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willow

Tue, Jul 30 2013, 11:52 am

http://www.ok.org/PDF/OK_Veggi.....e.pdf
After reading this I feel overwhelmed.
What a shame that easy food is processed and for fresh healthy foods you need so much prep.
As a foodie I love cooking with fresh herbs and experimenting with new ingredients. It is hard to keep
all the rules in this area yet it is so important.

shirtsandskirts

Tue, Jul 30 2013, 2:16 pm

I hear you. It's a really big peeve of mine too. Check out star-k if you go by that hechsher. They are the ones I use and seem more lenient.

chani8

Tue, Jul 30 2013, 3:44 pm

I'm not going to go read that link.

Let's just say that you need to use your common sense.

The rule is that you are not allowed to eat bugs.

It is not halacha how to go about checking for them. Those are suggestions, only.

willow

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 10:38 am

I don't think those are suggestions. If you don't do that you are eating eating bugs

mille

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 10:56 am

Perhaps, according to that specific hechsher. Other kashrut organizations differ in opinion on these things.

yogabird

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 11:03 am

There are kashrus agencies that tell you that you're not eating bugs? Or that you don't have to check anything?

willow

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 11:04 am

mille wrote:

Perhaps, according to that specific hechsher. Other kashrut organizations differ in opinion on these things.

Please send me a link Very Happy

Barbara

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 12:53 pm

yogabird wrote:

There are kashrus agencies that tell you that you're not eating bugs? Or that you don't have to check anything?

There are kashrut agencies and rabbis that don't tell you that you need a light box or fluorescent light (which is rather obvious, since people ate vegetables prior to the mid-20th century).

There are kashrut agencies and rabbis that don't tell you that you need a magnifying glass.

There are kashrut agencies and rabbis that don't hold that caulifower is treyf, or that one cannot eat the heads of broccoli or aparagus.

There are kashrut agencies and rabbis that don't hold that EVERY wild blueberry needs to be cut in half.

For example, here is the Star K guide to checking broccoli

http://star-k.org/cons-vegdetail.php?ID=5

and asparagus

http://star-k.org/cons-vegdetail.php?ID=11

busydev

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 1:09 pm

here is the crc's fruit and vegetable checking guide. http://www.crcweb.org/fruit%20.....e.php

I just looked at broccoli, cauliflower and blueberries (the ones barbara mentioned) and some are the same as the star k and others are a little more strict like the ok.

I think most kashrus agencies will have something like this on their website. check it out.

MaBelleVie

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 1:13 pm

I recommend star k guidelines for anyone who is struggling with this.

causemommysaid

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 1:28 pm

wow they are strict.

we use star k and they dont say to do lots of that stuff.

I am kind of confused as to what jews did years ago. if washing well with water/soap and checking for visible bugs was ok for our ancestors when did things change?

September June

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 1:30 pm

ysmommy wrote:

My grandmother told me that when she grew up, they never ate the leafy part of the romaine lettuce only the stem which they washed well. Broccoli wasn't available. They washed and ate spinach.

5*Mom

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 1:58 pm

The Torah was given to humans with ordinary human powers, not superpowers. You are required to use your ordinary human powers to fulfill the mitzvot. Not an electron microscope.

Do you know how many microscopic organisms there are in the air and on our food? So where do you draw the line?

At bugs that can be seen with the naked eye in good natural lighting.

It's the same premise as a stain on black: it does not appear red to the naked eye and therefore is not considered a stain.

penguin

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 1:58 pm

There are those who say that in Europe you were lucky if you had potatoes, nobody was eating broccoli.

Another theory is that sometime in the last century, there was widespread use of DDT & few bug problems. Since we have become more environmentally aware, pesticides are used less and bugs have triumphed.

But some say that the (less toxic) pesticides used now get rid of the large bugs that the typical non-frum consumer would care about, and leave behind the tiny bugs that we have to care about if they're visible to the naked eye - and that's even if the naked eye can't tell if they're a bug or a speck of dirt.

But according to the latter theory, organic farming allows the big bugs to be around to eat the small ones, so you only would need to wash well & look for large, obvious bugs.

So the bottom line is, like everything around here (socks, lights, etc.) AY OWN LOR.

mille

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 2:14 pm

yogabird wrote:

There are kashrus agencies that tell you that you're not eating bugs? Or that you don't have to check anything?

Did you really think that is what I meant? Barbara covered it pretty well, and the Star-K website shows the other methods of checking. I don't think the O-K is any "better" than the Star-K here, both are legitimate kashrut organizations. I think that the super duper stringent checking of produce or just not eating certain produce is just that -- stringency. I think it's silly to say that a vegetable is treif.

The Star-K gives an example of how to check the tips of asparagus for bugs. It even says that if it can't pass the 3 washes check, it's no good and you have to cut the tips off (or throw it out). The O-K says that you should just cut the tips off without even checking. That's a stringency that's based on the assumption that the asparagus will fail the test. It won't necessarily fail the test 100% of the time, though (and I've never personally had buggy asparagus that had to have the tips cut off, and I eat quite a bit of it!). If someone wants to skip the test and assume it's no good, fine, but there's nothing wrong with eating asparagus that has been properly checked for bugs and found to be fine, according to halacha. I don't think it's fair to say "if you don't do these things [according to the O-K], you're eating bugs."

yogabird

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 2:50 pm

5*Mom wrote:

bugs that can be seen with the naked eye in good natural lighting. not such a simple statement. what if they naked eye can spot a dot, but can't make out if it's a bug or not? ok or not?

what if there's ample lighting, but the vegetable has so many crevices that it's really hard to get into all of them, but if you could, you'd see the bugs clearly?

what if the bugs are buried in the actual flesh of the fruit or vegetable? what if it's inside? what if you have week eyesight?

red sea

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 3:45 pm

I am with the camp of G-d didn't create packaged food, its manmade therefore we probably should eat real food too.

In my experience it is very easy to check without the use of a microscope which btw is not the halacha.
since there is no extras in the Torah I believe "with the naked eye" was said on purpose.

I have checked broccoli - very easy to check. When infested you WILL find the bugs.
And you will not be able to rid all of them.

Actually it is generally what I do for everything, if it is infested - forget it. Its not happening. And most times you can see the infestation at the store before you buy it if you know how to look for signs of infestation.

Sometimes you will find a few large bugs and remove them and that's it.

Best thing is to attend a course of someone who is an expert and believes you CAN eat vegetables.

Learn about nature of bugs in plant life and to identify bugs that you find in vegetables easily.

The stalks of broccoli are easy to use w/o issue.

Btw, to the poster above - today we use more pesticides and very toxic to the nervous and other systems- (one popular one is called Roundup) in mass quantities. The bug free and hot house grown ones have at least 3x the amount on the produce.

Willow, fresh herb gardens are small and not too complicated to grow in your house in pots I think. I have a basil plant because after May/June lately all the basil gets majorly infested with tiny inchworms here and can't use it.

bamamama

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 3:53 pm

red sea wrote:

Well said, Red Sea. AFAIK, Round Up is a herbicide, not a pesticide.

Northern Europe is not the only place Jewish communities flourished. There were most certainly vegetables all around the Mediterranean where Jews lived and I would bet my lunch that they ate vegetables after checking them with the naked eye as best they could.

I check reasonably and then I enjoy my vegetables.

chocolate chips

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 5:13 pm

I hold by checking everthing as best as I can, washing it well and using it.
Like everyone says if there are bugs you will see it. If that is the case (happened once in my 3 years of cooking in my own kitchen) I just throw the whole thing out.

Romaine lettuce, parsley, spring onions etc I check all. Some things which may be harder to check such as spinach leaves and broccoli I soak in salt/soap water and then rinse really well. Any bugs usually float to the top and again, never really had that.

If I buy frozen veg it is usually out of laziness than out of being scared to check b/c in case you never heard, there have been bugs found in the bodek stuff too.

red sea

Wed, Jul 31 2013, 5:50 pm

I've actually never got a clean run on broccoli any time I tried, I just end up with the stalks. Any idea which weather might get less buggy in broccoli? Broccolini (sp?) though is much easier.

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