Today’s fun email:
It has come to my attention that a product known as milkys(a chocolate yogurt/pudding with whipped cream on top) has recently been OU certified and has appeared in the US(the product is from Israel). In Israel, the milkys that are under rabanut hashkacha contain geletin to my knowledge. The milkys that I have seen in the US also list geletin as an ingredient. I had called my local vaad about this and they said they would remove the product from the local stores that they give hashkacha to. However, I have seen this product with the same ingredient list elsewhere as well. I was wondering if this was brought to anyone's attention or if the geletin is merely kosher fish geletin(the ingredients do not indicate this).
well... first question to me is why didn't the Vaad contact the OU to ask? to remove product from shelves means the shopkeepers have to recall it, customers have to return it, and the importers are going to get a bunch of angry phone calls, not to mention the OU for certifying this "non-Kosher" product.
second question is why in the world he thinks we would say what kind of Kosher gelatin is used in our products!? any product that says "kosher gelatin" on it actually is not up to the standards of the OU, such as the Dannon yogurts bearing the K.
i hate that people don't know this. that a VAAD doesn't know this.
i also hate that people write long rambling emails without using puncuation or the space bar.
1. 'A visitor' posted on the Tue 15 Feb 2005, 11:04 pm
ReplyDeletemilky has been a pet peeve of mine for years. i once saw them here in NY and told the (israeli) store owner that it's real geneivas daas b/c americans don't know that they don't eat gelatin, and many assume everything from israel is kosher. i do not recall seeing the OU on it though. anyway, last winter strauss introduced mehadrin milky, which is rather cool despite being a bit runnier than the original for obvious reasons. and i'm sure everyone knows that in chutz laaretz gelatin is a bigger problem b/c it comes from pigs. in israel it comes from cows. i wouldn't eat it, but yesh harbe al mi lismoch (i can't believe i said that).
oh, and aren't elyon marshmallows under the OU? they contain fish gelatin. i didn't think the OU had any problem with that.
random observation- the OU is mehadrin without being chalav yisrael. israelis don't get this. i brought a bunch of milky ways to israel and my friend said her family doesn't eat chalav aku"m but trusts anything under the OU. go figure...
tali