Do I Really Need to Toss My Ketchup for Pesach?

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashras presented by the Kash Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Yakov Tikman, Rabbina Coordinator at OK Kosher and a member of the Ako Post Pesak committee. Is that the right uh description? Okay. So today I'd like to discuss you a a very specific topic and that is the topic of Gummer. We very often hear before Pesak after Pesak people who say I sell but I don't sell Gummer. What is considered Gummer? And as a as a related question, when people do get rid of products before Pes as far as what items do they have to get rid of and what items may they mistakenly believe to be when it's really not. Okay. So everyone knows is only from the five grains. Five grains means wheat, barley, oats, spelt and rye. If you have buckwheat kasha that's not you have rice it's not millet none of these things are has to be kept in mind what is actually only from the five grains not getting involved in of what is included in wheat and then you can go to the matzah bakeries and find out iron corn non iron corn that's that will leave undeible let's assume these five grains and whatever their subsidiary is exactly what's including these five grains obviously if you have the five grains and they're made into bread cookie, cereal, spaghetti, all those things are 100% g in America you have a lot of products or anywhere you have a lot of products and there are a lot of ingredients in in you look at the ingredient panel and you usually get crossed after two lines usually about five six seven eight lines most people can't even read them or understand what the ingredients are so how much of these are gummer so there's we have to keep in mind where are you located if you're located in America a lot a lot of the vinegar vinegar that's coming most 99% of vinegar in America is not coming hummutz derived it's coming from corn if it's corn derived so corn is kius you don't have to sell you don't have to sell kius you can keep it you don't have to sell it somebody's maybe there's a little bit of gummer in there fine so you could sell let's say you have uh uh certain type of uh mustard and in there it says barley extract but it's the I I don't even know barley actually exists in mustard but let's just say but and it's the secondass ingredient it's a taru roy of this for sure is going to be kous or innocuous pes there's no reason why somebody shouldn't be able to sell it no reason you have you know in Costco closet you may have many many closed bottles of ketchup mustard mayonnaise we say ketchup mayonnaise even vinegar even plain vinegar which you're saying is predominantly not made from grain, right? And not from five from the five grains from the five is also grain. So, so not from the five grains and you could assume that in America that's where it's made from. Uh and therefore there's no reason not to sell it. You you probably don't even have to sell it. You're not sure. So you could sell it. A lot of people sell ki. They want to be 100% sure. But gummer it definitely isn't. Um and you have to look at everything everything that you get. How much what's the percentage of it that's and what's the percentage of it that's not you're gonna have a roy of kidney there's a big that you don't that's that's not considered gummer if you have let's say um it's a lot of schnaps as long as 51% corn even though the other 49% might be from wheat or from rye or whatever it is so it's not and you could sell it I I think this is an important conversation you know and people welling cleaning people very often before Pesak they'll go to their fridge for sure especially if it's open they don't want to leave it over Pesak that I understand but they'll often go to their garage or their closet wherever they store things and they have closed bottles of ketchup mustard mayonnaise so on and so forth condiments and they see vinegar in the ingredient panel and right away they panic and say oh you know we have to get rid of it and they they throw it out and really as you're saying it's not necessary at worst at worst you include it as part of at best it's not at all it might be kitus you know in which case you could just leave it maybe cover it up so that people don't mistakenly use it uh on pes but I think this is a very instructive conversation for people to know so that they could be aware of so let's say you have something like oat oatmeal right so quick oats like people they have oatmeal and they want to use it in their baking or whatever it is so how are oats made obviously they grow from the ground but how are they processed So they they use water to to cut them and to par boil them and whatever it is. Those are gonna be common gum. That's gum. So even if you get you know usually you see beans are dry beans you assume that nothing happened to it. Oats even though it's dry and it's coming in a can it touch water already. Touch water. It's hard to water in a serious way and therefore it's going to be hard. So oatmeal is KTS obviously like you said bread products pretzels all the all bonafide we'll call them bonafide products. uh another common topic which may be a whole separate discussion but I'll mention it here about people who don't sell government is schnaps because schnaps is something that that that even people don't feel comfortable selling but they do sell schnaps why is that so there one or two reasons either they want to sell because they don't want to be when it's a heftid maruba unless it's maruba and for schnaps they consider he maruba more of an expensive item expensive item how you know they might have got as as a present expensive bottle and they don't want to spill it out or they don't have a neighbor to give it to. That's one reason. Another reason is that some some there are some at home that if it's only that it's not considered. It doesn't mean that you can go and eat or drink it on PES. That's not what we're talking about. What I don't know is including the Gabin of selling it um over Pes. Very good. Thank you, Rabbi T. [Music]