding ding

[cellio]

Thank you for this! I vaguely knew that rennet came from animal parts, but didn't know the details. Boric acid...yum.

I have Klein's book on practice (you mean the big white one, right?), so I'll try to remember to see what he says on this subject.

So how's that cleaning coming along? :-)

Re: ding ding ding

[goljerp]

Boric acid...yum

Well, I'm sure they wash it off at a later point... At least, they better!

I have Klein's book on practice (you mean the big white one, right?)

Yep, that's the one.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Often companies are unaware of the contradiction between "our product is kosher" and "some of our products are kosher".

The opposite of your situation happened many years ago:

My father had a friend come up to him once with a bag of Pork Rinds, labeled OU, and demanding an explanation. The answer turned out to be a mistake in the printing order for the bags at the potato chip and pork rind plant.

Go figure.

Sorry you had to learn about Peeps the hard way. Personally the only use I can find for them is that they light up nicely when you burn them. I knew way too many pyromaniacs in school.

[cellio]

I wrote back and suggested that they either add the clarification about Peeps or remove the entry from their Peeps FAQ. We'll see what happens.

Peeps do burn nicely, yes. :-)

What exactly are peeps?

[goljerp]

I think I recall someone saying on Saturday night that they saw peeps at the sephardic cultural thing that I was at. They're those marshmellowy yellow duck-like things, right?

Re: What exactly are peeps?

[cellio]

Yeah, they're the little marshmallow chicks, classically yellow but they also show up in pink, blue, and purple. Peeps have now also branched out into other holidays; I saw orange pumpkin peeps in October, and according to their web site they have peeps for a couple other holidays too (I think Xmas and Valentine's day).

Peeps are made out of sugar, sugar, marshmallow, and sugar, not necessarily in that order. They are amazingly bad for you, I'm sure.

Re: What exactly are peeps?

[goljerp]

... but do they have any sugar in them? :-)

A friend of mine mentioned the other night that a peep had been stuck to a bulletin board in the basement of one of the Brown departments (Judaic studies?) for more than a year. So probably preservatives also are in the mix... mmm, preservatives...

Re: What exactly are peeps?

[cellio]

Oh yeah. Peeps, like Twinkies, do not seem to decay under their own power. That peep will be there until your grandkids finally decide to remove it.

Because you *really* need to..

[fiannaharpar.livejournal.com]

Go here (http://www.peepresearch.org), and experience what happens when a group of people have a lot of free time, and seemingly unlimited access to laboratory equipment.

Re: Because you *really* need to..

[cellio]

Oh. My. That is hilarious! I've forwarded the URL to a few people, and blamed you. :-)

Re: Because you *really* need to..

[goljerp]

I enjoyed the site, but it's obvious that the experimentalists were biologists or biochemists.

Real Chemists would've told what molarity of NaOH and H₂SO₄ they were using.

Also I noted that they didn't try a truly non-polar solvent, like benzene or cyclohexane.