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what is the raid about gelatin capsules?
and what is the halacha of treifah medicine swallowed in acapsule? does the capsule render it shelo k’derech achilah and mutar for choleh or not?
If you have a chance go to a Jewish pharmacy and they can transfer the medicine to Lasher capsules. Or speak to your LOR about it because it’s really different for every case.
I meant to say to kosher capsules (typing on a cell).
Ask your rabbi. If you don’t have one, get one.
Thank you yitayningwut. One post, and you’ve effectively answered 50% of the threads in here!
2qwerty – and apparently not on a qwerty keyboard…
Yes – yitayningwut – has answered many of the threads with an excellent piece of advice. If people would avoid bashing individuals and groups, and if they would direct questions that should be asked to a rav or medical professional to the proper person a great deal of Internet chatter would disappear.
Actually it’s a qwerty layout but im using new version of swype and it has text predict option.
Luckily it remembers mistakes and learns from it.
However the poskim disagree if…
Which is why you should have a rabbi, or become one.
Logician –
Thanks, that’s the plan.
Okay, in that case it’s mutar.
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=1525&st=&pgnum=295
(Look at the second teshuva on the page.)
Thanks, Menachem. I concur with your assessment.
Normally one should just ask one’s posek.
The interesting question has to deal with medicines that are of questionable utility or are designed to take the place of foods (vitamins). The heterim to take treff substances for medicinal purposes certainly wouldn’t apply to a placebo, or perhaps not to a medicine that might not be really all that useful. Guaifenesin, the leading ingredient in non-prescription cough medicines, hasn’t done all that well in studies, and red syrups have to be watched closely (since insect bits are sometimes used as coloring). Tylenol (acetominophen) doesn’t really cure anything, so would there be a heter to take a treff version. Similarly, an antibiotic taken for a virus is worthless. Is there ever a heter to take a vitamin without a hecksher? And if there is a hecksher, does that make it food in terms of brachas and being able to not to have to worry about shailohs an Shabbos.
akuperma -I try to make sure my vitamins are kosher. Even things like Non-kosher Tylenol -shouldn’t be a problem, if No kosher ones are available to you right now, because medicine doesn’t have to be only used to cure -if it makes you feel better it’s also medicine; and swallowing capsules is not Derech Acheila!
(Not Paskening, just giving my opinion.)
Just a realistic question: virtually all medicines are way smaller than a “keza-is’ (or a revi-is) which makes any ingestion of such medicine (even real treif) ‘chatzi shiur’ . So, why shouldn’t we be maikel,especially as it is as a refuoh and the person has no “hano-oh’ (pleasure) swalllowing them?
marbehshalom -“one d should be machmir like the nodeh beyehudah”
Besides you, who said you should be Machmir like him?
And even if this is what the P.T. means you didn’t read the last part -“Shvus Yaakov was asked -why are people Noiheg to eat & drink blood -by a Choileh Shein Bo Sakanah where something is giving him pain?” He gives two answers. I’ll just repeat the first -“Since the blood is so dried – it’s like wood -it’s Mutter.” A capsule is definitely just as dry. (Blood that is sun-dried just congeals.)
Also it’s not so Pashut that gelatin is even Ossur -it seems to be a Chumra from R. Moshe zt’l that e/o took on. I see absolutely no reason to be Machmir here because it’s a Chumra on a Chumra! But I definitely get a kick out of watching all these Machmirim try to swallow capsules in a tissue or opening them up and getting the powder all over the place.
I once asked this shailah. I was told that if it’s a pill for when you’re healthy, it’s better to avoid it.
If you’re sick and the pill comes in different forms (regular pill, capsule, chewable, etc.) you should get the one that isn’t treif. If it only comes in one form, there is definitely no problem, and it would be assur to avoid the medicine because of kashrus.
marbehshalom –
First, they don’t have any flavor – essentially what Health was saying. The point of being dry is that there shouldn’t be any flavor.
Second, even if they do have flavor, once they have become nifsal mei’achilah through the chemical process they cannot become assur again because they are panim chadashos, even if they now produce a good flavor, as R’ Chaim Ozer writes.
Third, even if the above metzius is not applicable, which is not likely; in a case which the non-kosher part is less than rov and the pill does not have a good flavor – not that it has a repulsive flavor (read: it is not better than a piece of kugel that needs salt) – then it’s fine anyway.
marbehshalom -“health— you may be right about some capsules but i am not sure if gelcaps are dried like wood”
That’s not what I said -I’ll quote- “-“Since the blood is so dried – it’s like wood -it’s Mutter.” A capsule is definitely just as dry. (Blood that is sun-dried just congeals.)”
The point I was making was that the blood is only congealed and yet they consider it like wood. A capsule is even more dry.
Besides, where did you get the idea that a non-kosher thing has to be repulsive for it to be mutar to consume, even if it’s b’ein? It simply has to taste bad enough that most normal people would not want to eat it, and then it is ???? ???? ???.
marbehshalom -“health- 1.the reason i say to bemachmir like the nodeh beyudah is beacause it is a shaloh of di’oraysa which we go after the machmir, besides the nodeh beyehuda is from the gedolei haposkim”
Listen to me -just because one Achron says Mutter and another says Assur doesn’t make it a Sofek D’oraysa and you have to be Machmir. Who told you this? This makes no sense.
Hello99 -what do you say?
Secondly, I didn’t get from the P.T. that he was bringing down the N.B. because he held like him. If Halacha L’maasseh we held like the N.B. the Achronim would say so. They didn’t mince words.
And anyway it’s Mutter because it would be a Sfek Sfeka, like I posted above. Is gelatin Ossur to eat? And even if it is, is swallowing Derech Acheila or not?
Health: Why are you asking me, you consider me a compulsive Machmir? 😉
Honestly, my opinion is that while it is praiseworthy to be Machmir when feasible, on a true medicine it is permitted. I am not lenient on dietary supplements unless they are treating a deficiency or other condition where there therapeutic benefit is documented and not just speculation.
hello99 -“Health: Why are you asking me, you consider me a compulsive Machmir?”
I do, but most Poskim are. (:0
I’m actually surprised at your answer.
But to tell you the truth I wasn’t asking you on medicine. My question was on this – “Listen to me -just because one Achron says Mutter and another says Assur doesn’t make it a Sofek D’oraysa and you have to be Machmir.”
You know how Psak works -does a Machlokes Achronim make it into a Safek D’oraysa?
marbehshalom- “but what does one do when they are taking a large pill like lovaza? The kosher capsules are simply not large enough.”
Question: Do you scratch your left ear with you right hand?
Why does anybody need to take Lovasa? They make kosher fish oil. I searched online and Maxi-health has a few different ones.
i think you all are maskim that it would be praise worthy to put your treifa meds into a veg. capsule
Not me.
yitay: well, everyone who only eats Kosher food 😉
Health: “I’m actually surprised at your answer”
Which part of it?
“You know how Psak works -does a Machlokes Achronim make it into a Safek D’oraysa?”
It depends if there is a resolution to the Machlokes or not. Reb Moshe writes in Dibros Moshe on Shabbos that if one knows there is a Machlokes and is unqualified to Pasken personally and does not ask a Rav, he must follow Safek d’Oraisa l’Hachmir.
hello99 – heh heh
hello99 -“Which part of it?”
This part:
“on a true medicine it is permitted.”
marbehshalom -“health – i need only lovaza for my condition.”
Look I know how to prescribe medications, but I’m not saying whether I’m a doctor or not. I looked it up – Lovaza is 1 gm of fish oil per capsule. The avg. dose is 4 gm per day. This equals to 4 capsules a day.
From the Maxi-health web page:
“Q: Why is Maxi Omega 3 2000, the fish oil supplement of choice?
1.) Contains 2000 mg of fish oil, the highest concentration of its kind in a kosher, vegetarian capsule”
If you switch to Maxi-health you’d only have to take 2 capsules per day.
Tell your PCP to get off his/her high horse. Tell them you aren’t going to take Non-kosher pills. Esp. when Maxi-health makes something almost the exact same. I know why these guys insist on Lovaza, but I’m not going to go into it here. Try the Maxi-health and then do blood work -your PCP might be surprised and it might work better than Lovaza or at least the same.
marbehshalom -“health – i need only lovaza for my condition.”
Look I know how to prescribe medications, but I’m not saying whether I’m a doctor or not. I looked it up – Lovaza is 1 gm of fish oil per capsule. The avg. dose is 4 gm per day. This equals to 4 capsules a day.
From the Maxi-health web page:
“Q: Why is Maxi Omega 3 2000, the fish oil supplement of choice?
1.) Contains 2000 mg of fish oil, the highest concentration of its kind in a kosher, vegetarian capsule”
If you switch to Maxi-health you’d only have to take 2 capsules per day.
Tell your PCP to get off his/her high horse. Tell them you aren’t going to take Non-kosher pills. Esp. when Maxi-health makes something almost the exact same. I know why these guys insist on Lovaza, but I’m not going to go into it here. Try the Maxi-health and then do blood work -your PCP might be surprised and it might work better than Lovaza or at least the same.
Mods -Please delete one -It’s only supposed to be one post.
marbehshalom: sorry for the delay. It’s Siman 10 Anaf 2, Amud 127
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