Yudel's "Rest-of-the-Story"

חמשה עשר בשבט- Fruit Platters

2012-01-30T22:29:00.001-05:00

Kashrus ALERT: Do not purchase from any store or any brand if "ANY" of their platters contains Dried Figs, Buksa, Raisins, dried Dates, dried cherries, dried strawberries, raspberries, etc.

The consumer is not trained nor qualified to check for infestation, therefore even with a sticker indicating it must be checked -
DO NOT PURCHASE.

Stay away from KLEINS, Oh-Nuts, NPGS, Lakewood CO-Op, Hisachdus.

Can't blame Hisachdus, as they rely strictly on the owner for kashrus & Honorarium.

OH NUTS, Klein's natural- dried fruits, may contain infested fruits

2012-01-30T22:29:00.000-05:00

Now that Graoes also have insects, you can't dry & make raisins at all.

http://www.ohnuts.com/buy.cfm/bulk-dried-fruits

It's a well known fact that raspberries, blackberries, dried figs, dried dates, raisins are infested, yet "Oh nuts" has all of them. We don't think that a kosher consumer may even purchase any item in such an establishment.

Klein's Naturals has many of those infested items as well, a kosher consumer should patronize the ones that don't sell infested products.

Only properly trained individuals are qualified to check for infestation-don't try it.

2012-01-30T12:02:00.000-05:00

Some Ka$hru$ mi$nomer$

2012-01-30T08:53:00.000-05:00

If one would glance at the full-page glossy ads in the ubiquitous Jewish magazine, it would seem that produce growers are falling over themselves to provide every possible green with the best of hechsherim, all while stating the various methods used to ascertain that one should not stumble and transgress these Biblical prohibitions.
“Greenhouse Grown”, [are not insect free!]
“Triple Washed”, [does not rid enough, to permit]
“Insect Free”, [to those that are not trained]
“Requires No Checking” [not to be used after checking ]
scream out from the ads.

The Mishna Berura brings the Chasam sofer, that only trained individual with very good eyesight may checks infestation otherwise "don't use".

Why are so many pulling their "WIC" from NPGS?

2012-01-29T08:31:00.001-05:00

Why are so many pulling their "WIC" from NPGS?

Is it only because of the Milk or the Meat Dept, Expired products, infested, etc? or are there other reasons as well?

"BOE"- Danger on the Horizon in Lakewood

2012-01-28T23:23:00.001-05:00

If the Lakewood "BOE" moves the BOE elections to November, the voters can't vote down the budget per law signed last week by the NJ Governor.

NPGS's CO-OP (Lakewood) Bais Yosef meat is not for Sfardim

2012-01-28T19:26:00.000-05:00

In response to all of the ones that ask "what's with the NPGS CO-OP's meat & poultry". Their " Bais-Yosef" meat is not for Sfardim-you've been sketched !
A while back I was asked to inspect the butcher Dept of the NPGS Jackson Co-op. I called Rav Palachik (I thought he's the the Rav Hamachshir) for permission, He responded "no problem" but talk to Z. Rothchild der Baal Habuhs.

I told Z. Rothchild that Rav Palatchuk Re: visit in the butcher Dept He said I should also clear it with you. He said you can visin on the condition that "whatever you see you can't tell anyone". I told him I do know what's going on & I don't buy their meat, but others want to know-If I can't tell anyone my findings, I'm not going in.

Some 3-4 weeks later, Z. Rothchild asks me "what's your problem with the butcher dept at my NPGS Co-op"?. I ask him how is it that your Bais-Yosef ratio from your schechita is that much higher than anyone else that does a Shechite at the Treuth Plant in Baltimore?, Something is seriously wrong, Alle, Mendelowitz, Rockland Kosher, Star-K, etc all take from there with a much lower ratio.

I ask Z. Rothchild, how many grinding machines he has in his butcher department? He responds "one". I follow up with, in the middle of the day when you run out of packaged Bais-Yosef choped meat what tipe of cleanup do you do with the grinder? he responds Just maybe wipe the outside of the grinder. I told him that the inside of the grinder is full of non-Bais-Yosef meat and a Sfardi that you give him non bais-yosef meat is giving him "treif". He says well really I am of the opinion that "all of the meat is bais-yosef" I just don't mark it that way, the customers wouldn't like it.

So I say even Rav Yosef Karo, Z"L the Bais-Yosef never knew that all of the meat is actually bais-yosef. So in Yoreh Dayah & Choshen Mishpat I can't trust you at all.

Who is the real Rav Hamachshir? Rav Palatchuk also gives the Hashgocha at Rockland Kosher (the Bais Yosef ratio from the same plant is much lower), certain cuts that Rav Palatchuk does not allow (Rockland kosher doesn't sell it at all), the Co-Op puts on the KCL label. Unbeknown to the consumers the shtik- To the Sfardik customers "you have been "sketched".

The real rav Hamachshir is Z. Rothchild, he is the ultimate decider of the kashrus standards

2 weeks is the whole difference between "Sedom" & Lakewood?

2012-01-28T16:08:00.000-05:00

The ones collecting Tzedokah say so!

The SCOOP & Voice of Lakewood's Rabonim approve of advertising "Treif" eateries?

2012-01-28T10:21:00.000-05:00

Others are pulling their ads from the voice & the SCOOP-WHY not "U"?
The Voice of Lakewood's Rabonim and the Lakewood -SCOOP approve of advertising "Treif" eateries? Therefore; Don't advertise, don't read, discard & protest.

We wrote to them, they said their Rabonim.....

There is no "cholo-stam" anymore. Since the Veternerian procedures all non-cholv yisroel is "CHOEV-TREIF". Per the piskei Rav eliyashev, Rav Wosner & all othe gedolie Haposkim. The mere fact that others are consuming Cholov Treif & think it's Cholov stam doesn't change the fact nor the severity of the "issur".

Please Learn Mishnayos

2012-01-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

דוד בן יוסף הלוי ע"ה

ROBBINS

נא ללמוד כל יום משנה אחת עבורו

לא הניח בנים

Kosher lettuce? WOW- Can we afford kosher lettuce?

2012-01-25T15:20:00.000-05:00

January 25, 2012By Jonah Lowenfeld- Can we afford kosher lettuce?

Yossi Asyag is an entrepreneur trying to grow bug-free kosher vegetables.
On a Monday morning in November, two men sat on the edge of a field in Carpinteria, 85 miles north of Los Angeles. The older one, middle-aged, wiry and bareheaded, had the face of someone who has served in the military, worked in agriculture or, in his case, both. Alongside him was a younger man who wore a black kippah and looked, from his complexion, like he spends his days indoors.
Between them, a young head of romaine lettuce sat on a table. It was cracked open, the small leaves splayed outward to reveal a few flecks of soil. “Did you see anything moving?” the older man asked. “No,” the younger one replied. “No, this looks very good.”

Yossi Asyag, 45, is an Israeli-born agricultural entrepreneur and the founder of a small farming operation that grows kosher-certified fresh lettuce and herbs. Yosef Caplan, 27, is assistant director of the kashrut services division at the Rabbinical Council of California (RCC). Every Monday, Caplan drives from Los Angeles to Carpinteria and then to another site nearby for his job as Asyag’s farm’s mashgiach, or kosher supervisor.

That nothing was moving in the lettuce on the table on this day left both Asyag and Caplan hopeful that no bugs inhabited the other 5,000 heads of lettuce growing in the greenhouse a few dozen yards away.

Harvest time would come two weeks later. Through a combination of careful monitoring and judicious application of pesticides, Asyag said, the lettuce in the greenhouse stayed bug-free. That week’s haul of romaine lettuce from the farm was certified as kosher.

Worse than a cheeseburger- The presence of even one whole bug, dead or alive, can render an entire vegetable treif — unkosher. On this matter, Orthodox rabbis are unequivocal. “From a Torah perspective, eating a Big Mac or eating a salad with insects in it, the salad is worse,” Rabbi Eliezer Eidlitz, who runs the nonprofit Kosher Information Bureau, told me when I met him at his home office in Valley Village.

With stakes like that, it’s no wonder some kosher-observant Jews are willing to pay top dollar for kosher-certified produce. At one store in Los Angeles earlier this month, an RCC-certified head of romaine was selling for seven times the per-ounce price of one without the kosher designation. For East Coast consumers, who buy the majority of Asyag’s produce, most of the lettuce is first pre-cut and bagged as processed salads, and then sold at an even higher markup.

Greenhouse-grown, bug-free kosher lettuce is an Israeli innovation. First pioneered in 1990 in the then-occupied Gaza Strip, the growing technique is still often referred to as the “Gush Katif” method, named for the now-dismantled Jewish settlement where it originated.

Over the past five years, California has become home to the largest North American bug-free-growing operation, and it’s about to get bigger. Asyag, who has been selling RCC-certified lettuce under the brand California Kosher Farms since around 2008, is about to embark on a major expansion, aiming to double his farm’s output over the next 12 months to more than 1 million heads of lettuce a year. He’s looking to buy more land in Oxnard and has already started using Israeli-designed hydroponics to grow more lettuce in less space.

But while the equation “lettuce minus bugs plus rabbinic approval equals good returns,” might seem simple, the reality is anything but. This nascent industry is fraught with disputes, not just over what Jewish law requires, but over what price consumers and businesses should have to pay in order to keep their salads kosher.

Through dozens of interviews with growers, rabbis, local kosher caterers and staff from one local kosher supervision agency, a complicated picture emerges of a niche business that illustrates the complexities and the unusual financial challenges of the modern koshser marketplace. One thing is certain: It is the RCC supervisors who hold most of the cards.

The RCC does not have an ownership interest in the operations of the farm that grows the vegetables it certifies; nevertheless, the farm would not exist without RCC certification and support. In aiming for the absolute highest standard of kosher, the RCC — widely considered the most stringent and broadly accepted kosher certifying body in the region — has chosen to certify just one grower, granting him a monopoly and even privileging his interests over those of the caterers the RCC also certifies.

“These ladies were scrubbing the lettuce with soap.”

Unlike, say, the prohibition on eating pork or shellfish, few non-Orthodox Jews today know about the “no bugs” kosher requirement. A section about insects from the fourth edition of Eidlitz’s book “Is it Kosher? An Encyclopedia of Kosher Food, Facts, and Fallacies” suggests that even as recently as 1999, the author’s largely Orthodox readership wasn’t paying as much attention to keeping bugs out of their food as he thought they should.

“Although eating insects is strictly forbidden by the Torah, we find this concern often overlooked,” Eidlitz writes. In the 1950s and ’60s, Eidlitz said in an interview, when the application of dangerous pesticides, including DDT, ensured that very few bugs could be found on American produce, leading rabbinic authorities gave permission to kosher-observant American Orthodox Jews to “overlook” these laws.

Not anymore. In the last 20 years, Orthodox rabbis in general, and those involved in kosher certification in particular, have been working hard to introduce — reintroduce, they say — practices of checking fresh vegetables for bugs in observance of the laws of kashrut.

Blanket bans have been issued on the most bug-friendly and hardest-to-check produce: raspberries, blackberries, whole artichokes and more are entirely forbidden because they’re too complex and fragile in form (the berries) or too tightly closed (artichokes) to inspect. And the Web site of every major kosher certifying agency includes guidebooks, instructional pamphlets, even videos outlining a labor-intensive regimen designed to rid other vegetables of insects.

Such extreme cleaning and checking can seem unusual to an outsider.

“I was in Crown Heights last week doing a demonstration where these ladies were scrubbing the lettuce with soap,” I was told by Geila Hocherman, a Cordon Bleu-trained chef based in New York who co-wrote the cookbook “Kosher Revolution,” published last year.

But the insects they’re looking for are tiny — and seemingly everywhere. Arugula leaves and asparagus tips are potential hiding spots for thrips — 1-millimeter-long insects that can be seen with the naked eye but are easier to spot with a magnifying glass. Pinhead-sized aphids can lurk in and around the florets of broccoli and in bunches of fresh parsley. As for spider mites, which, despite their name, are not related to spiders, the minuscule creatures (less than 1 millimeter in diameter) can seem impossible to eliminate.

“When a spider mite gets into the lettuce, even if you wash it, it doesn’t let go,” Asyag said. “It’s like the leg gets in.”

This new vigilance has changed some observant people’s diets, too: Hocherman, who describes her own Jewish observance as “very Modern Orthodox,” included in “Kosher Revolution” a number of recipes that run afoul of the vegetable-related rules instituted by the Orthodox rabbinical establishment.

The main ingredient in Glazed Brussels Sprouts With Chestnuts, for example, “should not be used,” according to the RCC, as the sprouts’ tight leaves could hide bugs. Broccoli florets, an important part of Hocherman’s recipe for Cold Sesame Noodles With Broccoli and Tofu, must be parboiled before they can be checked, according to the Orthodox Union (OU), and if three or more bugs are found, the whole head must be thrown away.

And consider the situation facing green asparagus. “What they’re asking us to do is to cut off the tips and shave the sides,” said Errol Fine, explaining why the vegetable is no longer on the menu at Pat’s, the upscale restaurant in the heart of Pico-Robertson he owns with his wife. Pat’s restaurant and catering business both are certified by Kehilla Kosher, a Los Angeles kosher certification agency run by Rabbi Avrohom Teichman, and Fine said he can’t remember when Pat’s last served asparagus.

“We should’ve had a farewell party,” he said, ruefully.

And it’s not just homemakers in predominantly Chasidic or “black-hat” neighborhoods who are washing their lettuce with soap, shaving and circumcising their asparagus spears and keeping their fruit platters free of raspberries and blackberries.

“I think by now the Orthodox Jewish community has been well educated that there is, or can be, an infestation problem, and that they need to check,” said Rabbi Elazar Muskin of Young Israel of Century City, a large Modern Orthodox synagogue, also in Pico-Robertson. Muskin was president of the RCC for five years in the 1990s, and he said that in those days people worried they might not be thorough enough in checking. Today, however, Muskin said his congregants are more comfortable with the task.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” Muskin said, noting that although the RCC’s guidelines recommend that people use lightboxes, in his community most people have stopped doing so, an indication of their increased comfort with the process.

“You have to wash [the fruit or vegetable] with a food detergent,” Muskin said about checking non-certified vegetables. “You have to wash it and rinse it once or twice.” The water must then be checked for insects. If none are found, the fruit or vegetable must be checked as well.

If there are any bugs, the washing must be repeated. “If there aren’t,” Muskin said, “then you know you’ve got a good head of lettuce or strawberry.”

The checking regimen has provoked some criticism, however. Sue Fishkoff’s recent book, “Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority,” dedicates an entire chapter to the war on bugs. For an outside academic perspective, she consulted with David Kraemer, a professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary.

Although Orthodox officials today present the bug rules as rooted in the Bible and a centuries-old tradition of Jewish law, Kraemer said the sanctioning of certain fruits and vegetables is actually a recent phenomenon. It is, Kraemer said, one more step in a long process in which Jews throughout history have adopted ever-stricter regulations on their eating, a process he calls “humratization,” derived from humra, the Hebrew word for a stricture that goes above and beyond what is required under halachah — Jewish law.

Orthodox rabbis dispute this characterization.

“This is not a humra,” Muskin said. “This is real halachah. You’re not allowed to eat these insects. If you’re a kosher-observant Jew, this means something to you. Just like you have to worry about other kosher laws, this is part of the kosher laws.”

“It’s not more kosher. It just makes life easier.”

While checking for bugs is described by Orthodox rabbis as a non-negotiable religious requirement, kosher-certified lettuce offers convenience to individual kosher-observant consumers who like salad.

Americans spent $3 billion on all bagged lettuce in 2008, a sum that includes a small number of kosher-certified varieties. Dole produces bagged products that are supervised by the Baltimore-based Star-K kosher certification agency. Even Trader Joe’s has been offering kosher-certified bagged lettuce products for more than a decade, according to a company spokeswoman.

As is the case for all kosher products, rabbis and consumers trust some certifications more than others. But regardless of who will — or won’t — rely on them, these products are considered kosher by virtue of the industrial washing they undergo, a process that, the certifying rabbis say, can remove all bugs from some types of lettuce.

Romaine lettuce is different, because to be certified by the RCC it has to be bug-free from day one. But even though rabbis see the product as a beneficial innovation — “a car that didn’t have to be recalled is better than a car that had to be recalled and you fixed the issue with some sort of an update on it,” Eidlitz said — many were careful to add that, for the home cook, checked romaine lettuce is as kosher as the variety being grown bug-free.

“It’s not more kosher,” Muskin said of the RCC-certified lettuce. “It just makes life easier. You’re paying for a convenience. You’re paying so that you know that you won’t have to wash it.”

But the cost of the kosher-grown lettuce is markedly higher. In late January, Glatt Mart, an RCC-certified supermarket on Pico Boulevard, was selling an ordinary head of romaine lettuce (1 pound, 6 ounces) for $1.19, while a much smaller head of romaine from Asyag’s farm (10.3 ounces) was priced at $3.59, seven times as much per ounce. By comparison, a pre-washed — but not kosher-certified — 10-ounce bag of romaine lettuce packaged by Ready Pac sold for $2.99, just under six times the price per ounce of the ordinary head of lettuce.

Buyers on the East Coast pay even higher prices. In 2009, Asyag began selling lettuce to Bodek, a 20-year-old company whose products are certified by three separate Orthodox authorities. Today, some 90 percent of Asyag’s lettuce is shipped to Bodek’s processing facility in Toronto every week.

In mid-January, a buyer ordering a 5-ounce bag of Bodek romaine paid $3.89 at allinkosher.com, a Web-based retailer headquartered in Monsey, N.Y. An 8-ounce bag bought from the New York City-based allfreshkosher.com cost $5.19.

Clearly, consumers are willing to pay the premium for Asyag’s produce — happy, even. Otherwise, Asyag said, “A lot of people simply won’t eat lettuce. I receive so many phone calls from Jews saying, ‘Hey, thank you, because the last time I had lettuce was 20 years ago.’ ”

“That’s not the bug we’re worried about.”

With the possible exception of the strawberry, the Holy Grail of kosher-certified produce is romaine lettuce. Not only are its leaves, with their soft, folded surfaces, hard to inspect, but romaine is generally very popular (who doesn’t like a good Caesar salad?) and is also the bitter herb of choice for many Jews on Passover.

But if, for families that observe the strictest level of kashrut, the lettuce grown at the RCC-certified farm is an optional convenience, for RCC-certified businesses, it has become a requirement.

The most recent edition of “The RCC Home Guide to Preparing Fruits and Vegetables,” published in November 2010, outlines a nine-step procedure for cleaning and checking “open-leaf” lettuces like romaine, bok choy and Napa cabbage. The process includes first soaking the lettuce in a soapy solution, then in fresh water and then checking — first the water, then three handfuls of the lettuce leaves, “preferably over a lightbox.”

At one time, RCC-certified vendors were able to pay a mashgiach to take the lettuce through this very involved process. That is no longer the case — indeed, it hasn’t been an option for years.

“On a restaurant or catering level,” Rabbi Yaakov Vann, the RCC’s director of kashrut services, said, “my responsibility is to ensure that all 250 people being served are eating kosher. And the problem is that the reality of the amount of time that it may take to take a head of lettuce from A to Z is just not realistic given the circumstances of the environment.”

Vann, who began working at the RCC in 2007, was recruited because of his earlier experience with food service and kosher supervision. Originally from Monsey, N.Y., Vann worked as a young man as a waiter in a cafe and started paying attention to bugs in vegetables when he was hired as a mashgiach by the OU in a kosher Chinese restaurant in the Catskills.

Today, every RCC-certified kosher retailer — caterers, cafes and restaurants — has to abide by its vegetable policy. One RCC contract obtained by The Jewish Journal included a clause that explicitly stated that the vegetable policy “may require abstaining from some vegetables and/or the purchase and use of vegetables that are grown in a fashion that reduces infestation rates.”

Although Vann declined to share a copy of the vegetable policy for businesses, he said that it is similar, though not identical, to the “Home Guide.” A six-step process to ensure the kashrut of fresh strawberries outlined in the “Home Guide,” Vann said, is not part of the vegetable policy because the RCC does not allow this process to be used in the commercial establishments it supervises.

Kosher certifying agencies regularly require the businesses they supervise to adhere to more stringent guidelines than those that apply to home cooks. But no regulation has provoked more complaints from RCC-certified restaurants and caterers than the agency’s requiring them to buy their lettuce and other produce from Asyag’s farm when it is available.

In interviews conducted over the past few months, many RCC-certified caterers said that in 2009 they were informed that if they wanted to buy romaine lettuce, they would have to purchase only products grown under RCC supervision to keep their RCC certification.

Nearly all of the owners of RCC-certified businesses interviewed said they had been affected by the change — particularly because Ready Pac brand bags of romaine lettuce had already lost their certification from the Vaad Hoeir of St. Louis, in 2006. Rabbi Zvi Zuravin of the St. Louis agency told me that the certification issued to Ready Pac Spring Mix was also rescinded at the same time, leaving the RCC-certified caterers with very few options.

Randy Fried, a co-owner of R House Foods, a catering company that began providing the food at the Modern Orthodox Shalhevet School at the beginning of the current school year, remembers exactly when the change happened. He was working at another RCC-certified catering company when the first package of RCC-certified romaine lettuce arrived.

“We open it up, we pull back the first leaf and there’s a slug sitting on the leaf,” Fried said. “And we all started laughing. This is what we’re paying two and half times [as much] for?”

So they called the RCC. “The answer we got is,” Fried said, “That’s not the bug we’re worried about.”

Photo by Jonah Lowenfeld

Brenda Walt, owner of Catering by Brenda, started her business in 1987 under another kosher supervision agency and became RCC-certified in the 1990s.

Like many of those who agreed to be interviewed for this article, Walt, who lives a Modern Orthodox lifestyle and is Shabbat-observant, said she follows the policies of the RCC, even if she doesn’t always understand them.

“I’m pretty much one of those who do as I’m told — at least here in my business,” the South Africa native said. She said it’s been about six years since she last bought an ordinary head of romaine lettuce, and over that time, she has been following the RCC’s increasingly stringent guidelines.

Walt said she knew of another RCC-certified caterer who was so dissatisfied at being restricted to buying from the RCC-certified farm that he undertook his own lettuce comparison.

“He went up and bought Ready Pac, which he washed like one would wash,” Walt said, “and then he bought some [RCC-certified] kosher romaine lettuce, and then he sent it to an authorized laboratory.

“It turned out,” she said, “that the RCC lettuce had far more bugs than the one that he’d washed.”

The farms’ products might be “ridiculously expensive,” Walt said, but she felt the quality has improved. What bothered Walt most, however, wasn’t the added cost; it was what she saw as unnecessary waste.

During weeks when the RCC supervisors declare the harvest from the farm too bug-infested to sell, Walt said, she has to scramble to buy bags of Ready Pac lettuce.

“Even though we buy the triple-washed lettuce,” Walt said, “we have to rewash it with soap.

“These are RCC rules, and I follow them to the last letter,” Walt said. “But I can’t tell you that it’s easy, and that I don’t hate the fact that when I have a busy weekend coming up, on Friday the water just pours out of the faucet for four hours without stop, because that’s what it takes to wash lettuce.”

In fact, it’s not just the water from Walt’s sinks that gets dumped during the weeks when the farm’s lettuce can’t be sold as kosher. According to Asyag, any harvested lettuce that isn’t up to the RCC’s standards ends up going straight into the trash.

“We throw away a lot,” Asyag said, estimating that about 20 percent of the previous year’s yield was discarded due to infestation.

Walt, who washes her own parsley to avoid having to buy the kosher farm’s more expensive parsley, does like one of the RCC-certified products, though: the dill, because cleaning the ordinary stuff is a difficult chore.

“It’s very hard to remove the microscopic bugs sticking to the leaves,” she said.

Daniel Javanfard of Sinai Glatt Kosher Catering said he doesn’t buy the farm’s produce because his clients are, for the most part, not observant, and so don’t want to pay the higher costs associated with the strictly supervised produce.

“I cannot tell my clients that this produce is coming from a Gush Katif-type farm,” he said, “because the clients we have in Los Angeles, they don’t care that much, and the economy — everything is up and down, up and down.”

Instead, Javanfard, who specializes in kosher Persian cuisine, uses pre-certified Ready Pac iceberg lettuce mix for his salads. And when he makes Israeli salad, rather than pay the premium, he’s been leaving out the parsley for the last three or four years.

“It’s not a slam dunk,” said Alex Felkai, the owner of Kosher on Location, who uses the farm’s produce when he caters a wedding, but not in the salads he serves daily to the students at New Community Jewish High School. Those are made with kosher-certified iceberg lettuce mix.

However, he said he understands why the farm’s prices are high.

“They are more expensive, but that’s part of providing kosher food,” he said. “We certainly do use it when we can.”

More difficult, Felkai said, is the unpredictability of the farm’s supply.

“Lately they haven’t been producing all the different crops that have been approved by the rabbis,” Felkai added. “I would have to call up on Monday this week, and hear, ‘We have this and this and this.’ It’s just hard to run a catering business like that.”

Kosher Broccoli: $5.50 per head, wholesale

Last October, when I reached Ilan Bender by phone at Bender Farms, his 100-acre ranch in Santa Paula, it was clear he was in no mood to talk about his short-lived stint as a kosher lettuce farmer.

“If you want to talk about kosher lettuce, I can only tell you bad stuff,” he said.

Bender, 75, was now working 12-hour days overseeing the construction of a $1.5 million factory on his ranch that will produce PVC-coated electrical conduit, the kind of wiring used in highly corrosive environments, like sewage treatment plants and offshore drilling rigs.

This project is, for Bender, a return to his roots. Born in Israel, Bender came to the United States in 1959. He studied engineering at what is now California State University, Los Angeles, and came up with the idea of coating electrical conduit while working in his garage.

His venture into kosher agriculture was different. Bender bought the Santa Paula ranch 12 years ago, and sometime around 2007 — he was hazy about exact dates — he said Vann and Asyag approached him and suggested they grow kosher vegetables at Bender Farms.

The kosher business eventually took up about 10 acres of his ranch, but starting out, Bender had some concerns, chief among them the possibility of another grower competing with him on price.

“It’s a very specialized product, and it’s a very small market,” Bender said. The greenhouses are expensive, and he was hesitant to make such a significant up-front investment.

Vann and Asyag put him at ease, though. “They pretty much gave me the assurance that it would be a small operation and protected for price,” Bender said.

For the RCC, establishing a kosher lettuce monopoly wouldn’t be difficult. According to its Web site, the RCC certifies more than 50 kosher establishments in Los Angeles — restaurants, bakeries, caterers — along with nine kosher markets. Because any certified kosher product these businesses use has to be approved by the RCC, if Vann wanted to ensure that Bender Farms wouldn’t face competition, he could do so simply by declining to approve any other producer of fresh kosher produce.

Bender Farms grew mostly romaine lettuce, but also parsley, dill and cilantro.

“We were very successful with broccoli and cauliflower,” Bender said, listing two products Asyag doesn’t currently offer. But even if Bender Farms was offering bug-free kosher broccoli, its asking price was a non-starter. Last week, conventionally grown broccoli crowns were retailing at Glatt Mart for 69 cents a pound, which comes out to less than $2 a head. Bender Farms’ broccoli was priced at about $5.50 per head, wholesale.

“The end user loved us,” said Bender, adding that he, too, had received phone calls from satisfied customers. But in many cases, the RCC-certified kosher markets refused to pay his asking price.

Bender and Asyag’s working relationship dissolved quickly. According to Bender, Asyag asked for a too large a share of the profits from their joint venture.

For his part, Asyag said it was exactly the opposite. “Not only did he fail,” Asyag said of Bender, “he was trying to steal the business. Bottom line, he wanted this whole thing for himself.”

After splitting from Bender, Asyag started California Kosher Farms with another grower in 2008 and, despite the earlier assurances Bender said he’d gotten, began to compete with his former partner. Bender feels particularly burned by Vann’s decision to award RCC certification to Asyag’s produce.

“When Yossi left me, he [Vann] shouldn’t have allowed him to compete with us,” Bender said, “because it destroyed the business.”

But while Bender told a story of a business-killing price war, Asyag said that Bender’s business failed because he priced his produce at a level no consumer would be willing to pay. Even Vann knew as much, Asyag said.

“He [Bender] came to the market and wanted to sell a head of lettuce to the supermarket at $3.75,” Asyag said. “At that point, the rabbi told me there is no business.”

And while Asyag wouldn’t disclose his exact wholesale prices, he said today they are “less than half” of the $3.75 Bender wanted to charge in 2009.

At the retail level, Asyag said, “The prices are right; the prices are cheap. The lettuce is $6.50 [a head] in New York. In L.A., it’s $2.99 to $3.50 a head.”

Asyag said he hasn’t yet made money selling his lettuce, and it is possible that he has been pricing it below cost for the past four years in an effort to build market share. But that seems unlikely. Bender got out of the business in 2009; he sold Vann the truck he bought to deliver produce to Los Angeles each week; the greenhouses have been leased to a grower of organic and conventional herbs. Asyag, now the only grower supplying RCC-certified lettuce to Los Angeles, should have no reason to voluntarily take a loss on his product.

“You have to pray a lot.”

“In general, the council policy is always not to encourage monopolies,” Vann said last week while waiting at a car wash near the Calabasas Shul, the Orthodox synagogue in Calabasas Park where he has been the rabbi since 1995. “Sometimes you need to have assistance to get something off the ground, but, long-term, monopolies are not in the interests of the community.”

Vann even hinted at the possibility that certain developments — improved washing technology, for instance — could spur the RCC to make changes to its kosher program, even in ways that could go against the interest of the farm at times.

“He mentioned that,” Asyag said. And while some new machine might make bagged lettuce an RCC-worthy alternative to his lettuce, Asyag said what would really drive the RCC to change its policies would be if he were unable to provide a reliable supply of kosher, bug-free lettuce.

“Not having it on a weekly basis throws the market off,” Asyag said. Any week when his product isn’t available, the caterers and restaurant owners call Vann, asking him to let them wash the only other kind of romaine lettuce they are allowed to use — the bagged, triple-washed Ready Pac brand.

“What do you think the rabbi says?” Asyag said. “ ‘OK, I’ll let you wash it.’ ”

Even those calls sound pleasant, compared to the phone calls the certifying rabbis from the RCC and those who certify Asyag’s produce for Bodek have gotten in the event a bug is found. After all, unlike, say, non-kosher beef, which might look and taste exactly like kosher beef, a bug found in a bag of kosher lettuce is undeniable evidence.

“If the product is marked kosher, and people check it, and it’s not kosher, then they call,” Asyag said. “They call the rabbi and they give him hell.”

“You can tell afterward whether there’s bugs in it,” Vann said. “That’s why you have to pray a lot. You pray, you do a lot of homework, you do your best, and you ask God — help us. I encourage everybody to do that.”

Asyag hired a new Israeli grower to assist him in October 2011, his fourth in five years, and he’s optimistic about the future. The farm has had a 100 percent success rate in keeping the produce bug-free since I visited in November, and Asyag occasionally talks about possible avenues for the business to expand — like “kosher organic” lettuce or bringing kosher lettuce into mainstream supermarkets.

“My idea was to feed the Jewish people at effective prices,” Asyag said. Even so, he knows that the pressure — from businesses and individuals — on the rabbis who certify his product is intense.

“This is the last chance,” he said.

© Copyright 2012 Tribe Media Corp.

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I bought whole head Romaine-by mistake

2012-01-25T13:09:00.001-05:00

I bought alim romaine.

It has kaj, nirbarter and khal adas yeshurun.

It is hothouse grwn and says it must be washed.

Should I also check it (and not buy it the next time and stick to positiv)?

Response- Stick to postive, the consumer should not rely on Hot house, Wash, etc.

There is Kosher & Kosher

2012-01-24T12:44:00.000-05:00

With new restaurant at Canyons, kosher food debuts at a U.S. ski resort
By Matthew Weinstein · January 23, 2012

PARK CITY, Utah (JTA) – Kosher food isn’t something one generally associates with ski resorts, and Utah isn’t a place known for its Jewish population.
But after Canyons, the state’s largest ski resort, opened the nation’s first ski-area, glatt kosher restaurant this season, the Jews came. And ate. And they were satisfied. “Response has been phenomenal,” said executive chef John Murcko, who is the vice president of food and beverage at Talisker Corp., which bought Canyons in 2008 and opened the kosher Bistro at Canyons last December.

“We were at 100 percent capacity from the day we opened through the New Year’s Day weekend,” he said. “Word of mouth has been tremendous. Locals are discovering us as well, not just our destination visitors.”The restaurant has brought more than kosher dining to the resort town of Park City, but also an eruv and weekly Shabbat services – at least for the ski season. The town already had a year-round Reform synagogue, Temple Har Shalom.

Murcko, who was named by Salt Lake Magazine last year as the Best Chef in Utah, said the idea of opening up a kosher restaurant was to stand out. “Talisker has always sought to create the finest dining and hospitality experiences – and differentiate ourselves from our competition,” he told JTA. “We knew that individuals and families that keep kosher would enjoy a gourmet bistro in Park City, and that locals who love fine bistro-style dining would, too. We started planning it months ago, and we are very pleased how it has come together.”

Murcko traveled to New York to learn kosher cooking, while chef Zeke Wray spent time in Toronto and Los Angeles. The cuisine is categorized as "New American Kosher Bistro." Breakfast takes a minimalist approach: bagels and cream cheese, granola, fruit and yogurt for $16. Lunch options are comprised largely of salads and sandwiches, including a kosher Reuben, grilled chicken salad and Israeli couscous on pita.

It's at dinner that Bistro really cuts loose, starting with the appetizers, including vegetarian chopped liver and seared ahi tuna. There also are plenty of soups – a nice way to end a day on the slopes – but you won't find chicken with matzah balls. If the soup isn’t enough to keep you warm, the main courses will, from the smoked duck breast with ragu of braised red cabbage, fennel, apple and duck confit to ribeye steaks accompanied by roasted squash, sage white bean puree, leeks and warm smoked cherry tomatoes. The menu also features an array of lamb, pasta and fish dishes -- or pastrami sandwiches for those so inclined.

Those looking for Jewish-style cooking should be sure to come on Shabbat. The $85 prix fixe, five-course Friday night dinner includes gefilte fish, chicken noodle soup (still no matzah balls) and a choice of turkey involtini, standing rib roast or chicken schnitzel all served with potato kugel on the side. The $65 Shabbat lunch is six courses built around a hearty flanken cholent.

The Bistro’s COR kashrut certification comes from the Kashruth Council of Canada, the largest kosher certification agency north of the border. COR certifies more than 1,000 facilities and thousands more products. COR Rabbi Tsvi Heber oversees Bistro, and two New York-based rabbis, Yosef Kirszenberg and Mendel Wilmovsky, serve as the on-site authorities.

Kirszenberg, 46 and originally from Argentina, has been coming to Utah from New York for the last two years to run programs at Canyons. Since the restaurant opened, he has been spending 2 1/2 weeks out of every month in Utah overseeing the Canyons’ kosher dining, examining the 3-mile-long eruv that encompasses the resort hotel area every Friday and leading Shabbat services.

“We have a beautiful shul -- it was built especially to be a shul -- in the same building as the restaurant,” Kirszenberg said, adding that Canyons has had a minyan every week since the restaurant opened. Kirszenberg, who is a Lubavitcher, now leaves his wife and nine children, aged 1 to 21, at home in New York when he comes to Utah to work, but he says he hopes to be able to move with them to Utah sometime in the future.

And what about skiing? “Not yet, but everyone is pushing me to do it,” he said. “The last time was when I was 9 years old in Argentina.”

How the Olive Oil industry duped us for so long?

2012-01-24T11:24:00.000-05:00

http://www.businessinsider.com/an-expert-explains-how-the-olive-oil-industry-has-been-duping-us-for-so-long-2012-1#until-2010-the-us-had-no-strict-guidelines-defining-different-grades-of-olive-oil-1

‘Cause for concern’ meat plants will be named and shamed - FSA

2012-01-24T08:19:00.000-05:00

‘Cause for concern’ meat plants will be named and shamed - FSA
By Mark Astley, 24-Jan-2012- Will Kosher certifiers follow suit?

UK meat plants considered a ‘cause for concern’ based on audit reports will be named and shamed as part of a new Food Standards Agency (FSA) scheme, it has revealed.
The list, which will be updated on a weekly basis, currently holds the name of eight UK premises including slaughterhouses and cutting plants. The publication follows an agreement by the FSA Board to publish this type of information as part of its on-going transparency commitments. The FSA categorises an establishment as a ‘cause for concern’ based on a food businesses compliance with regulations and its most recent audit scores – taking into account hygienic production, environmental hygiene and HACCP.

“These establishments must put in place improvements to ensure required standards are met,” said the agency’s website.

Commercial consequences-
British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) director Stephen Rossides told FoodProductionDaily.com that although the scheme serves a purpose, there could be commercial consequences. “The FSA is an organisation that has long promoted transparency. It publishes all and any information it has, whether it is on inspection audits or those establishments that have become a cause for concern,” said Rossides.

“It does serve a purpose because no one wants to be on the ‘cause for concern’ list. It works as an incentive, but it could have commercial consequences.” “We at the British Meat Processing Association (BMPA) are keen to increase standards in all meat plants, and if this is the best way to do it, so be it.”

Highlights concern -
Publication of the ‘cause for concern’ list comes less than a week after audit reports from more than 200 meat establishment were published by the FSA.
The main aims of the audits are to make sure that these plants are complying with food law requirements and ensure they meet public health standards.
“Publication of the cause for concern list is our latest commitment to presenting our work in the public domain. We think it’s important to highlight plants that continue to give us concern,” said FSA CEO Tim Smith.

“If our inspectors decided that hygiene standards in a plant are so poor that public health could be at imminent risk, we would immediately stop that plant from operating. However, for those businesses that could improve quickly by following our advice, we hope that publication of this list will push them to raise their game and get off the list.”

All "GRAPES" infested-must wash each one

2012-01-23T18:17:00.002-05:00

Faulkner type of Government

2012-01-23T14:36:00.000-05:00

Jackson has a Faulkner Act form of government. In towns with this type of government you would prepare a petition containing a proposed ordinance or charter change and gather 10% of those who voted in the last election where the Assembly was up (2011). Once the petition is submitted the town council must vote on the change. If the town council does not enact the law it goes up for a vote by the citizens.

The relevant law is 40:69A-1 (et seq). Reading this the requirement may be 15%?

http://www.nj.gov/dca/lgs/miscpubs/other/optional_muni_charter_law.pdf

I'm not sure if the law can be used to override state law, but I don't see why not. Towns should be able to adopt more restrictive caps as well.

Jay Edgar-Chair-NJ Libertarian Party

KASHRUS ALERT: Re: infestation in Lakewood

2012-01-20T10:10:00.001-05:00

It has been found that certain stores are constantly selling expired, outdated, old products (the save the yeshiva leit money?), therefore they are very often infested, besides the prohibition of "stealing" from the gullible consumer. As far as standard of kashrus on the products sold "the consumer must make his own decission".

Kosher Consumers Beware: "caveat emptor" when purchasing at the NPGS Co-op stores.

Net Profit Grocery Store

Would you rather..............?

2012-01-20T09:59:00.000-05:00

Is NPGS-CO-OP removing from shelves all Machmirim Products & Kleins Ice cream, as they use the Pride of the Farm super kosher milk?

Would you rather use milk from a producer that has a Mashgiach 365 days and does not require any kashering....or one that must kasher "as a ben-yomoi" every production?

Pride of the Farm milk has a Mashgiach 365,
Does not require any Kashering.
Others can't make the same claim.

QUESTION- Are Glatt kosher(ica) cruises, acceptably KOSHER ?

2012-01-19T16:44:00.001-05:00

Does the affiliation of all of the Can someone like Rabbis Weil (OU), Schneier, Riskin, Heir, Herring, Lipskar arrange an "OU" Hashgocha at least?

Can Chazonim like Adler, Avrohom Fried, Helffgot, Lerner, Miller, Lipa Schmeltzer, Stark demand that a qualified kashrus organization run the kashrus? So there might be at least some level of kashrus.

Can Rabbis Miller, Benin, Zahler, Levi Teitelbaum, Manish Spitz, Ruvi New, Etc be comfortable and vouch for the kashrus on the cruises?

http://www.kosherica.com/cruise_information/scholars.asp

Is the gullible kosher consumer being taken for a ride or to the cleaners? Perhaps?

Check it out yourself!
When one advertises a glatt kosher cruise, is that sufficient to join without any verification? Is the fact they there popular Rabbis, Chazonim, Scholars in residence any level of comfort, as far as kashrus reliability is concerned?

Does well known Scholars in residence, sufficient to give any level of kashrus reliability is Concerned?

Does well known popular Chazonim (cantors) sufficient to give any level of kashrus reliability is Concerned?

Did any of them check out the level of kashrus if it's acceptable?
Is anyone of them capable to check out the kashrus level?

We are talking about a cruise liner with some 2500 + guests, a crew of some 1500, 10 + stories, with some 50 to 300 kosher guests among the other 4-5000 people.

Can someone like Rabbis Weil (OU), Schneier, Riskin, Heir, Herring, Lipskar arrange an "OU" Hashgocha at least?

Can Chazonim like Adler, Avrohom Fried, Helffgot, Lerner, Miller, Lipa Schmeltzer, Stark demand that a qualified kashrus organization run the kashrus? So there might be at least some level of kashrus.

Can Rabbis Miller, Benin, Zahler, Levi Teitelbaum, Manish Spitz, Ruvi New, Etc be comfortable and vouch for the kashrus on the cruises?

For starters, A kosher certifier would need at large crew of Mashgichim for these cruises, not just 2. We question if it can be done at all-sometimes it's just not doable.
*************************************************************************************
“There are many halachos one must consider before deciding to embark on a cruise,” adds Rabbi Goldberg. “Kashrus, tznius, Shabbos, and davening bring their own unique challenges onboard. Making sure that one is keeping those mitzvos properly would surely be a zechus (merit) to ensure one’s safety.”

Although, presently, STAR-K does not kosher certify any cruises, it would like to present just some of the several questions that Torah observant cruise passengers must face:

KASHRUS: What arrangements have been made to accommodate kosher food preparation? Is a kitchen dedicated to kosher food preparation, or has only a portion of a non-kosher kitchen been designated for kosher cooking? Will there only be a small percentage of the passengers who are kosher, making an especially problematic shared kosher and non-kosher situation more likely? Are you confident that everything will be cooked before Shabbos, and that the mashgichim will ensure that the staff follows the intricacies of the Shabbos laws of food preparation?

TZNIUS: Is it likely that your fellow passengers will show a lack of modesty, particularly if you are sailing to a sunny destination?

SHABBOS: Does the cruise leave within three days of Shabbos or Yom Tov, which Chazal have decreed is forbidden if the ship does not dock before Shabbos and remains in port during that Shabbos?

KABOLAS SHABBOS: How will you know when to accept Shabbos since, for security reasons, cruise lines are reluctant to release data to passengers and it is difficult to know exactly where the ship will be at any given moment?

ELECTRONICS: Will electronic cabin door locks, electric eye automatic door opening mechanisms, and sinks and toilets controlled by an electric eye, that have become commonplace on cruise ships, create a challenge on Shabbos?

SECURITY: If you return to the ship after a Shabbos stroll, can you be guaranteed that you will not set off alarms or lights at the metal detector? How will you get around showing your ticket (which may be muktza and forbidden to carry) and/or passport upon returning to the ship, so as not to cause Shabbos violations?

The letter-????

2012-01-19T09:31:00.001-05:00

After the "ikul" I can't post a legible copy.

Nonetheless some comments are in order:
1-There isn't a single "Mareh-Mukom".

2- Rav M.B. Klein (Satmar Dayan) wrote that he was forced to sign. Can we surmise that many of the others were also forced to sign?

3- After verifying by some of the signers that they have not attempted to verify any or all of the stated facts. Can we surmise that none have verified the stated facts & conclusions? Yet had no qualms about signing. Can we surmise that these signatures on any other letter, document, tzedokah letter was done in the same fashion & carries no legitimacy?

4- When & if this matter goes to through the legal system, It may get expensive if they everyone individually can't justify their actions? One can't hide behind the veil of another one.

5- Where is the "list" of the ones that refused to sign?

6- etc

Kashrus alert-Bais Yaakov cookbook-Treif Recipes

2012-01-16T14:14:00.001-05:00

Kashrus alert-Bais Yaakov cookbook-has Treif Recipes-

The have Raspberries- all are infested.
Fresh Herbs- also infested.

Many if not most Jewish Cookbooks contain these types of infested ingredients-

One may not keep these recipe books in a Jewish home- Loi-yishkan-bi'ohu'lecha- avlah.

Kleinman Campus-Current conditions

2012-01-15T10:18:00.001-05:00

Parking getting much worse, private driveways being blocked, etc

"CAVIAR-Sushi, Fish Sticks, Imitation Crab, surimi all use minced Pollock fish which is infested.

2012-01-07T23:32:00.008-05:00

NOTE: The following information is correct. There are others attempting
to confuse the facts with their theories.

Sushi, Fish Sticks, Imitation Crab, surimi, all use minced (not ground)Pollock fish which is infested. Caviar (fish eggs) used at Sushi stations also infested. Yellow tail is a type of flounder, also infested.

Lox is from farmed salmon. Lox from wild salmon even if sliced thin is infested.

Hisachdus CRC- Grapes? NO- yet CRC allows Dole, Flaum market cabbage, Golden flow spinach? all infested

2012-01-07T20:01:00.005-05:00

Hisachdus Banned grapes 3 moths after Skver Hashgocha publicized same. Yet Hisachdus allows, Dole lettuce, Flaums market cabbage Cole slaw, golden flows Spinach which are all bigeder infested- Don't eat anything that requires Bedikas tolayim in a Hisachdus product or establishment.

Hisachdus CRC-

Grapes? NO-

Dole salads? yes,

Flaum market cabbage? yes,

Golden flow spinach? YES.

RAV SCHACH'S letter

2012-01-07T10:49:00.000-05:00

אלעזר מנחם מן שך

קרית הישיבה

בני-ברק

בס"ד, מוצש"ק צו י"ג ניסן תשמ"ז

שלום ורב ברכה לש"ב ידידי ורב חביבי היקר יקרים

מוכתר במעלות ובמידות שמנו חכמים בקנין תורה

הגאון המפורסם ראש ישיבת לייקווד בארה"ב

מוהר"ר...... שיחי' ולכל ראשי הישיבה

אשר בישיבת לייקווד שיחי

שלומכון יסגא עד בלי ירח

הנה באתי בזה לקדמכם בברכה ברכת חג שמח וכשר ותזכו כולכם להגדיל תורה ולהאדירה.בהרבה תלמידים הרוצים לעלות במעלות התו"י ואגב, אני מנצל את האפשרות להיות כנדוש ללא שאלוני ואני מבקש סליחתכם ע"ז יען שאני מבוגר, ואינני יודע יומי, וכל יום ויום היא מתנת ה' אלי, ותאבני שיהי' לי אזה זכות וחלק בכל מקום שהוא בהחזקת התורה ויראת ה', ולכן אני מעיז להעיר לפניכם ממה שיש לי מתוך הנסיון

תפקידו של ראש ישיבה העיקר הוא להיות עסוק רק בתורה ועל ידי זה יראו התלמידים ויהי' להם לדוגמא. ואף שבמדה מסיומת יש לפקח ולראות על העיר והמקום שיתנהל בדרך התורה ושיהי' עין פקוחה על המוסדות המתיסדים שם, אבל זה לא יעסיק אתכם הרבה, וכל מה שהאדם הוא יותר גדול וירא שמים דבריו מתקבלים יותר, ובתבונה ובסבלנות ונחת אפשר

לפעול הרבה.

והעיקר העלי' העצמית משפיע הרבה, מה שיש להרבות בבתי כנסיות ובתי מדרשות חברות ש"ס משניות חברות לימוד משנה ברורה, על ידי זה יהי' להם יותר השקפה האמיתית של דעת תורה ויראת שמים, וכידוע שבזמנינו ההפקרות שולט ברחוב ואין דבר העומד נגד התאוה וההפקרות והכל מותר, ואין ערך החיים תופס אצלם מקום, והכל נקלט

אצלם בשטחיות, מה שכתוב בעיתון , וזהו רק מפני הריקנות שיש ורק המשחקים בכדורים זהו התענוג, אבל כשילמדו יקבלו השקפה אחרת על כל החיים ויהיו יותר רציניים וזהו תפקידכם שב"ה זיכה ה' אתכם לעמוד בראש הישיבה הכי גדולה, מוטל החיוב עליכם להעסק רק בה מה שאפשר להשפיע יותר ולזרזם לגדלות בתו"י ואז יהי' הנאה להם

והנאה לעולם, זהו מה שיש להעיר ואני מבקש סליחתכם מה שהוספתי בדברים בזה.

ובזה אני גומר את דברי בברכה מרובה לכולכם בעלי' בתו"י וחג שמח וכשר, ממני המסור לכם.

אלעזר מנחם מן שך

ברכה מיוחדת שולח ל.... מר. ... ש' שתזכה לאריכת ימים ושנים ונחת מכל צאצאי הנ"ל

Bassman's House 661 7th St. "IKUL" against renting or purchase

2012-01-06T13:49:00.000-05:00

Any one that purchases or rents this house may be transgressing an IKUL and will be summoned to a Din-Torah

Olive oil adulteration-again

2012-01-05T14:55:00.000-05:00

Adulterated and even fake olive oil is widespread, according to studies. Just how big is the problem, and how can you avoid being caught out?

Last month, the Olive Oil Times reported that two Spanish businessmen had been sentenced to two years in prison in Cordoba for selling hundreds of thousands of litres of supposedly extra virgin olive oil that was, in fact, a mixture of 70-80% sunflower oil and 20-30% olive.

Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil-by Tom Mueller

Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this bookIn 2008, Italian police arrested over 60 people and closed more than 90 farms and processing plants across the south after uncovering substandard, non-Italian olive oil being passed off as Italian extra virgin, and chlorophyll and beta-carotene being added to sunflower and soybean oil with the same aim.

Most alarmingly, a study last year by researchers at the University of California, Davis and the Australian Oils Research Laboratory concluded that as much as 69% of imported European olive oil (and a far smaller proportion of native Californian) sold as extra virgin in the delicatessens and grocery stores on the US west coast wasn't what it claimed to be.

In Britain, of course, it wasn't so very long ago that the most likely place to find olive oil was the chemist. Today, thanks partly to the health claims made on its behalf and partly to the fact it tastes good, the oil Homer called "liquid gold" is in half of all UK homes and we get through 30m litres of olive oil every year – more than double than we did decade ago. We're now, in fact, the world's 10th biggest olive oil-consuming nation. So with a litre of supermarket extra virgin costing up to £4, and connoisseurs willing to pay 10 times that sum for a far smaller bottle of seasonal, first cold stone pressed, single estate, artisan-milled oil from Italy or Greece, can we be sure of getting what we're paying for?

The answer, according to Tom Mueller in a book out this month, is very often not. In Extra Virginity: the Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, Mueller, an American who lives in Italy, lays bare the workings of an industry prey, he argues, to hi-tech, industrial-scale fraud. The problem, he says, is that good olive oil is difficult, time-consuming and expensive to make, but easy, quick and cheap to doctor.

Most commonly, it seems, extra virgin oil is mixed with a lower grade olive oil, often not from the same country. Sometimes, another vegetable oil such as colza or canola is used. The resulting blend is then chemically coloured, flavoured and deodorised, and sold as extra-virgin to a producer. Almost any brand can, in theory, be susceptible: major names such as Bertolli (then owned by Unilever) have found themselves in court having to argue, successfully in this instance, that they had themselves been defrauded by their supplier.

Meanwhile, the chemical tests that should by law be performed by exporters of extra virgin oil before it can be labelled and sold as such can often fail to detect adulterated oil, particularly when it has been mixed with products such as deodorised, lower-grade olive oil in a sophisticated modern refinery. Nor do national food authorities appear particularly bothered as long as the oil isn't actively harmful, which is rare. In Britain, says Judy Ridgeway, one of the UK's leading olive oil experts, the Food Standards Agency has not done any checks on olive oil in five or six years. "And it only does chemical tests, not taste tests," she adds.

The EU now also requires extra virgin oil to pass assorted taste and aroma tests, assessed by panels of experts: the oil has to be suitably fruity, bitter and peppery, and cannot display any of 16 different defects, including "grubbiness", "mustiness" and "fustiness". But bad stuff still gets through.

Ridgeway says it is "hard to say what percentage of faulty oil gets through" to Britain. "It will vary seasonally – there will be more at this time of year than in March or April, but it's appreciable. They buy in good faith, but there are faulty oils on our supermarket shelves, without any argument."

The olive, in more than 700 varieties or cultivars, has been grown for its oil in the Mediterranean since 3000 BC. Unlike most vegetable oils, which are extracted from seeds or nuts, good olive oil is made using a basic hydraulic press, or more modern centrifuge, so it is more a fruit juice than an industrial fat. It comes in several qualities, including lampante, or "lamp oil", which is made from damaged or ground-gathered fruit and cannot be sold as food; virgin; and extra virgin, the highest grade. This has to be made by a physical (rather than chemical) process, and meet strict chemical requirements, including levels of oxidation and "free acidity" (a measure of decomposition).

Like any fresh product, olive oil deteriorates over time. "The trouble," says Ridgeway, "is that it's quite easy to clean up, say, an oil that doesn't quite pass the acidity test, and to do it without leaving any chemical markers. It could even taste pretty good, for about three months. Then it will go horribly wrong."

Michael North, an expert who runs a fresh seasonal olive oil club, says the problem is "huge. The public are just not aware of what's going on. There's plenty of oil out there that's rubbish: last year's oil or older. Or not even olive oil."So how can consumers best ensure they're not being ripped off? Ridgeway recommends paying a sensible price. Unfortunately, a 50cl bottle costing £15 is, on balance, "less likely to have problems" than one costing £2. North urges people never to buy olive oil in a clear bottle ("It oxidises and goes rancid far faster"), and to buy from somewhere you can taste it first.

Both he and Ridegway, though, stress the prime importance of buying young. "Look for a harvest date," North says. "They're starting to appear now, albeit on only a few bottles, and they'll tell you how old the oil is. It's not an absolute guarantee of quality, but half the battle."

How to buy olive oil

• Find a seller who stores it in clean, temperature-controlled stainless steel containers topped with an inert gas such as nitrogen to keep oxygen at bay, and bottles it as they sell it. Ask to taste it before buying.

• Favour bottles or containers that protect against light, and buy a quantity that you'll use up quickly.

• Don't worry about colour. Good oils come in all shades, from green to gold to pale straw – but avoid flavours such as mouldy, cooked, greasy, meaty, metallic, and cardboard.

• Ensure that your oil is labelled "extra virgin," since other categories—"pure" or "light" oil, "olive oil" and "olive pomace oil" – have undergone chemical refinement.

• Try to buy oils only from this year's harvest – look for bottles with a date of harvest. Failing that, look at the "best by" date which should be two years after an oil was bottled.

• Though not always a guarantee of quality, PDO (protected designation of origin) and PGI (protected geographical indication) status should inspire some confidence.

• Some terms commonly used on olive oil labels are anachronistic, such as "first pressed" and "cold pressed". Since most extra virgin oil nowadays is made with centrifuges, it isn't "pressed" at all, and true extra virgin oil comes exclusively from the first processing of the olive paste.

For further information, see extravirginity.com. Extracted from Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller.

Olive oil food fraud: pressing truths

Not everything labelled 'extra virgin' is immaculately conceived; it seems there are some very slippery customers in the olive oil trade, and the problem is spreading.

Update on infestation of certain items.

2012-01-05T14:40:00.002-05:00

REB SHNEUR, ZT"L- "HaKodesh Baruch Hu's Brochos are not for sale."

2012-01-04T10:20:00.003-05:00

REB SHNEUR, ZT"L

I went to be Menachem Avel last week in Queens, NY and heard a most unusual story told about the Niftar by someone who heard it from him first hand.
In the 1960's, as the Lakewood Yeshiva was rapidly growing, Reb Shneur Kotler, the Rosh Yeshiva, criss-crossed the country in an effort to raise desperately needed funds. At the end of one particularly difficult trip, the Rosh Yeshiva was $50,000 short of his goal, and he asked Reb Amos Bunim, who was traveling with him, where else they could go for the money. Mr. Bunim thought for a minute, and decided called the Niftar, a renowned Tomech Torah who lived in Memphis Tennessee. He explained how dire the Yeshiva's financial predicament was, and asked whether he had any ideas of how to raise the money.

Without hesitation, the Niftar invited the Rosh Yeshiva to Memphis, and promised to help him in any way he could. Within hours, the plane touched down in the deep South, where the Niftar met them at the airport and rushed them into a waiting car. From the time he got the call, the NIftar worked feverishly on several connections which he thought might be able to make a sizable donation. However, none of them panned out, and he was desperate. Without any other leads, and with time running out, he decided to call in the one favor he had been saving for years, a favor so great and so monumental that it was if it was waiting for this moment: he could call Elvis Presley and ask for an appointment.

As It turns out that the Niftar, a prominent mortgage banker, had done a favor for an up-and-coming singer named Elvis Presley by financing his first home at a time that every other bank had turned him down. And Elvis never forgot the kindness the Niftar showed to him, promising to return the favor any time he needed. And, without thinking of how he could have personally gained by using such as a chip for himself, the Niftar decided to give it all up for the sake of the Lakewood Yeshiva.

Within minutes, the car was winding up the majestic driveway of the Graceland mansion, carrying the Rosh Yeshiva, Mr. Bunim and the Niftar. As the car rolled to a stop, the Niftar got out and rang the bell at the front door. A tall and handsome Elvis Presley appeared at the door and led the Niftar into his home and into his personal office, where he was asked the Niftar what he could do to help him, remembering quite well what was done for him only several years before.

"I have outside in the car," the Niftar began, "the pre-eminent Jewish Rabbinical leader in the United States. He serves as the Dean of the most prominent Jewish College in the country, and he needs $50,000 in order to meet his annual budget and keep the doors of the college open. When we first met, you asked me to take a risk on you, and without hesitation, I agreed. I now need your help so that my Rabbi can continue his good work by teaching his many students the holy word of G-d."

Elvis was visibly moved, and replied, "I will write a check here and now for the full amount (equal to about $400,000 today) if the Rabbi gives me a blessing for success." His heart jumping with joy, the Niftar took leave of Elvis Presley and went back to the car with the fantastic news that the Rosh Yeshiva would be able to return to Lakewood with all the funds he needed to cover his expenses. All he needed to do, the Niftar told him, was give Elvis a blessing.

Incredulously, Reb Shneur looked at Mr. Bunim and then at the Niftar, and said, "I cannot, and I will not Bentch such a person. Please go back in and tell Mr. Presley that HaKodesh Baruch Hu's Brochos are not for sale."

Shocked and pale, the Niftar had no choice but to return to Elvis and explain that the Rabbi would not be able to extend a blessing to him, even if this meant that the donation would be withheld. Thinking for a moment, Elvis replied, "Such a man whose character and devotion to his faith is so great that he is willing to forgo a literal fortune rather than compromise himself, such a man is worthy of this donation." And with a stroke of pen, the Lakewood Yeshiva was $50,000 richer that day, in of all places, Memphis Tennessee.

May the memory of the Niftar be forever praised for the deed his did that day nearly fifty years ago.

P.S. This story was also confirmed by Mr. Bunim himself shortly before his death.

Marcy clothing selling shatnez as non-shatnez?

2012-01-03T22:42:00.000-05:00

Groceries Pull Lettuce After Salmonella Scare

2012-01-03T13:58:00.000-05:00

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Heads of iceberg lettuce are being removed from grocery store shelves in at least seven states after salmonella was found in an Arizona field adjacent to the grower's property.
None of the lettuce in the markets has tested positive for salmonella but the grower alerted retailers of the test results and sought a withdrawal of the product "out of an abundance of caution."

"There's no evidence of contamination on any product whatsoever," Jamie Strachan, CEO of Salinas, Calif.-based Growers Express, told The Associated Press on Friday. Still, The Kroger Co. and its affiliated grocery chain, Smith's Food and Drug, decided to pull the product from 200 stores in at least seven states, including Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada, Kroger spokesman Keith Dailey said.

Dailey called it a cautionary move prompted by a notice from the grower.

Strachan stressed that none of his company's product has tested positive for salmonella, and that crops growing in the adjacent field south of Phoenix were destroyed. He would not say who owned the tainted property.

Strachan also declined to say what other grocery store chains in the country might also have some of the lettuce the company has sought to remove from shelves. He said it could be up to 1,000 heads.

"Out of an abundance of caution, we withdrew our product out of market," Strachan said. "We're just being cautious." He said the company, which also supplies product to Green Giant, hadn't been ordered to issue any official recall, and has alerted regulatory authorities. "We're being very conservative, and we want to do the right thing, but we're not being asked to do that by any health authorities," Strachan said. No illnesses have been reported.

California Department of Public Health spokeswoman Anita Gore said late Friday that Growers Express told both the agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that the company had contacted its customers and issued a voluntary "market withdrawal".

The FDA did not respond to requests for comment.

"They're pulling the lettuce to be on the safe side, but there's no official recall," Utah Department of Agriculture and Food spokesman Larry Lewis said.
BRIAN SKOLOFF-Associated Press- January 3, 2012

Gender discrimination in Israel?

2012-01-03T12:55:00.002-05:00

Gender discrimination in Israel?
A Chiloni walks into a bank in Israel and sees separate lines for Men and women, screams "discrimination" !! call the Mishtara (police)........

The Bank president comes running & explains No discrimination at all!!

One line is for deposits & one line is for withdrawals.

The Cholov Stam / akum heter from Rav Moshe Feinstein Z"L not valid anymore?

2012-01-03T12:01:00.001-05:00

The USDA, FDA, etc does NOT test for non-cow milk presence, hence the heter is not valid anymore.

This does not affect the fact that the Veterinarian procedures make the cows "TREIF". There is no shishim on the farms.
The USDA doen't either test for other milk.
The fines are minimal.

RE: Haolam shredded Cheese recall

2012-01-02T20:37:00.001-05:00

RE: Haolam shredded Cheese recall; After clarifying the facts re: the process & kashering required for all of the shredding equipment, we are completely satisfied that there wasn't any kashrus issue at all-it was strictly a business & FDA precaution issue that initiated the recall.

There was no sakanah either, as the lab tests were all negative.

Thank you for contacting World Cheese Company, the producers of Haolam Cheese.

For the first time in our 75-year history, a voluntary recall by the State of Wisconsin involves a packaging facility that handles only the shredding and packaging (not the actual cheese production) of some limited shredded Haolam products. Although the test results for all of the Haolam shredded cheese distributed in the market place tested negative for Listeria monocytogenes, the State of Wisconsin has requested a voluntary recall of all the products that were shredded in that plant from the time the listeria was found in another brand of cheese also packed in this plant. For more facts regarding this voluntary recall please visit our website at http://www.worldcheeseco.com/

The voluntary recall of the Haolam products were only for the shredded cheese and does NOT involve any of the other quality cheese products under the Haolam brand. If you have any of the Haolam cheese items involved in this voluntary recall in your possession, you can return it to the store in which you purchased it for a full refund.

We apologize for any inconvenience this voluntary recall may cause.

As the oldest producer of kosher cheese products, our family continues its 75-year old commitment to provide the highest quality cheese products / kosher standards. We wish to take this opportunity to express our deepest appreciation for your support and loyalty.

GOOD NEWS Within the next few days stores will be stocked with freshly packed shredded products that meet the highest standards of kashrus and quality that you’ve been accustomed to receiving from Haolam Cheese in the past. The products will be produced in a new shredding and packaging facility where we have exclusive control over the cheese that is brought into the facility.

We greatly appreciate your understanding and loyalty to our products.

With best wishes.

World Cheese Co.

From an Email:

2012-01-02T09:49:00.000-05:00

Rav Shain, I'm wondering if you or anyone else knows how to deal with a very serious kashrus situation. my company is kosher certified by a so called heimish hashgocha organization. They are known as the "mifia'nerim". They are strong-arming themselves into every possible hashgocha that they take away from other erlicher heimish Rabonim. Their own standards are based on "tzuhl oifen tzeit" nothing else. I'm sure the Rabonim are afraid "pachad-muvess" from the administrator, but why do the companies like me and the tzibur have to suffer from a mafia fake kashrus?

Who is (Hechsher) Magen Zedek?

2012-01-01T12:05:00.001-05:00

Magen Zedek wrote a glowing report on Empire Poultry describing how well they treat all of the workers. Is it perhaps because they are unionized?

In fact the kosher staff including Shoichtim, Bodkim, Mashgichim are intimidated, harassed, etc by some of their superiors. Management is aware & they are enjoying the Rokeach style "slave driver". Is it perhaps because they are not permitted to be unionized, therefore they do not work directly for Empire.

Magen zedek picked up on none of this, so they are giving you a false sense of comfort & they don't have professionals that can see on the faces of the staff the stress. We all realize that when the appointment was made followed by the inspection a "show" was put on, if they can't see a show-They don't belong in the kosher industry. Can't rely on them- for kashrus they are a detriment.

Magen Zedek can serve a very important function by banning all far Eastern products, as the employees are treated as slaves. They will also increase the job employment in the USA.

protect bloggers foundation

2012-01-01T12:04:00.000-05:00

The Recipe "Treif" disclaimers

2012-01-01T11:58:00.000-05:00

Most recipe books & published recipes in Hamodia, Yated, Shopper, The Voice etc are of the non-Torah opinion that when their recipes contain non-kosher ingredients e.g. fresh herbs, Vegies, strawberries, etc (which a consumer is not qualified at all to check-hence treif) -

-they write a disclaimer "Ask your local Rav re: checking & cleaning for infestation". You know that there are NO Rabonim that know how to check let alone clean...see Chasam sofer O/C 132.

It's actually a treif "EXCLAIMER ! ! !"

Even though all Rabonim know that the herbs, vegies, fruits in the recipe are ossur because of infestation that you can't clean ..,

USE IT ANYWAYS.

Mishpacha magazine banned

2011-12-30T09:10:00.001-05:00

Corn on the cob is infested, must de-kernelize prior to cooking, eating

2011-12-26T12:19:00.000-05:00

Corn on the "COTC", aleays have been infested with thrips, they hide beneathe the kernels if you don't see them.

Corn on the cob infested with larvae of the European corn borer and the corn earworm has been intercepted frequently. Private shipments of plant material infested with the strawberry rootweevil destined from New York to points in Georgia, Minnesota, and Oregon have been halted. Iris rhizomes heavily infested with the iris borer have been found en route to points in California, Florida, and North Carolina.

Bottecilli extra virgin Olive oil inferior product?

2011-12-24T19:01:00.001-05:00

Bottecilli extra virgin Olive oil inferior product?

When one called the Company to complain that there are pieces & impurities, the 68 oz Bottecelli company said we know the problem. The Bottecelli company sent a small 16 oz bottle instead of replacing the same 68 oz size.

With all of the publicity of extra virgin olive oil adulteration, it seems pennies saved in making good on an inferior product may cast a question mark on the purity of certain olive oils.

$50,000 worth of margarine stolen

2011-12-22T21:40:00.001-05:00

$50,000 In Margarine Stolen- December 22, 2011

NOTE: Must be on an alert, This shouldn't land up with a forged kosher label in the most profitable market "kosher".
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a thief who slipped away with $50,000 worth of margarine remains at large even though the truck that carried the payload has been recovered. The trailer was parked awaiting delivery to a Target Corp. warehouse in Cedar Falls when it was stolen Dec. 10 from a parking lot near Waterloo. It was found Dec. 15 in a parking lot more than 500 miles away in Fowler, Mich.

But the thief and the margarine are nowhere to be found.

האחד בא לגור וישפוט שפוט --סדום Document surfaces in Lakewood

2011-12-22T21:26:00.003-05:00

We were asked by "bishaim-nadvonim" of Lakewood moisdois, that they are embarrassed by these issues. NOTE: we were not pressured or threatened.

KASHRUS Alert: Post raisin Bran cereal-

2011-12-22T08:53:00.004-05:00

Update: NPGS says theirs was checked by whom they consider to be mumchim & expert in raisins as well, we are not yet convinced.

KASHRUS Alert: All Raisin bran cereals, including Post raisin Bran cereal's (even when it's on sale). The raisins are sundried raisins. All Raisins have an infestation problem especially the sun dried raisins.

Some stores are running sales on it, don't buy it.
Very few in kashrus are qualified in checking for infestation.
Don't trust the ones that think they know how to check.

All domestic sundried & oven dried raisins are infested. Yellows may have less, nonetheless they do have. S. African have less, but aren't clean. Some claimed oven dried yet they were found to be infested, the reason being that they were first field dried (infested) then they finished drying them in an oven.

Post uses the regular raisins not the claimed "oven dried", which most raisan bran companies use "the regular raisins".

May the Courts impose on someone to give a Get? (not in Lakewood)

2011-12-21T17:47:00.000-05:00

http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a0472-10.pdf

Kashrus Magazine-promoting non-kosher recipe books & diets?

2011-12-20T11:43:00.004-05:00

They have fresh steamed brocolli, Raspberries, Strawberries, etc which can't be checked for infestation.

Kashrus Magazine, is promoting the non-kosher recipe books & diets?

When are Botei-Dinim at fault?

2011-12-20T08:36:00.001-05:00

The facts V fictional Theories

2011-12-18T11:52:00.000-05:00

A notice of clarification for public vigilance
The following pertains to the conference held on 24 Cheshvan about establishing a kevi’us; an established protocol for the complex process of writing and issuing Gittin in the city of Lakewood. Since human nature is such that credulous people tend to believe the rumors spread by those seeking to stir controversy, we have set out to state the facts as they are, to ensure that no one falls prey to rumormongers and that our intentions will always remain transparent and above reproach.

The idea of conducting this conference originated with HaGaon HaRav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv shlita, during a videotaped meeting that was held in his home at the end of the month of Sivan in 5769. He was astonished to hear that Gittin are being written in Lakewood without any kevi’us established by those Gedolim in America who are expert in these halachos. It was in accordance with his advice, encouragement, and with his specific guidance, that we gathered together to discuss this issue.

Those invited to discuss this issue at the conference were limited specifically to Roshei Batei Din and Dayanim who have extensive and multiyear experience in this challenging area of Halacha, and have an established reputation as Mesadrei Gittin for many years. This does not in any way preclude those who were not in attendance from stating their opinion on the matter discussed. Naturally, it is inevitable that this arena of Halacha will invite disagreements of opinion, both in interpretation and in application, and all who wish to state their opinions, are welcome to put pen to paper and thus express their opinions and reasons. This amicable manner of dispute was honorably practiced throughout the generations. When the occasion arose to make a kevi’us for the writing of Gittin in a town, all those qualified to do so came out with their teshuvos on the matter, each one advancing his own approach, until they finally reached a consensus. This process is evident in the teshuvos of the Noda BiYehudah, the Chasam Sofer, and others.

The purpose of the conference was not to establish a kevi’us for the writing of Gittin, but to discuss how to go about establishing the kevi’us. It goes without saying that the actual kevi’us will be determined with the participation of all the Gedolim and Rabbanim of the city.

At the conference, the first question discussed was whether this project raises any concern about being moitzi la’az — casting aspersions — on Gittin previously written in Lakewood. After all those present agreed unanimously that there is no concern of hotzo’as la’az, as stated in Teshuvos Maharil (104) and other sources, and that the aim of the conference is not to cast doubt on the Gittin that have already been written — only then did we proceed to discuss the actual question of how to go about establishing a kevi’us.

At the termination of the conference, a ruling was issued by HaGaon Harav Yechezkel Roth, the Gaavad of Karlsburg, joined by HaGaon HaRav Sariel Rosenberg, Av Beis Din under HaGaon HaRav Nissim Karelitz in Bnei Brak, and all the esteemed Rabbanim shlita, stating that no Gittin should be written in Lakewood for the time being until this matter is properly resolved.

In conclusion, this complex subject is not a recently uncovered problem; rather it is an old issue, long recognized by messadrei gittin both in Lakewood and outside the city. We are merely disciples at the feet of our sagely masters, seeking instruction on how to proceed. Any decisions regarding Gittin must, and will, remain in the hands of the Gedolei Haposkim to whom all of Klal Yisrael look for guidance in all matters pertaining to Halacha.

Signed Chavrei Habadatz

The Voice of Lakewood magazine approves of "treif" recipes?

2011-12-14T23:36:00.000-05:00

Cheese-kosher certifier Reliable? NO!

2011-12-14T15:04:00.004-05:00

The International Organizational Hashgochas don't rely on him either. (besides the Star-k)The mere fact that the Pomegranate store carries this & other questionable kashrus items doesn't justify an educated kosher consumer to purchase them.
Both brothers are not reliable in kashrus R"L.

Shabbos Mode appliances- Not Kosher! It's an issur of Gramah at least

2011-12-14T14:28:00.000-05:00

Kosherswitch:Falsely indicating that Rav Moshe Sternbuch endorses product-Shabbos- Mode appliances have the same switch.

A company selling grama switch for Shabbos is claiming an endorsement from Rav Moshe Sternbuch. HaGaon R’ Moishe Sternbuch shlit’aChief Rabbi/Ra'avad of the Eidah HaChareidis Yerushalayim. “Not gramma, better than gramma; Brocha that you should get the good to stay good, and get the bad to become good!” (1/5/2010 at his home)

I received the following letter from Rav Sternbuch's gabbai

I asked the Rav about this, he told me that he was asked about it, he wrote a letter via Rabbi Sigler on the issue, the Rav holds that it is not only chilul shaboss, but "akiras shaboss" to use this switch, the rav asked for his opinion to be publicized since he has been asked recently about this from numerous sources. Posted by Daas Torah at 7:55 PM

http://matzav.com/clients/matzav/Oven.pdf

It all started a number of years back on "Mesifta-Di'rakiah" [short-wave-radio]. Rabbi Moshe Heineman stated that on Shabbos in a Shul one may "ki'lachar-yad" turn on or off the alarm on shabbos.
Yudel Shain stated that he has a magnetic type switch that one can use for the alarm on Shabbos that would be permitted even according to the "Chazon-Ish". An individual asked on the program can one reverse omagnetic polarity on Shabbos....? Rabbi Heineman responded forget the magnetic type switch "the Chazon-Ish is only a DAAS-YOCHID", & do it ki'lacharyad. The STAR-K also utilizes the light-bulb to acomplish BISHUL-YISROEL.

Reb Shlomo Zalman's comment re: light-bulb Bishul yisroel.."one of the main causes of Intermarriage R"L."

Click on letter to enlage!

The Shabbos mode appliances may not be so "shabbos friendly" after all.

Rav Shlomo Miller, Shlita [Toronto-Lakewood] recently publicized a letter re: Shabbos-mode ovens that one may not adjust temperatures on Yom-Tov, contrary to the kosher certification.

In respect to the above publicized letter from Rav Miller, we are not publicizing the name of the kosher certifier.

Others have researched the "Shabbos-friendly" appliances & concluded that according to ALL "Poiskim" it is not permitted to be used in the Shabbos mode. It is more than "Gramahs" that are being activated.

See Star-K link http://www.star-k.org/pdf/oventeshuva.pdf

And therefor you may even decide to use your computer on Yom-Tov without the screen, according to the Star-K.

The SANHEDRIN would have taken up such a case in the context of a "zukun-mamrai".

Shabbos mode appliances are not shabbos friendly "Ossur"

2011-12-14T10:21:00.000-05:00

Kosher slaughter ban fails to win majority in Dutch Senate as government proposes compromise

2011-12-14T09:26:00.000-05:00

Kosher slaughter ban fails to win majority in Dutch Senate as government proposes compromise

An update Re: more whiskeys coming under kosher certification

2011-12-14T09:07:00.002-05:00

Published on The Jewish Week (http://www.thejewishweek.com)Tuesday, December 13, 2011 Gamliel Kronemer Koval’s Chicago Whiskey is best served chilled or over ice. As the weather grows brisk, a sampling of micro-distillery whiskey. Special To The Jewish Week

Whiskey — wherever it is made, and in whatever style — is a great beverage for the winter. Just a few sips can warm the gullet, and take a bit of the chill off the coldest of winter nights.
All whiskeys were once almost universally considered kosher. But in the last few decades the kashrut of whiskey has come up for debate.

Until recently only Scotch whisky, with its sherry-cask aging, had been of concern to most kashrut authorities. In 2008, however, the London Beth Din, one of the world’s leading kosher certifiers of distilled spirits, questioned the kashrut of most Irish whiskies, and in 2010, the Association of Kashrus Organizations, an umbrella organization for American kashrut agencies, raised doubts about whiskey products from the one of America’s largest distillers, the Buffalo Trace Distillery.
As a result of these growing concerns many whiskey producers are now seeking kosher certification, and among the growing list of kosher-certified producers are two of America’s newest — and smallest — distilleries.

The Koval Distillery, in Chicago, opened in 2008 and is run by husband-and-wife team Robert and Sonat Birnecker. Koval (Yiddish for blacksmith) currently produces 15 different single-grain whiskies — all of which are aged for less than two years (if aged at all) and all of which are certified kosher by the Orthodox Union. According to Sonat, the distillery chose to seek kosher certification because “we are very proud to be Jewish, and wanted to make sure our products are available to all the members of our community.”

Catoctin Creek Distilling, located Purcellville, Va., is run by Scott and Becky Harris, who opened their distillery in late 2009 and started production last year. Beginning with their initial run, the majority of the distillery’s products — which include both an un-aged rye whiskey and a briefly aged rye whiskey, have been made under the supervision of Star-K Kosher Certification.

So For this month’s Fruit of the Vine, we tasted a number of kosher-certified whiskies from both Koval and Catoctin Creek, and were pleasantly surprised at how uniformly good these young whiskies tasted.

One of the most interesting of them was Koval’s Lion’s Pride Dark Millet Whiskey. Made from 100 percent organically grown millet, this medium bodied, tawny colored whiskey was aged in heavily charred white oak barrels. Look for a nose of toasty oak and almonds, with a whiff of hay, and a lightly sweet flavor of caramel and roasted nuts. While enjoyable on its own, this whiskey should be a good choice for use in cocktails with a bit of citrus, such as the Whiskey Rickey, or the Lion’s Tail.

Also quite good was Catoctin Creek’s, Roundstone Rye. This smooth, tawny colored, rye was aged for a few months in new white oak barrels. Look for flavors and aromas of vanilla, oak, caramel, lemon, and allspice. Although it’s a pleasant sipping whiskey, Roundstone rye would be a good choice for use in bitters-driven cocktails, such as the Old Fashioned.

American whiskies tend to be very versatile, and can be enjoyed by themselves, with food, or in cocktails and punches. So the next time you’re feeling the bite of wintertime cold, warm up with a dram of whiskey from one of America’s micro-distilleries. You won’t regret it.

neshomelleh

2011-12-13T17:56:00.002-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZkZYTeYWI8

Cholov Stam / Cholov Akum = CHOLOV TREIFE! R'L- The consumer has nothing to rely on

2011-12-13T10:28:00.001-05:00

RE: Cholov Stam-Cholov Akum is actually חלב טריף Per Rav Eliyashev Shlita and Rav Shmuel Wosner Shlita.

The European Hashgochas mistakenly believe that they don't have the problem because the Veterinarians say "in Europe we don't have those problems". The cold facts are that europe has the problem just as much as the USA.

We and others spoke to the European vets & vet. associations re the procedures. The proclaimed that an incidence of 1-2% for each type of procedure is considered "we don't have the problem". There are 2-3 common procedures that will render a cow a treifah, so we have 4-6% of procedures in europe that make the cow a treifah. Therefore their milk ic cholv treifah. We understand that not all of the European Cholov Yisroel hashgochas remove the procedured cows, so even their cholov yisroel is cholov treif. This affects their chocolate bars as well.
From the step by step procedure manual for DA's.

Perforate the abdominal wall and the abomasum with a swift downward push of the trocar.

Use the push rod to move the toggle COMPLETELY through the length of the needle so that it will turn perpendicular to the long axis of the needle once in the abomasal lumen.

9. Before removing the trocar needle from the second suture site, place pressure on the external abdominal wall to force as much free gas from the abomasum as possible. This will reduce the tension on the sutures and help to reduce the chance of tearing the abomasal wall or leaking abomasal contents into the peritoneal cavity.

* * * * * * *

There are numerous veterinarian procedures that make a milking cow a "Treife". The procedures include what is commonly known as "DA"'s, "C" section, Bloating etc. All of the Major Poiskim in the USA & Eretz Yisroel including Rav S. Eliyashev, Shlita ruled that it is a "treife" & the milk may not be consumed.

In the Cholov-Yisroel farms, the contracted system is to remove them from the herd & be compensated for the loss. On the other hand by the Cholov Stam-Cholov Akum farms there is no system in place to have them removed.

Any milk product produced from a "treife" is to be considered "non-kosher" & may not be used.

There was a mistaken assumption that the major kosher certifiers were relying on an *unfinished "teshuva" from a Rav . * The unfinished Teshuva was writteen some 14 years ago.

There were many Factual & Halachik issues with the unfinished Teshuva. The Rav ended the teshuva with a "Hem'shech-yo'voi" (to be continued), to attempt to rectify the factual & Halachik dificulties.

The Rav recently decided that there is nothing more to add to the Teshuva not factual & not Halachikly. The kosher certifiers & the consumers can't rely on an unfinished teshuva "that is never going to be completed". (especially when there are still unresolved serious factual & Halachik assumptions ). In retrospect "how did any one ever rely on an unfinished teshuvah"??

Rav Eliyashev recently told Reb Yudel Shain "one may not rely on that Ravs HETEIRIM including the heter of the operated cows that they aren't a treifah". Rav Eliyashev said further the cows are to be considered a treifah & any farm that doesn't remove them from the herd, you may not use the milk.

So we remain with the Psak of all of the Major Poiskim "all of the CHOLOV STAM & CHOLOV AKUMUM is "ossur" and not permitted to be used".

What is a DA?

I. Left Displaced Abomasum and Its TreatmentThe primary cause of the problem requiring surgical intervention for its correction is apparently the diet provided dairy cows in order to increase the cows’ production of milk.

3 Housing cows in short stalls may be an aggravating factor since cows confined in such stalls may experience difficulty in rising to their feet. Struggling to rise may cause a malposition of an already dilated abomasum. The problem appears to be virtually non-existent in countries such as Australia and New Zealand where cattle are not normally fed grain but are simply allowed to graze in unconfined pastures.

4 The high carbohydrate diet provided in this country, or perhaps the accompanying reduction in consumption of grass, results in a high concentration of unabsorbed free fatty acids which decrease motility of the smooth muscle of the cow’s fourth stomach, the keivah or abomasum. As motility decreases, gas formation is increased by the liberation of carbon dioxide from the reaction between rumen bicarbonate and abomasal hydrochloric acid. As a result the abomasum becomes filled with gas. The abomasum normally lies to the right of the ventral midline along the abdominal wall. When distended by gas, the abomasum may become displaced and move to the left flank between the rumen and the body wall. As the distorted abomasum rises and moves out of place it may also become twisted at the point of connection of the abomasum to the intestine. In both its rising and twisting the abomasum behaves in a manner similar to a balloon filled with air. This twisting of the abomasum interferes with the free flow of the contents of the abomasum into the duodenum and the intestines. If the condition is not treated, the cow will stop eating and its milk production will decline drastically or it will suffer torsion displacement of the abomasum and die. Corrective treatment of this condition consists of anchoring the abomasum in its proper place.

Left displaced abomasum (LDA), as the condition is known, was first recognized in 1950. Since then the diagnosis has been made with increasing frequency. Professionals in the field report that it is their impression that surgical correction of LDA has become much more common in recent years.

5 It is thus not entirely surprising that rabbinic authorities remained unaware until recently of what has now become a relatively high incidence of surgical treatment to correct this condition that causes the animal to become a treifah. The incidence of LDA is the subject of a recent study by Dr. Steven Eicker of Cornell University’s New York State College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, New York. His study of some 13,000 cows on 26 farms in New York State6 shows a variation between farms in the occurrence of left displaced abomasum of between five and fifteen percent.7 The mean for the farms surveyed is between seven and eight percent.

None of the farms surveyed showed a prevalence of less than five percent.8 "Shishim" is 1.67%

NOTE: November 28th, 2010-The NEWER procedures including the German, swiss methods all make it a "treifah".

ROMAINE LETTUCE blamed for E.Coli

2011-12-09T11:21:00.001-05:00

http://www.foodmanufacturing.com/scripts/ShowPR.asp?RID=23976&et_cid=2368241&et_rid=41384912&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.foodmanufacturing.com%2fscripts%2fShowPR.asp%3fRID%3d23976

KCL doesn't certify treif establishments, no-one else should either

2011-12-08T17:10:00.005-05:00

7-11, Yum-Yum & Dunkin DonutsThere isn't anymore in the USA any cholov-stam or Cholov-akum, it's all "Cholov-Treif". Rav Eliashev & Rav wosner said one may not rely on any heteirim that it isn't treif.

NOTE: Reb Moshe & Rav Zvi Pesah Frank only addressed the cholov stam issue, the new issue of Cholv treif (15 years ago) Reb Moshe did not address, Rav Eliyashev & Rav Wosner say according to the Shulchan Oruch "it's treif".

Party-Planners, can a hashgocha control them? We doubt it.

2011-12-08T12:22:00.002-05:00

Kashrus Scandal:

Party planners are never under any Hashgocha

Party-Planners- Can a hashgocha control them? We doubt it.

They bring anything & everything from literally anyplace.

Rented equipment:
Pop corn machines- others may use butter & then used for fleishig party.
Chocolate machine- was used with dairy chocolate then used for fleishig affair.
Hot-dog machine- used for any brand hot dogs previously.

Candies, cakes, etc from anyplace.
Dishes, utensils from anyplace.

Reb Dovid Feinstein, Shlita said "A party planner on a shabbos event without chilul shabbos?, I don't think it can happen".

All Party-Planners must be under a strong Hashgocha, or don't use them.

Israeli brands olive oil fraud

2011-12-08T08:10:00.002-05:00

http://couponingintheholyland.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/the-olive-oil-that-wasnt/

A frum mother of 4 children, read the article & respond in kind.

2011-12-07T19:09:00.000-05:00

http://moriyasplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/in-defense-of-wendy-runge.html

Consumer Reports Raises Questions About Some Fish Oil Brands

2011-12-07T16:25:00.003-05:00

Consumer Reports Raises Questions About Some Fish Oil Brands

[most soft gel caps are not kosher]

December 7, 2011 - YONKERS, N.Y. (PRNewswire-USNewswire) — In lab tests of 15 top-selling brands of fish oil supplements, Consumer Reports found that five fell a bit short on quality. Fish oil supplements have become wildly popular, with consumers taking them to treat a long list of ailments including menstrual cramps, heart disease, asthma, bipolar disorder, high blood pressure, depression, psoriasis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and pregnancy complications.
"Fish oil is not a cure-all. If you're considering a fish oil supplement, we recommend that you talk to your doctor first to find out if it's the right treatment for you," said Ronni Sandroff, editorial director, Health and Family, Consumer Reports. "In our recent tests, we found that some were not as pure as one might think."

Consumer Reports sent three lots of top selling brands purchased online or in New York area stores to an outside lab to evaluate whether they contained the listed amount of omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, whether they properly disintegrated, whether they showed signs of spoilage, and whether they contained any contaminants, such as lead, mercury, dioxins, or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The results: one or more samples from five brands didn't meet all of those quality standards.

All had their labeled amount of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids.

None exceeded limits for lead, mercury, dioxins, or PCBs set by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), a nongovernmental standard-setting group.

Consumer Reports found total PCBs in amounts that could require warning labels under California's Proposition 65, a consumer right-to-know law, in one sample of each of the CVS Natural, GNC Triple Strength, and Sundown Naturals, and in two samples of Nature's Bounty Odorless.

And two samples of Kirkland Signature Enteric 1200 (Costco) failed the USP disintegration test for capsules with enteric coating (designed to help prevent fishy aftertaste).

The version of this story that appeared in the January 2012 issue of Consumer Reports magazine also reported that CR's tests found "elevated levels of compounds that indicate spoilage" in samples from Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega 1000mg (180 count). Just as digital versions of the story were being readied for publication, however, the company challenged that conclusion based on the fact that its product includes natural lemon oil as a flavoring.

Upon further review, CR found that the industry-standard spoilage test cannot reliably detect spoilage in products with lemon oil, and CR was unable to identify any current well-established methodology for doing so. (Nordic Naturals was the only lemon-flavored product in CR's study.) Because the spoilage test cannot be applied, CR couldn't keep Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega in a report that required all products to undergo all tests. Nordic Naturals did meet every other quality measure in the study. The pills contained their labeled amount of omega-3 fatty acids and met other U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) and European Union standards including those for contaminants such as lead, mercury, and dioxins. They also met the stricter California Proposition 65 standard for total polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). A correction will appear in the February 2012 issue of Consumer Reports magazine. The story has already been corrected at www.consumerreports.org.

Even the brands that did pass CR's tests contained measurable levels of most of the contaminants, though many have labels claiming they're free of impurities such as mercury and PCBs. The levels measured didn't exceed USP or European Union limits or raise health concerns.

The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

2011-12-07T16:17:00.001-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/books/extra-virginity-by-tom-mueller-a-word-on-olive-oil-review.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

http://blog.sfgate.com/inberkeley/2011/12/08/you-may-not-like-whats-lurking-in-your-olive-oil/

December 7, 2011-Olive Oil’s Growers, Chemists, Cooks and CrooksBy DWIGHT GARNER

EXTRA VIRGINITY -The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

By Tom Mueller - Illustrated. 238 pages. W. W. Norton & Company. $25.95.

A few pages into Tom Mueller’s new book, “Extra Virginity,” there’s a funny moment when an olive oil expert holds up a bottle that’s covered with dubious claims: “100 percent Italian,” “cold-pressed,” “extra virgin.”
The man shakes his head and says, perhaps with a hint of Don Rickles in his voice, “Extra virgin? What’s this oil got to do with virginity? This is a whore.”

These are sentences to savor. They underscore this book’s project, which is to demonstrate the brazen fraud in the olive oil industry and to teach readers how to sniff out the good stuff. These are also, sad to say, among this book’s few digestible lines. Earnest and sentimental from start to last, “Extra Virginity” doesn’t have a shrewd or slutty bone in its body. It’s an unintentional master class in how to say waxy and embalming things about fresh food.

Mr. Mueller is an American writer who lives in Italy. And not just anywhere in Italy but, his dust flap reveals, in a description that’s the prose equivalent of Corinthian leather upholstery, “in a medieval stone farmhouse surrounded by olive groves in the Ligurian countryside outside of Genoa.”

“Extra Virginity” grew out of a cogent article titled “Slippery Business” that Mr. Mueller wrote about olive oil in 2007 for The New Yorker, and his book is filled with information mindful eaters will wish to have. In this regard “Extra Virginity” is another reminder of why subpar nonfiction is so much better than subpar fiction. With nonfiction at least you can learn something.

The news Mr. Mueller brings about extra virgin olive oil — E.V.O.O., as Rachael Ray likes to put it — is alarming. The liquid that gets passed off as such in supermarkets and restaurants is often anything but. Shady dealers along the supply chain frequently adulterate olive oil with low-grade vegetable oils and add artificial coloring.

Mr. Mueller cites an Italian producer who suggests that 50 percent of the olive oil sold in America is, to some degree, fraudulent. The Food and Drug Administration considers this adulteration a low priority. Grody olive oil is not killing anyone. We’re talking about a first-world problem here. Caveat emptor.

“Extra Virginity” suggests consumers put a priority on purchasing fresh olive oil, and taste before they buy. The good stuff is peppery and alive and, sipped neat, can make you cough. In the same way that many Americans have never tasted real maple syrup, not believing Aunt Jemima would do them wrong, many have no idea olive oil can be anything but a urine-colored and musty butter substitute.

Mr. Mueller spends time with olive growers, with chemists, with cooks and with crooks. His history lessons are never less than interesting. He explains how olive oil was a driving force of life in the Mediterranean, a source of wealth and power. “A jug of olive oil on the dinner table,” he writes, “marked the triumph of Roman cuisine over barbarian beer and lard.”

The Greeks anointed their athletes with olive oil, which could be rather sexy. Mr. Mueller quotes Tom Scanlon, a classics professor at the University of California, Riverside, who says: “The oil on a gleaming, tanned, healthy body was a literally ‘flashy’ adornment. Oil heightened the body’s erotic charge, and encouraged male same-sex desire and pederasty, first in Sparta, then throughout the Greek world.”

Thomas Jefferson was among the first Americans to champion olive oil. He saw to it, Mr. Mueller writes, “that an olive branch, heavy with fruit, was placed in the talons of the eagle on the Great Seal of the United States.” Mario Puzo, in “The Godfather,” modeled Vito Corleone after a criminal olive oil boss named Joseph Profaci. Puzo even gave Corleone his own olive oil business, Genco Pura, as a front company.

For all its provocative bits Mr. Mueller’s book feels unctuous — oil coated — right from the start. It is packed with so many heroic artisans and sentimental peasants that it feels like a dinner theater production of “Fiddler on the Roof” or a canvas by Thomas Kinkade, the “painter of light.”

One man here has a “hint of wonder in his voice.” Another “laughed, high-pitched and merrily.” A woman has “almond-shaped eyes that seem to look straight into your soul.” This same woman has “a twinkle in her eye.” Throughout, it is as if we are reading about elves.

Olive oil brings out Mr. Mueller’s inner Windham Hill pianist. Olive oil reveals, he suggests, people’s “secret passions and dreams.” He speaks of its “sacred and mythic dimensions.” He writes about one producer: “Alissa Mattei is another person olive oil has touched, bringing out her inner contradictions.”

Mr. Mueller uses the words “wondrous” and “wondrously” in back-to-back sentences. A misdemeanor, but a telling one. When he inhales the scent of fresh oil, he reports that he has “aromas and aromatics dancing like angels in my nose.”

There’s a second funny moment in “Extra Virginity” when a Swiss agronomist explains, succinctly, what great olive oil will make a person do. It will make you, he says, “get down on your knees” like a Baptist preacher and shout out a word that’s not printable in a family newspaper.

That hollered obscenity reminds you that where there’s a flask of olive oil, you also pray to find some vinegar.

Time To Face The Issue: Yeshiva Bochur Arrested For DWI

2011-12-07T14:24:00.000-05:00

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/111330/Time-To-Face-The-Issue%3A-Yeshiva-Bochur-Arrested-For-DWI.html

All Schnapps should be banned at all weddings-The Misader Kidushin should insist on that standard, besides the fact that most of the Schnapps served does not have a hashgocha & may not be used.

Honey- What does honey consist of & are you getting all of it? NO!

2011-12-07T14:05:00.004-05:00

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/

Tilapia fillets skinless-Don't rely on the Hashgochas- Buy only with skin-tab

2011-12-07T12:28:00.000-05:00

Tilapia fillets skinless-Don't rely on the Hashgochas-

Buy only with skin-tab "NO HASHGOCHA" at the

Washington Sea Food 52 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205-1202
Phone:(718) 875-2736

Another reason, one should insist on a "skin-tab" for frozen filet fish

2011-12-07T11:23:00.001-05:00

UPDATE- We gave a hashgocha at a bar mitzvah this past week, we insisted on Tilapia with a skin-tab & NO Heimish HASHGOCHA on the box.

We wrote to Dagim, received No response nor acknowledgement.

TILAPIA fish-Frozen, skinless filet, with 2 prominent kosher certifiers
International & Heimish Hashgochas.

Production date: "19 04 2011" (first day pesach?, ys)

Some of the production was done in June 2011, the prices are cheaper for April product. The importer is interested in $$$ bottom line. The Chinese took them knowingly for a ride.

The Mashgiach didn't "chap" the game, One supervised box for every 3-4 boxes from April that were unsupervised.

Lakewood a Dual Justice system?

2011-12-07T07:07:00.000-05:00

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/lakewood_abuse_cases_parallel_justice_system

All the "show n tell" of properly cleaning infestation from vegetables & fruit,

2011-12-05T16:56:00.001-05:00

All the "show n tell" of properly cleaning infestation from vegetables & fruit, etc does it work in the real world?

[see Chasam Sofer # 130, brought in Mishnah Berurah-Pesach]-First, one must be trained to become profecient in knowing what to look for. Second, one must be trained in the proper methods of cleaning. One must have patience and good eye sight. The chasam Sofer sstates, otherwise one may not do his own checking As the Ramoh says in hilchos nikur "these thing one can't learn from books, only from experts.

An person that was not trained & tested by an expert remains unqualified to check infestation for himself, others or as a mashgiach. R"L

Old fashioned kitchen Latkes (pancakes)

2011-12-05T15:06:00.001-05:00

Lakewood's Old fashioned kitchen Company's Latkes (pancakes) are yoshon & bishul Yisroel.

What's in your olive oil?

2011-12-05T15:01:00.001-05:00

What's in Your Olive Oil? By Amy Zavatto -Published December 05, 2011 -FoxNews.com

Pretty bottles of olive oil make great holiday gifts, but what most of us who delight in drizzles of the golden liquid don’t realize is what’s in your bottle might not be what you expect—or want. And we’re not talkin’ fat.
The United States recently became the third largest olive-oil consuming nation in the world, and just overtook Greece -- a country where the people of Crete alone consume 26 gallons of olive oil per person per year, says Tom Mueller, author of the investigative olive oil missive five years in the making Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil (W.W. Norton, Dec. 2011).

That’s a whole lot of olive oil we’re taking in here, as we all search for the magic elixir to stretch out the years—or, at least, improve the ones we have.

“The chemistry of the Mediterranean diet is just starting to be understood by Harvard’s School of Health. The chemicals found in real extra virgin olive oil are full of natural antioxidants and anti-inflammatories, and a whole range of vitamins that science is just starting to put names to; for thousands of years it’s why people [in certain countries] have lived longer lives,” says Muller.

There 700 different kinds of olives in the world, all with radically different taste profiles, from mild and gently fruity versions like an arbequina, to more robust and pungent types like taggiasca. But as the old adage goes: you get what you pay for.

“When producers try to make olive oil at a low cost with a high profit, everybody loses,” says Mueller. “People expect to get healthy stuff, and in fact they might be getting rancid, old oil. It’s not only not good—it’s bad.”

Two recent studies by the University of California, Davis, part of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, put your average, everyday supermarket olive oils to the test:

“Our laboratory tests found that samples of imported olive oil labeled as ‘extra virgin’ and sold at retail locations in California often did not meet international and U.S. standards,” says the initial July 2010 report. “Sensory tests showed that these failed samples had defective flavors such as rancid, fusty, and musty. Negative sensory results were confirmed by chemical data in 86 percent of the cases.” That’s a whole lot of bad oil.

And not only did they find much of it past its prime, but also that bottles labeled as extra virgin olive oil were adulterated with cheap, refined non-olive oils.

“Some producers will deodorize their oil--run it through a chemical and heat refining process that kills bad smells and flavors, and pretty much a lot of its remaining health benefits. Others take an inert liquid fat and juice it up with a little of the good stuff to give it flavor, then sell at a lower cost as extra virgin olive oil.”

So what can an olive-oil loving consumer do? Quite a few things. To find the best olive oil out there (and keep it in good shape), follow these few, simple rules:

Savor, Don’t Save! Olives are a fruit, and, if you think about it, olive oil is a kind of fruit juice. You wouldn’t keep orange juice for years on end, right? Treat olive oil the same way. If you’ve been saving a fancy bottle for a special occasion, don’t.. Olive oil doesn’t have a shelf life past the year mark. Consuming it within 6 months of purchase is an even better plan.

Keep It Dark. Like wine, olive oil can be ruined by sunlight and heat. Store in a dark, cool place—never leave it next to the heat of your stove, no matter how convenient. Make sure your bottle is always well-sealed as too much air can oxidize all that gorgeous golden liquid. And while you’re at it, avoid clear of glass bottles. They might make for nice presentation, but dark glass is a far better protector.

Dust is a Bust. Shop for your olive oil in a reputable store that moves merchandise quickly. If there’s dust on that bottle, chances are it’s past its prime.

It’s a Date. The best olive oils will have a perishable date on the bottle, but more important is a harvest date. This tells you when the fruit was picked, and is the best bit of proof for how fresh what’s in your bottle actually is.

Hunting Season. Olives are grown not just in parts of Spain, France, Portugal, California, and Italy, but also in places like Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, and South Africa. “Their spring is our fall,” offers Mueller, “So when their oil comes online, it’s just about when olive oils from the northern hemisphere are 6 months old and losing their pizazz.” Keep an eye out for the country of origin and buy from place where the season is ripe.

Eyes on the Prize. Look for a seal from a credible organization, California’s Olive Oil Council or Italy’s D.O.P., which translates to mean Protected Designation of Origin—meaning the olives used come from the place the bottle says, and nowhere else. And if a producer has a sticker on their bottle boasting about a recent prize won for great oil, that’s not a bad sign, either.

Sweet and Low. “Generally speaking, good extra virgin oil has a high smoke point where the oil burns,” says Mueller. “Its’ a waste of good first-rate oil to fry. Not only will it start tasting like popcorn, but bad things start to happen chemically." Instead, stick to light sautéing when cooking with extra virgin olive oils, and using for dressings, drizzles, emulsifiers, and just plain flavor enhancing.

“My favorite thing is to take a plain baked potato, split it, crush it with fork, and pour liberal amounts of good oil on it. I’ve never experienced a potato like it!” Other favorites? Drizzling a big, pungent olive oil on steak and even over vanilla ice cream. “It sounds crazy, but it brings out textures and flavors you never noticed before. It’s like liquid sunshine,” he says.

And finally, Mueller urges that consumers think less about counting calories and more about healthy perks. “It may be 120 calories per tablespoon, but it packs a huge health wallop. Olive oil is a fabulously good thing to eat. High starch and high sugar diets do such damage to our bodies,” he offers, “But olive oil? It’s a healthy fat. It’s liquid health!”

China ISO food safety certifications double in last 12 months

2011-12-05T08:13:00.000-05:00

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Quality-Safety/China-ISO-food-safety-certifications-double-in-12-months?utm_source=copyright&utm_medium=OnSite&utm_campaign=copyright

What is ISO?
http://www.iso.org/iso/about.htm
In general ISO certification in China is accomplished more through payment rather than performance,

Lakewood's new 7-11, pick up an abundance of "yiras-shu'maiyim"

2011-12-04T12:56:00.002-05:00

At the Coffee machine,they have opened bottles of milk which may not be used as milk requires a "choisem", See Y"D, 118

The microwave may not be used to heat-up soups as it's also used for treif. The Slurpee's are also a problem to use.
All the chazerei & shmutz they display & sell.
Pick up an abundance of "yiras-shu'maiyim", so many have lost theirs over there already.

May one Dunkin Donut"?

2011-12-04T12:45:00.001-05:00

May one Dunkin Donut"? NO!
Not even with the hashgocha?
But something is Cholov Yisroel?
Who is their fulltime shomer shabbos mashgiach?
The other items are cholov yishmael which is really Cholov-Treif, Per Rav Eliyashev, Rav Wosner Shlita.

Mehadrin Company Dairy products

2011-12-04T12:34:00.001-05:00

Mehadrin Company Dairy products recently changed their Hashgocha to Rav Shia Katz, Magrov. Mazel Tov to Rav Katz on the upcoming Chasunah.

Mehadrin has also changed their yogurt size from 8 oz to 7 oz, the price remained unchanged.

Meshichistim Shechita from Israel certified by a Rabbi Usher Ekstein

2011-12-04T10:47:00.001-05:00

Israeli cold cuts & processed meats are from Meshichistim Shechita from Israel certified by a Rabbi Usher Ekstein.

Rav Yosef Sholom Eliyashev, Shlita says that their wine & Shechita is "ossur".
Ke$ef mi'ta'hair.....????

Lakewood: Open Vine St petition

2011-12-03T21:44:00.003-05:00

http://www.openupvine.com/uploads/Open_Vine_Petition.pdf

openupvine@gmail.com

Kashrus Alert: Fresh & Easy cooking book has non-kosher recipes?

2011-12-03T19:36:00.000-05:00

Kashrus Alert:
Fresh & Easy cooking book has non-kosher recipes?
An individual not being a trained expert in insect infestation is unqualified to check their own vegetables and herbs that may be infested.

Many of the recipes in the book use those non kosher vegetales & herbs. Therefore it is not recomended to use the book for any of their recipes.

Many of the recipes in the Hamodia & Yated have the same issues, it's best to discard the entire reci sections without reading them at all.

The truth behind the frozen "spinach" scandall.

2011-12-03T19:22:00.001-05:00

The truth behind the frozen-spinach "shia'ruriah". Oh, you didn't even know that the consumers were fooled again. Spinach is an infested product in general. If it's picked in very cool dry weather e.g. early April, it may have a minimum infestation issue. This years production by the heimishe companys was done in late May, etc.

The Kosher certifiers didn't realize all these years that the processor doesn't have filters for the recirculated processing water which is full of insects. They wanted cancel their orders, the company didn't agree. The companies sold the infested goods to commercial foodservice clients, and the consumers eat it.

Can you find the difference? No Grenhouse w/ Hisachdus???

2011-12-03T19:22:00.000-05:00

Left bags-Greenhouse grown was crossed off-No Grenhouse w/ Hisachdus???

One was found with insects,
the other one was not checked.

May one say "Korbonos, etc" before sunrise?

2011-12-01T22:56:00.002-05:00

Ki'Vasikin minyan, must say it after davening.
Others must wait till after sunrise, which is now about 7:00 AM. See the shulchan oruch & mishnah Berurah.

Drinks, ices, etc w/ Grape should NOT be used unless

2011-12-01T15:15:00.000-05:00

Drinks, ices, etc w/ Grape should NOT be used unless you can ascertain the source & hashgocha if it's acceptable to you. Not all Grape derivatives would be acceptable even with a hashgocha. Fierce Grape by Gatorade, we don't know what the grape derivative source is being used.

FDA apple juice arsenic guidelines expected

2011-11-30T08:23:00.000-05:00

By Mark Astley, 29-Nov-2011-The US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) could be poised to perform a U-turn on levels of arsenic in apple juice through the development of new guidelines - a letter sent to consumer groups has revealed.

In the letter sent to the Empire State Consumer Project and the Food and Water Watch, the authority said they would be collecting all relevant information before evaluating the best course of action.
The latest statement comes just a few months after the agency publically denounced the results of arsenic tests on apple juice conducted on US TV show, the Dr Oz Show.

At the time, the agency insisted that it had “every confidence in the safety of apple juice,” despite the publicity surrounding the potential hazards associated with arsenic in apple juice.

The FDA has since announced that it is “seriously considering setting guidance or other level for inorganic arsenic in apple juice and are collecting all relevant information to evaluate and determine an appropriate level.”

The letter added that “in the event we find a contaminant in a food that poses a health hazard, such that the food is deemed to be adulterated, we can and intend to take appropriate enforcement action.”

FDA guidelines dictate that apple juice containing over 23 parts per billionth (ppb) of inorganic arsenic represents a potential health risk.

Results found by the Empire State Consumer Group and the Dr Oz Show were above this limit.

Above level of concern

The latest notification on the presence of arsenic in apple juice follows concern from the two groups, following tests by the Empire State Consumer Project.

The consumer group conducted several tests for the presence of arsenic in samples of Motts’ brand apple juice, which is made using Chinese apple juice concentrate.

One of the samples was found to have a total arsenic level of 55ppb – significantly higher than the FDA’s current level of concern of inorganic arsenic of 23ppb.

These results mirrored others from tests conducted on the Dr Oz Show – results the FDA dismissed.

During an episode of the Dr Oz Show, broadcast in September, tests conducted on apple juice samples showed results as high as 36 parts per billion (ppb) of total arsenic.

Irresponsible and misleading

In a reply to the Dr Oz Show, the FDA suggested that the tests completed on the show were for total arsenic - not inorganic arsenic and were therefore inaccurate.

The response, sent in September 2011, said: “The FDA believes that it would be irresponsible and misleading for the Dr Oz Show to suggest that apple juice contains unsafe amounts of arsenic based solely on tests for total arsenic.”

After learning of the results, FDA investigators approached Nestle/Gerber for analysis samples of Nestle Infant Nutrition from the same batch used by the show.

The agency collected arsenic results ranging between 2 and 6ppb total arsenic – a figure Nestle/Gerber agreed with following its own testing.

Organic arsenic is essentially harmless, but the inorganic kind can be harmful at high and long-term levels of exposure.

The FDA has been tracking total arsenic contamination in apple and other juices for around six years, since foreign producers – particularly from China – started gaining an increasing share of the juice market.

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FDA apple juice arsenic guidelines expected

The US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) could be poised to perform a U-turn on levels of arsenic in apple juice through the development of new guidelines - a letter sent to consumer groups has revealed.

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Quality-Safety/FDA-apple-juice-arsenic-guidelines-expected

© 2011 - William Reed Business Media SAS - All rights reserved.

Rabbis, insects, Botanicals & quality control-listen to interview

2011-11-29T22:28:00.000-05:00

http://www.nutraingredients.com/Industry/Kosher-botanicals-Rabbis-insects-and-quality-control/?c=%2B6of2e5RNImtd9yrbGZ9jg%3D%3D&utm_source=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BWeekly

Poland Spring-read the label

2011-11-28T17:28:00.000-05:00

Rambam

2011-11-27T17:58:00.003-05:00

רמב"ם דעות פ"ו ה' ח'

אבל בדברי שמים אם לא חזר בו בסתר מכלימין אותו ברבים ומפרסמים חטאו ומחרפים אותו בפניו ומבזין אותו עד שיחזור למוטב וכו'

עין כסף משנה (המקור) "פשוט"

DNA-certified seafood in restaurants ?

2011-11-27T08:41:00.002-05:00

Restaurants around the world will soon use new DNA technology to assure patrons they are being served the genuine fish fillet or caviar they ordered, rather than inferior substitutes, an expert in genetic identification says.

In October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration officially approved so-called DNA barcoding - a standardized fingerprint that can identify a species like a supermarket scanner reads a barcode - to prevent the mislabeling of both locally produced and imported seafood in the United States. Other national regulators around the world are also considering adopting DNA barcoding as a fast, reliable and cost-effective tool for identifying organic matter.

David Schindel, a Smithsonian Institution paleontologist and executive secretary of the Washington-based Consortium for the Barcode of Life, said he has started discussions with the restaurant industry and seafood suppliers about utilizing the technology as a means of certifying the authenticity of delicacies.

"When they sell something that's really expensive, they want the consumer to believe that they're getting what they're paying for," Schindel told The Associated Press.

"We're going to start seeing a self-regulating movement by the high-end trade embracing barcoding as a mark of quality," he said.

While it would never be economically viable to DNA test every fish, it would be possible to test a sample of several fish from a trawler load, he said.

Schindel is organizer of the biennial International Barcode of Life Conference, which is being held Monday in the southern Australian city of Adelaide. The fourth in the conference series brings together 450 experts in the field to discuss new and increasingly diverse applications for the science.

Applications range from discovering what Australia's herd of 1 million feral camels feeds on in the Outback to uncovering fraud in Malaysia's herbal drug industry.

Schindel leads a consortium of scientists from almost 50 nations in overseeing the compilation of a global reference library for the Earth's 1.8 million known species. The Barcode of Life Database so far includes more than 167,000 species.

Mislabeling is widespread in the seafood industry and usually involves cheaper types of fish being sold as more expensive varieties. A pair of New York high school students using DNA barcoding of food stocked in their own kitchens found in a 2009 study that caviar labeled as sturgeon was actually Mississippi paddlefish.

In a published study a year earlier, another pair of students from the high school found that one-fourth of fish samples they had collected around New York were incorrectly labeled as higher-priced fish.

Mislabeling of fish - which account for almost half the world's vertebrate species - also poses risks to human health and the environment.

In 2007, several people became seriously ill from eating illegally imported toxic pufferfish from China that had been mislabeled as monkfish to circumvent U.S. import restrictions. Endangered species are also sold as more common fish varieties.

The status of the Chazir (Cham'zir)

2011-11-24T17:27:00.002-05:00

Sometime after Mashiach comes, the "chazir" will be permitted to eat.

The question is, will the chazir become a "maaleh-gairah" or the current chazir will become permitted?

Logic says it will become a "maaleh-gairah", as todays chazir to be permitted, we don't have to wait for mashiach, enough Rabonim have permitted chazir or treif in one way or another.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4152397,00.html

Rav Elyashiv On Speaking On The Phone & Driving

2011-11-24T09:57:00.000-05:00

Maran Posek HaDor HaGaon HaRav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv Shlita was asked by rabbonim affiliated with the Chafetz Chaim road safety organization regarding a driver who speaks on a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle, Kikar Shabbat reports. The Rav was asked if such a person is classified as a ‘rodef’.

According to the report, the posek hador ruled that such a person “Is not exactly a rodef, but close to being one”.
The non-profit organization, which works to increase road safety awareness, is publicizing the rav’s words in the hope it will have an impact. The organization was launched last year following a number of tragic accidents that impacted the frum tzibur, and its personnel visit yeshivos and kollelim with their message of increased awareness and road safety for drivers and pedestrians alike. (Thursday, November 24th, 2011) (YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

How to steal from anyone?

2011-11-22T20:31:00.000-05:00

Just ask the Aryehs et al, Shia Frankel &amp Yoinah weiss; their capable "Toi'in-Rabbani" Motty Berrrger.

Bring false appraisals, false documents, lies, etc, threats
חשדהו וחשדהו, וכבדהו would be recommended, למיחש מיבעי

They are even getting other "GRAK" Bais- Dins to do some of their dirty work??

"M.A." is even posting dirty comments?

Corn on the cob (frozen,Frsh, cooked,Microwavable) all infested.

2011-11-22T17:13:00.003-05:00

UPDATE: Calif. delight W/ Hisachdus?

Rav Ekstein removed hashgocha.
Why?
Corn on the cob, is known to be infested, including the frozen ones.
Even if it's soaked and salted.

Are the ones from Mexico, Thailand, any better? [No]

Does a Heimish Hashgocha help to elminate, not just minimize the insects? NO
Bottom line, (frsh & frozen, cooked) Remove the kernels & rinse.
NOT THE BABY CORN

Poland spring water-read the label

2011-11-21T16:27:00.000-05:00

Yeshivas Might Soon Have To Employ Additional Mashgiach, For Kitchens

2011-11-21T15:14:00.003-05:00

Yeshivas Might Soon Have To Employ Additional Mashgiach, For Kitchens

Rafi Yohai is the director of the fraud department of the Rabbanut kashrut division. Yohai does great work keeping track and removal of products, restaurants and companies with fraudulent hechshers.
Yohai announced that after many complaints, the Rabbanut has decided to obligate yeshivot to hire a certified mashgiach to be in the kitchen at all times and guarantee the kashrus of the yeshiva kitchen and food. Yohai says it is incomprehensible that a restaurant that serves 20 tables with only a dairy or a meat kitchen is required to have certification and a mashgiach, while a yeshiva that serves hundreds of people, serving both dairy and meat at different meals on the same day often from the same kitchen do not need a mashgiach.

Often the kitchen staff of a yeshiva might have one person who is overworked, they might have an arab or two who don't know anything about kashrut, maybe they have a couple of the yeshiva students take turns helping out at times or sometimes someone who oversees everything who sticks his head in once in a while. In the meantime, Yohai says, they have received many complaints from yeshiva students and families regarding problems in the kitchens that just are not dealt with.

So, the Rabbanut wants to obligate yeshivas to hire a mashgiach. The yeshivas, already strapped for money, say it is not an issue, the kitchen is under the auspices of the Rosh Yeshiva and he makes sure everything is ok. As well, the rabbanut has enough issues to work on around the country, enough problems to solve, and better they should work on that and leave the yeshivas alone.

(Source: Kikar and Behadrei)

To that Yohai says the rosh yeshivas are not mashgichim and they are busy running the yeshiva. Even if they set policy, they are not actively running the kitchen and they do not have time to, and therefore they do not really know what is going on in the kitchen.

1. Saying there are other problems go deal with them, is not a confidence builder that there are really no problems. Just because it is a yeshiva, with a great rosh yeshiva at the helm, does not mean there are no problems in the kitchen.

2. I personally worked in the kitchens of every yeshiva I learned in. I do not remember anybody ever checking up on us to make sure we were not doing things properly. That is not to say we were mixing meat and milk. Items were kept pretty separate, but still...

3. We also don't have mashgiachs in our home kitchens, and people can make mistakes. Is the yeshiva kitchen more like a home kitchen, serving only to the people in the yeshiva and its guests or is it more similar to a restaurant kitchen which is operating as a business serving anyone who sits down and pays?

4. Can the yeshivas, and the society they are in, teach and inculcate in the students the need for mehadrin standards and insistence on proper supervision while at the same time refusing to implement the same on themselves?

5. Maybe there will be, or maybe there should be, different hashgachot for different yeshivot. Some yeshivot will be fine with the Rabbanut mashgiach and hechsher, while others will prefer to do this under the Rubin hechsher. Hassidic yeshivot might go with a hassidic hechsher, while other yeshivot will only use the Eida hechsher and mashgichim. In Bnei Braq they will only use She'airis hechsher and mashgichim and sfardi yeshivot will use either Machpud or Atara, depending on affiliation.

6. The articles did not specify if these yeshivot are Dati Leumi yeshivot, Haredi yeshivot, or both. I would assume it refers to all yeshivot, no matter what sector they are associated with. That being the case, will yeshivot that teach to only eat mehadrin standards with perhaps mashgiach temidi in restaurants, also be obligated to hire mashgichim at that level, or will basic mashgichim and supervision be enough?

Ex NJ Governor CORZINE can teach you some tricks.

2011-11-16T17:10:00.000-05:00

http://www.infowars.com/gerald-celentes-gold-account-was-emptied-by-mf-global/

Dependable's "SIFTED-FLOUR" does have infestation

2011-11-15T21:43:00.001-05:00

Cole slaw cabbage V bagged shredded cabbage (infestation)

2011-11-15T14:30:00.000-05:00

For their Cole slaw they do a spot check of a few outside leaves of the cabbage-they don't even ~~wash~~ rinse it. Who's going to find the insects in the finished cole slaw with mayonaise, etc.

When they sell shredded cabbage, they also ~~wash~~ rinse it. May one rely on such a system? Ask Hisachdus re: Flaums products.

Corn on the cob-infested? ALL!

2011-11-15T13:14:00.002-05:00

Corn on the cob-infested? ALL!

That's correct, you must remove all of the kernels, rinse & then use.

All of the "corn on the cobs" in the market even with hashgochas can't be used due to infestation.

We are surprised & shocked to find the Golden-Flow brand Corn-on-the-cob with Hishachdus hashgocha.
The thrips hide beneath the kernels.

Lakewood'$ "Kleinman- Campu$" (can it be "ko$herized"?)

2011-11-15T08:54:00.006-05:00

Lakewood's "Kleinman Campus" consists of a former conservative temple, and a former reform temple.

Some talmidim of Reb Ahron Kotler Z"L instructed their talmidim not to use the Bais Medrash located in the former conservative temple's sanctuary.

They were also instructed not to enter at all the building of the former reform temple.

Unbeknown to the "oilum" a hesped for Reb Noson Zvi Finkel, Z"L is scheduled to take place at the former reform temple. We were told that Reb Noson Zvi Finkel, Z"L would not have allowed his talmidim to enter the building.

כסף מטהר וכו'

Dried fruits / fruit mixes

2011-11-14T17:20:00.001-05:00

There are an array of infested dried fruits and dried fruit mixes on the market.
The raisins - black or yellow frm whatever country are infested to some degree that makes the inacceptable, including the ones with a hashgocha.

All dried figs are infested including the ones with hashgochas.

There were recent letters from the Nirbarter, Volover and Hisachdus banning all raisins, yet you can find loads of raisin products at "Klein's Naturals", Oh nuts, etc.

Klein's natural has Hisachdus hashgocha, yet they did not remove the Hashgocha.