OUD foods..I miss them!

1ofbillions

Tue, May 19 2020, 6:45 pm

I’m not a Torah scholar in any way but I firmly believe that the definition of a chumrah is an extra stringency, not mandated by Halacha, which makes you feel closer to God. So if keeping this chumrah makes you resent God or Judaism, it is not a chumrah and you should not be doing it.

I heard this from Rabbi Kaganoff of Passaic. He did not say this in reference to OUD - it was about a different chumrah. But if not eating OUD is a chumrah, I think we can assume he was referring to this as well.

amother

Blue

Tue, May 19 2020, 6:57 pm

amother [ Lemon ] wrote:

R’ Moshe Feinstein gave a kulah in the US to eat OUD for places where it is hard to get cholov yisroel.
This is why it becomes a debate, because even though nowadays there is cholov yisroel very easily available, people still rely on this kulah.

Cholov yisroel isn't very easily available everywhere. I either have to drive hours to find it or have it shipped.

zohar

Tue, May 19 2020, 7:35 pm

Cholov Yisroel is NOT a chumra. Even the most pro cholov stam Rav will tell you this. The basic halacha is Cholov Yisrael. A Jew must watch the animal being milked to assure it comes from a kosher animal. R' Moshe, ztz"l allowed a Kullah to allow to rely on the U.S. government's supervision/oversight to assure the milk is from a kosher animal. Firstly, not everyone paskens like R' Moshe. Secondly, there is some about of disagreement about when R' Moshe allowed for this Kullah. Some say it's a blanket Kullah. Some say it is only if cholov Yisroel isn't available in the area. Some say they he himself was makpid on cholov Yisroel. Some say otherwise. Some say that he highly discouraged yishivos from relying on this leniency. Whatever the case is, someone who is makpid on cholov Yisroel, isn't being machmir. He is following basic halacha. (That isnt too say someone who follows their Rav who allows for cholov stam is doing anything wrong chas v'shalom.) My father was anti chumra himself, but would get annoyed when people would claim that strictly keeping cholov Yisroel or checking for bugs were chumros.
Also, someone mentioned that Cholov Stam is more accepted in the US. That is because R' Moshe specifically only gave the Kullah to rely on the US government and not others. Not all government oversight is equal.

cookiecutter

Tue, May 19 2020, 7:40 pm

I researched this a long time ago and my recollection is something like the following. I think this serves to explain why people can't agree on the nature of the minhag as chumra or kulah. The gemara says you can't use milk that was milked unsupervised by a non-Jew. The simple explanation is because you can't be sure the milk is from a kosher animal. However, there are other explanations that attribute it not only to a lack of clarity about the source, but also to "kedusha vetahara" types of rationales. Nowadays in the US, the possibility that milk comes from a non kosher animal is non-existent. Commercial dairy farms don't even have non-kosher animals, and wouldn't be able to milk them if they did, because cows are milked using specific machinery and systems, and the milk feeds directly into a closed system, which goes on sealed trucks to processing plants. Even if it were possible to use other animals, there would be no point in it - the old suspicions arose when pig or camel milk was more plentiful and thus cheaper, and may have lasted longer. But it would be nonsensical for someone to try that today. So the only rationale left is the kedusha rationale. Obviously, if that's your philosophy, government regulation and lack of available milk live doesn't make unsupervised milk more kadosh.

simcha2

Tue, May 19 2020, 8:48 pm

rmbg wrote:

No it is not a chumra. It is the Halacha. Those who eat Cholov Stam are choosing to follow a heter.

I say this as someone who holds by OU-d. Yes, chalav yisrael is the base halacha.

However, Rov Moshe's psak isn't a kula or a heter. It was a chidush. Previously milk fell into one of two categories, chalav yisrael or chalav akum. With his psak there was a new category, chalav stam.

amother

Olive

Tue, May 19 2020, 9:32 pm

I grew up eating Chalav Stam, I did a lot of research on it before deciding on my own to keep Chalav Yisrael. What I found out was similar to what zohar wrote. Chalav Stam is B'dieved. As far as I know R' Moshe never ate Chalav Stam. I do believe it's true that his family does eat Chalav Stam. Personally I have found that it was very good for me to keep Chalav Yisrael. Otherwise I would be eating Haagen Dasz and enteman's all day!!!! (sorry don't know how to spell it).
Unfortunately there is plenty of good junk that's Chalav Yisrael too.
I get you OP, I miss those donuts also!!!! (But better that I don't eat them).

amother

Pewter

Tue, May 19 2020, 10:01 pm

amother [ Mistyrose ] wrote:

My Rav, who is in Kashrus, explained to me items like entenmanns made with milk powder are not chalav stam. Powdered milk is of a different halachic status.

The issue of yoshon is a more significant concern than cholov yisrael in the US.

I know a rabbi from a very frum family that they eat food that have milk powder because it’s not the sand is milk from a reason that idk. So you can’t eat your cookies. I gave you a pesak 😂

giselle

Tue, May 19 2020, 11:05 pm

zohar wrote:

Yes Chalav Yisrael is halacha. But according to R’ Moshe, Chalav Stam (or Chalav Hacompanies as he called it) falls under the halacha of Chalav Yisrael. Now perhaps there are rabanim who don’t agree with that. Ok. But there are many who do. So to say that the OU would give a hechsher on something that is actually not kosher is a bit much for me. But I shouldn’t be surprised after the things I’ve heard on imamother.

Hillery

Tue, May 19 2020, 11:24 pm

Thank you Zohar for clarifying.

Chalav Yisroel is straightforward halacha. Rav Moishe held that unsupervised milk subject to government oversight is almost as good as chalav Yisroel, though the term chalav stam is a post-Rav Moishe invention, probably to make it more palatable. I say almost as good, because Rav Moishe wrote that people who are careful and medakdek should be machmir, and he himself never drank unsupervised milk.

Almost all of Rav Moishe's contemporaries rejected this psak, and according to them even milk subject to government oversight is the same chalav akum as any other unsupervised milk.

The OU chooses to go by RM's psak, and their hechsher on OUD items comes with the caveat that only the other ingredients are guaranteed by them to be kosher, but the milk is guaranteed by Uncle Sam.

Neither someone who says OUD is kosher, nor someone who claims it's chalav akum, can be said to be wrong. According to RM it's kosher (with reservations), and according to most of his contemporaries it's not.

thriver

Tue, May 19 2020, 11:39 pm

I grew up eating chalav Stam and my husband’s family is not frum, but when we got married we decided that we would like to only eat chalav yisroel. Interestingly, although neither my husband nor myself have eaten chalav Stam in the last almost thirteen years(!) my husband recommends that we don’t state that we are makpid on only eating chalav yisroel, just that we try to eat only chalav yisroel.

My father is European and as one of the above posters mentioned, chalav Stam does not exist outside of America. When my father came to America and married my American mother, he asked a Shaila (I have no idea to whom) and was told that he can use chalav Stam for dairy products, but should always have chalav yisroel milk. 🤷🏻‍♀️ we also always had only chalav yisroel products over pesach. I never even knew until this year that there exists OU-D Pesach products.

Anyway, OP, ask YOUR rav who knows you and your husband as well as your circumstances. You will get an exponential amount of advise from Imamother, and as lovely and brilliant as we all are 😉, we are not qualified to direct you.

Whatever happens, eat well and enjoy! 😉

zohar

Wed, May 20 2020, 12:15 am

giselle wrote:

Where, in my entire post, have I insinuated that chalav Stam isn't kosher chas v'shalom? If anything I clarified the opposite. I used the word Kullah for a reason. Not Heter. Because a Heter is usually something that is usually asur, but an exception is being made in a specific situation for whatever reason. A Kullah is not the same. A Kullah is relying on more lenient opinion than the base line. All kashrus agencies rely on kulos. Some more than others. Things, that for whatever reason are not normally accepted in a residential kitchen, the rabbanim have allowed in commercial situations.

giselle

Wed, May 20 2020, 12:28 am

zohar wrote:

Not you. I was referring to the posters who said that.