20 January 2003

Speaking of Kosher gatorade I did get a couple suggestions from Orthodox (or formerly Orthodox) Jewish friends of Bessie (a short one from Avi H. and longer one from Ezra) (incidentally i think that would make a good acronym OJFoB, kind of like the LFHCfS which came up during mystery hunt). Both of them suggested that perhaps grapes might be used in the flavoring somewhere, this is bad because these grapes might have been offered as sacrifices to a heather idol (which is, for good reasons, not Kosher and which is still considered an issue despite what google says). Gatorade explicitly does not use fruit juice, but it is very plausible that grape extracts of some sort or grape skin extracts of some sort are used in their natural flavors. Another possibility is that some of the flavors are made from insects. Lastly, but not leastly, it is quite possible that Gatorade is produced somewhere that makes other things which are non-Kosher and some sort of cross contamination occurs.

I find these things rather fascinating because when I followed strict rules they were all a lot less fun and complicated and never involved the possibility of heathen sacrifice. (The only rule i know involving heathen sacrifices is that its perfectly ok to eat meat sacrificed to idols if you do so in faith, but if your doing so would cause your brother of weeker faith to stumble then you should refrain from this freedom, see Paul's letter to the Romans in the end of chapter 14.) So I'm attracted to these sorts of interesting rules mostly cause I'm jealous.

Anyway I'm going to include Ezra's answer so as not to be taking it compltely out of context:
"On the Kashrut issue: Gatorade is non-kosher because no one certifies it
AS kosher. One should avoid drinking it (if keeping kosher) because they
may be using grape products in some or all of their synthesized flavors.

Grapes are a huge kashrut problem, because grapes that have been touched
by non-jews (when not supervised) become immediately non-kosher unless
subsequently (or previously) boiled. Why is this? Because in the ancient
days grapes and wine were often devoted specifically to idolatrous
worship, and any Jew dealing with such a product might become and
inadvertant accessory to idolatry.

It was presumed that no boiled products would be used for idolatry, hence
the exemption for them. Some people hold that all wines manufactured in
California go through a process that brings them to the halakhik boiling
temprature. They therefore regard all such wines as kosher, regardless of
rabbinic supervision."

Ezra also suggests this link.

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