OU Kosher Staff

Encyclopedia of Jewish Food: Matzah, Rugelach And A Whole Lot More

Communities can be defined by their food. American food — reflecting a penchant for accessibility, convenience, versatility, and portability -— reveals much about who we are and how we got here. Waves of various immigrants brought new dishes and ways of thinking about food to the repertoire. Beginning in the 1880s, two obscure German dishes, […]

Kosher Travel 101: Kosher Summer & Travel Videos

Dont Look at the KARMA Cap – Look at What’s in it!

KARMA Wellness Water is a relatively new kosher line of products certified by the OU. These nutritional beverages come in several flavors. The driving force behind Karma is the fact that water-soluble vitamins lose their potency while sitting in water or when they are exposed to moisture. Additionally, those vitamins suffer degradation when they are […]

MDS Trip to the OU

Attending a Yeshiva in Manhattan certainly has its pluses. This Wednesday, our 8B class took a fascinating trip to the center of the Kashrut world, the OU. There we learned all that it takes to make sure that what we are eating is kosher. It is really astonishing how many ingredients and sub-ingredients there are […]

New to the OU: Maruyama Tea Corporation: Tasty Cups of Tradition and Health

It’s HOT Outside! Check Out the OU SLURPEE & COCA COLA FREESTYLE Lists – Updated for Summer 2017

Kosher Thailand?

Eating Dairy on Shavuos

The Rama on Orach Chaim 494:3 quotes a widespread minhag to eat dairy foods on Shavuos. The Mishnah Berurah (ibid. s.k.12) proffers the famous explanation for this custom: Bnei Yisroel, upon receiving the Torah on Shavuos, were unable to eat meat right after the Torah was given. There was no time to prepare and check […]

Are All Fromages Created Equal? Waiting Between Cheese and Meat

“You mean that I have to wait SIX HOURS after I eat cheese before I can eat meat??” Well, often yes. The Remo (Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 89:2) states that the minhag is to wait after eating hard cheese before partaking of meat, just as one waits after meat before dairy; this minhag has become accepted practice for Ashkenazim. (See Chochmas Adam 40:13.)

Keeping Product Labels ‘Kosher’