Why would a non-dairy product have a D (for Dairy) kosher certification? Can it be eaten with meat?

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By: Rabbi David Polsky

Among the many questions that come to us at the OU Kosher Hotline and Webbe Rebbe e-mail service, one of the most frequently asked is, “(favorite product) bears an OU-D, but there does not seem to be any dairy ingredients in it. Is it really pareve?” To make a long story short, it depends on the product.

In many cases, the product may actually contain dairy ingredients. The most common example is that of “non-dairy” creamers. While most of the ingredients are pareve (non-dairy), they almost always contain sodium casseinate. While to many of us the name might sound as if it’s a type of salt, it is really derived from milk, making it a dairy ingredient.

Sometimes, a dairy ingredient could be listed among dairy ingredients without being itemized. For example, butter flavors are sometimes listed together with other flavors under the name “natural flavors.”

However, in most other cases, there are no dairy ingredients in the products in question. Does that mean that they are really pareve? Not exactly. The D for dairy designation means that the product has been processed on equipment upon which dairy products were produced. According to Ashkenazi Jewish practice, if pareve food is heated up in a utensil in which dairy was previously cooked, the food cannot be eaten together with meat. On the other hand, if one has already eaten meat, one can eat such a product without having to wait the customary six hours. Jews of Sefardi descent are permitted to mix such items with meat.

If the rules of food produced on dairy equipment are different than actual dairy products, why does the OU not have a dairy equipment symbol then? First, as we have seen in the previous paragraph, the rules regarding dairy equipment are somewhat complex. Therefore to avoid confusion, we thought it more prudent to just leave everything marked as “dairy.”

Second, and more significantly, we have found that many companies do not completely clean off their machinery after running dairy products on them. We do not feel it is proper to take responsibility for clean ups at which we are not present. Therefore, we felt it is safer to leave dairy equipment products marked with a dairy designation, so that we do not take responsibility for any possible traces of dairy left from the machinery.

However, there is another risk to keep in mind: Companies ask us all the time to re-formulate their ingredients. This means that even if a product does not contain any dairy ingredients today, it does not mean that that stay the same tomorrow.

That being said, for those of you out there who would like to enquire whether a particular product marked as dairy really contains dairy ingredients, please feel free to contact us. The e-mail address to our Webbe Rebbe service is , and the phone number to our Kosher Hotline is 1-212-613-8241.

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