Is Quinoa kitniyos?

Brownies

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 12:31 pm

etky wrote:

OK, so now the quinoa issue is solved. What about cumin? It's so annoying that we can't get cumin here in Israel that is KLP for non-kitniyot eaters too. Once upon a time it was available, but not for at least a dozen years or so. I use a ton of cumin in my cooking and I really miss it over Pesach.

I thought cumin itself was kitniyot?
(Don't ask me why it should be; as a Sefardi married to an Ashkenazi I find the whole idea intensely irritating. BH Pesach is only one week long!)

On another note, if quinoa has been determined as not kitniyot, why should peanuts be kitniyot?

ra_mom

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 12:38 pm

Brownies wrote:

The ou changed their psak on cumin a few years ago and now categorize it as non kitniyos. It is available in the US under ou-p certification. Available under the Prima brand.

Star-k does not certify cumin as non kitniyos

Last edited by ra_mom on Wed, Mar 25 2015, 12:41 pm; edited 1 time in total

Brownies

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 12:40 pm

ra_mom wrote:

The ou changed their psak on cumin a few years ago and now categorize it as non kitniyos. It is available in the US under ou-p certification. Available under the Prima brand.

Ah I live in England...still kitniyos here lol. (See that's one of the things that I find irritating as if we lived in the US we probably would go by the OU!)

etky

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 12:43 pm

Brownies wrote:

Cumin is not kitniyot according to some opinions. It falls into the "kimmel" group which is problematic to check so certification is an issue. I'm pretty sure the OU does not consider cumin kitniyot.
Peanuts used to be OK for Ashkenazim but decades ago (I think back in the sixties) already it was decided to move them into the kitniyot category. I don't remember why.

water_bear88

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 12:43 pm

Brownies wrote:

On another note, if quinoa has been determined as not kitniyot, why should peanuts be kitniyot?

Peanuts are legumes, closely related botanically to lentils and beans which have always been kitniyot. Seems kitniyot status is part mesorah and part botany.

Brownies

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 12:50 pm

etky wrote:

So, theoretically speaking - if I can get someone to bring me some of that OU-P cumin from the States, can I use it even though in Israel it is considered Kitniyot?
Hmmm...

So out of interest, couldn't you just use the one you can buy in Israel if you hold it's not kitniyot? If it has some sort of KLP hechsher that you would trust, even if it says it's only for kitniyot eaters you could trust there's no actual chamets in it no? Or is the concern that there could be another type of kitniyot (that you do find problematic) mixed in?

water_bear88

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 12:53 pm

Brownies wrote:

But even if it were, kitniyot are batel b'shishim. If it's a pure spice it should be fine so long as it has good Sephardi KLP certification, no?

etky

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 1:59 pm

Brownies wrote:

I don't know. I guess I could ask. OTOH, there is the issue of other people who may consider it kitniyot eating in my home (which is why I don't cook with canola oil) and also, there is somewhat of a chashash chametz with cumin which is why some sephardim don't use it on Pesach either so I'd feel funny about it.
This was the exact situation with quinoa last year BTW. The hechshers for quinoa said l'ochley kitniyot and even those who do not consider it kitniyot were being advised (I heard it directly from a friend who is a mashgichat kashrut) not to purchase what was available on the market because of the growing conditions last year that gave rise to chashash chametz. This is the reason that the OU was not certifying quinoa. So I kind of feel like if the OU is this year certifying both quinoa and cumin -both of which have a chashash chametz - when they didn't in the past (because of the chashash and not because of the kitniyot issue!)- - then they are taking the issue seriously and I would feel confident purchasing davka their product that they are now certifying. Not sure if this really makes sense but it is how I feel about it....

ra_mom

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 3:18 pm

etky wrote:

The ou actually changed their psak on quinoa last year and their psak on cumin a few years ago.

Sanguine

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 3:51 pm

etky wrote:

So, theoretically speaking - if I can get someone to bring me some of that OU-P cumin from the States, can I use it even though in Israel it is considered Kitniyot?
Hmmm...

You could eat it if you want to follow the Hechshers from Chu"l and all their other laws and minhagim (you can't pick and choose). Do you think the cumin is worth you keeping two sederim? LOL

(I was joking).

But... There are things that say leOchlei Kitniyot that my Ashkenazim Rabbis say are OK. One was Quinoa before it was approved as non-kitniyot (do the packages here in Israel say it's OK now?). The other thing is Canola oil. So why not ask your rabbi about the cumin

etky

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 4:25 pm

ra_mom wrote:

The ou actually changed their psak on quinoa last year and their psak on cumin a few years ago.

Could very well be. I might be thinking of Pesach 2013 and not 2014. At my age the years kind of run into each other Confused

But the principle is the same - they seem to have done their research well and reversed their stance on both quinoa and cumin only after ascertaining that there is no significant chashash of chametz - which seems to have been much more of a problem than the kitniyot aspect of the issue. So I would feel comfortable eating these particular products under their supervision davka. I'm not saying Israeli hechshers aren't good - they just offer much less information to the public than the OU does regarding the inner workings of the hechsher process conducted under their auspices.
And I grew up trusting the OU....

etky

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 4:32 pm

Sanguine wrote:

You could eat it if you want to follow the Hechshers from Chu"l and all their other laws and minhagim (you can't pick and choose). Do you think the cumin is worth you keeping two sederim? LOL

I might. Still won't solve the issue of guests though. I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable or to serve something they wouldn't eat if they knew it was in the dish.
About the quinoa this year - I have no idea if the quinoa packages say lelo chasash kitniyot now b/c we don't eat it.
We're also a non-quinoa loving family unfortunately....
If I did make it though I wouldn't be afraid to serve it to guests b/c whoever doesn't eat it will just not take. It's not like oil or a spice that is an unseen ingredient that people wouldn't be aware of.

yaelinIN

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 9:32 pm

etky wrote:

If you are Jerusalem, I can share some of my OU KLP cumin.

seeker

Wed, Mar 25 2015, 9:53 pm

Brownies wrote:

Many hold that peanuts are not kitniyot. I believe this was the psak of Rav Moshe Feinstein but don't hold me to that because I tend to mix up names.

etky

Thu, Mar 26 2015, 2:11 am

seeker wrote:

Many hold that peanuts are not kitniyot. I believe this was the psak of Rav Moshe Feinstein but don't hold me to that because I tend to mix up names.

Yup, back in the 'old days' (circa mid-20th century) peanut oil was the oil that everyone in the US used for Pesach. Except that then a question arose about peanuts and the zealously stringent opinion that opposed peanuts b/c you can make flour out of them (these people would have ruled out potatoes too if they had been around back then...) and the fact that they are grown in proximity to grains, won out even over such a luminary as R' Moshe Feinstein who unreservedly sanctioned them.

seeker

Thu, Mar 26 2015, 2:13 am

etky wrote:

Many more moderates are still with R' Moshe on this. Nobody said everyone has to follow the zealously stringent. If potatoes had been around back when? Late-20th century I assure you people were already consuming potato flour on Pesach.

etky

Thu, Mar 26 2015, 2:21 am

seeker wrote:

I meant when potatoes were first introduced into Europe from the New World, during the early modern era. I believe in fact that there was some sort of halachic debate about them being considered kitniyot or not. As far as peanuts go, I think the ban on them has by now (half a century later) become pretty much entrenched in the Ashkenazi world, in which case it would be really going against the mainstream to use them.

nylon

Thu, Mar 26 2015, 11:58 am

It was Rav Moshe who said that peanuts were permissible, and until the '90s peanut oil had a KLP hechsher.

There is another opinion about mesorah that is the mirror image: instead of having a mesorah of what is not kitniyot, our mesorah specifies what is. Unless we have a tradition that something is kitniyot then it is okay. By that argument, since quinoa was unknown at the time the tradition arose, it is ok.

I don't think it's arguable that there has been "creep" over what is considered kitniyot today...