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Editor’s Note. These are some ideas from one poster. Not everyone agrees with the following information. Please check labels for yourself and ask your own Rabbi.
Now that Purim is behind us, the major task of making hachonas l’ Pesach is upon us.
We read many times “Ha Torah chasah al mamonan shel yisrael,” a principle sometimes overlooked in kashrus, chinuch, etc.
To help the olam with this, I wanted to post on things that don’t require any special Pesach hashgacha, based on the policies and handbooks of the major kashrus organizations
1) Raw, unprocessed meat, fish, eggs, and poultry- This is KLP year round. It is suggested to buy this all far before the chag, in advance, as much as possible, to avoid price-gouging.
2) All raw, unprocessed fruits and vegetables. Bottled water. Unflavored seltzer.
3) The OU guide lists all its brands of frozen Orange Juice concentrate as being acceptable for Pesach year-round. Using these would be a great way to avoid the costly Pesach OJ; we can deal with the inferior quality for a week.
4) The OU guide lists all its brands of extra virgin olive oil, more or less. Make sure yours is on the list, and purchase ahead of time to avoid price gouging.
5) Paper utensils, foil, plastic wrap, wax paper, etc. require no hashgacha for Pesach.
6) Hershey Cocoa Powder year round is acceptable for Passover.
7) Salt and sugar. OU also says RealLime and RealLemon are fine.
8) For Ashkenazim who accept the shita of R’ Yitzhak Elhanan Spektor that kitniyot derivatives are acceptable- Joyva brand candies are far cheaper than many of the heimishe brands.
9) Butter doesn’t need special hashgacha, but Breakstone’s does not change in price (even if you keep CY, many hold that butter isn’t included under the gezera).
Cheeses like Miller’s and HaOlam are usually KFP year round, so it would be good to buy this ahead, as well. Same goes for AB Gefilte Fish, and anything else that is KFP all year round.
10) Kosher Organic maple syrup unopened before Pesah can be used.
11) Some say canned pineapple in its own juice (not syrup) is acceptable without special hashgaha (or any hashgaha, for that matter).
12) All regular ground coffee is ok (hence, the Maxwell House haggadah). Lipton tea is ok, as well.
13) Plain, raw nuts, with no BHA, no roasting, no additives, no coloring, all natural and unadulterated are ok.
14) Pure honey with no additives is ok (Although, Key Food brand if KFP and dirt cheap).
15) Pure safflower oil is ok
16) Plain flax seed and unflavored metamucil are fine, as well.
17) For Sepharadim only: Our options are far greater than our Ashkenaz brothers.
R’ Joshua Maroof says that the following cereals are ok if purchased ahead of the chag (And only the specific kinds listed): Reese’s Puffs, Cocoa Puffs, Nature’s Path Whole Grain Brown Crispy Rice, Nature’s Path Honey’D Corn Flakes ONLY. The other flavor of Nature’s Path Corn Flakes is not kosher.
Gluten Free rice krispies, Trix, Honey Rice Barbara’s Puffins, Berry Berry, plain, and Honey Kix,Corn, Cinammon, Rice and Honey Nut ONLY Chex, and Cocoa Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles.
R’ Boroosan of the OU and the Persian Shul in Atlanta lists the following: Any year-round kosher plain Apple Sauce, Splenda, Sweet and Low, 100% pure fruit and vegetable year round kosher baby food, Isomil, Similac, Enfamil, CVS Baby Formula
Feta cheese and cream cheese that are year round kosher are ok on Pesah.
For Sepharadim, any canned fruit in its own juice or corn syrup is ok (theoretically, if an Ashkenaz held like R’ YE Spektor, he could also use corn syrup).
OU McCormick Garlic Powder and Onion Powder. He says that all spices that are 100% pure and do not contain any other additives and are not blended with any other ingredients are ok.
100% pure without additives Dried Fruit (the OU says their raisins are good for everyone without KFP hechsher)
All kinds of OU Smucker jams and jellies and preserves
Domino Brown Sugar
Vegetable Oil (includes Cottonseed oil, Canola oil, Soybean oil, Peanut oil) – Any brand with reliable all year round kosher certification
Tomato, Diced or Crushed – Any brand with reliable kosher approval for all year round
Tomato, Whole Canned – Any brand with reliable kosher approval for all year round
Tomato Juice – Publix brand when bearing OU
Tomato Paste – Any brand with reliable kosher approval for all year round including Hunt’s, Heinz
Tomato Sauce – Any brand with reliable kosher approval for all year round including Hunt’s & Heinz
Tuna – Only Starkist brand in Vegetable Oil or Olive Oil not in water
Any 100% pure fresh or frozen fruit juice
Kosher ketchup is fine for Sephardim
Trader Joe’s Almond Milk
Any mayonnaise, mustard, peanut butter, pickles with a hechsher
Plain, unflavored Cape Cod Kettle Cooked chips, Lay’s – Unsalted, Wavy Potato Chips, Original, Frito Lay – only Original, Deli Style & Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Original
* Frito Lay – Ruffles- Original, Reduced fat
Natural, non-enriched rice (must be checked for foreign elements 3 times ahead of chag, but rice is dirt cheap)
Full-calorie (not diet) sodas: Coca Cola Classic, Caffeine FreeCoca Cola Classic, Fanta Orange, Gold Peak Lemon Iced Tea, Gold Peak Southern Style Iced Tea, Mello Yello, Minute Maid Fruit punch, Minute Maid Grape, Minute Maid lemonade, Minute Made Orange, Nestea Citrus Green tea, Nestea Cool Lemon, Nestea Green Tea Peach (NB: Peach Coca Cola is the best, and I stock up on it anyways, as sugar is tastier than corn syrup, and a lot better for us, anyways).
Great idea for a thread!
Many of the heimishe canned products and spices are kosher l’pesach year round so I buy them whenever they go on sale. Even if they aren’t on sale it’s definitely easier to spread out the shopping.
If you watch the sales at the grocery chains you can usually get Kedem grape juice at decent prices. They put it on sale purim-pesach time.
Please note that regular A&B gefilte fish is marked chametz.
Thanks for the misinformation.
Thank you for attempting to help everyone out! A few points:
You mentioned A&B gefilte fish. I don’t believe it is KFP all year round. It has matza meal in it, which is not always KFP. It also contains canola oil, which is kitniyot, so Ashkenazim can’t have it.
You also mentioned R’ Maroof. I’ve never met him or spoken to him, but he is somewhat controversial because of his affiliation with Sarah Hurwitz. Posting his opinions about Pesach products here might not be the best idea.
Ultimately, I found that my biggest expense for Pesach is the matzah. It is more expensive (at least price per pound) than any other product I buy.
PLEASE NOTE!!!
The following applies to both Sephardim & Ashkenazim –
A & B Gefilte Fish is absolutely NOT Kosher for Pesach all year round. It contains actual chametz (Not kitniyos).
A & B does sell specially marked gefilte fish for Pesach.
RebD listed A&B in a paragraph after 9). Perhaps that one item can be edited out of his post. At which point you can remove this post too.
I see more and more people only eating the Hand Made Shumrah for the entire 8 days. That stuff is at least $10 a Lbs
you only need to eat Shumrah for the Sedar, its a chumra otherwise, but even if you want to eat Shumra the entire pesach, there is machine shumra which at least 1/2 the price and it can be used for the Seder too.
I see more and more people only eating the Hand Made Shumrah for the entire 8 days. That stuff is at least $10 a Lbs
It tastes better.
RebDoniel: As much as I empathize with your ap[proach and your post, and am familiar with many of the products you bring up, and as much as I am not a chumra shopper, when it comes to Pesach, I think that it must be remembered that the reason there is so much “over the top” stricture is that the issur is on a kol shehu, and larger amounts or possibilities only affect the onesh, not the issur. So in observing one of the first mitzvos given to am Yisroel, many people will justifiably put themselves as far as possible from transgression.
I am skeptical of R’ Maroof’s allowing the use of cereals, for example. Are these on their own product line, and to what standard are the processing machinery cleaned? What is used to clean and lubricate them? What might fall under botel b’shishim for kashrus purposes doesn’t cut it for Pesach.
This is one example.
Though there are many things in your post that are good ideas, I would revisit some of the others as insufficiently certain for most of the readers here.
Of course it tastes better, but when there are 8 kids including some big hungry teenagers and 2 adults, thats alot of Matza. People spend over $1000 on Matza along. Cutting those costs in half can mean alot to alot of people.
Mayonnaise and ketchup most certainly aren’t kosher l’Pesach without Pesach hashgacha. They both contain vinegar, which most likely is made from grain.
There’s a lot of adulteration of honey, particularly if it’s imported (some “honey” from Turkey has been found to be 0% actual honey).
Since a lot of the items listed (e.g., extra virgin olive oil, coffee) are available at regular supermarkets, it’s unlikely that there would be price gouging. In fact, there’s so much competition in the kosher stores in the greater NY area that in many cases prices are lower than normal before Pesach.
An important way to save money on Pesach foods is to avoid highly processed prepared foods, especially those that try to mimic chometz foods. Things like cold cereals, pasta, and frozen pizza are way overpriced and don’t even taste good.
mods – can you please remove this misinformation post. If the best the OP can do is quote some Rabbi who would not be accepted by anyone in the “Yeshiva World”, then it doesn’t belong here.
This Rabbi was one of the rabbis involved with “ordaining” “Rabba” Sara Hurwitz. Enough said.
Are you sure about sour pickles? I think many of them contain vinegar.
“I see more and more people only eating the Hand Made Shumrah for the entire 8 days. That stuff is at least $10 a Lbs”
$10 a pound? Please sign me up! Last year I paid $24.00/lb.
Where can I get handmade shmurah for $10or even $15 a pound?
Salt,and sugar may be problematic. Almost all American sugar is good and has Pesach hasgocha year round, but imported in questionable. Table salt has additives.
Raw packaged chicken and meat is Pesachdick year round, but meat and chicken from a butcher may be handled with chometz at the shop.
The best way to save money and avoid problems to to keep processed foods to a minumum for the 8 day.
Why is this disinformation, this poisoned mixture of truth and falsehood, allowed to be posted here and possibly to mislead some readers? Everyone should follow their minhag and if there is any doubt, ask *their* rabbi. As for attempting to save a few dollars, I wonder if we all believe that our basic income was decided on Rosh Hashana and sealed on Yom Kippur, and does not include expenses for Shabbat or Yom Tov.
PS Since when iodized salt is KLP? Who said so? If you eat kitniyot or at least kitniyot derivatives, awesome, but not everyone does.
Someone mentioned here that Canola oil is not permitted for Ashkenazim.
I disagree, it is permitted for Ashkenazim.
Ignoring food for a second, if you are traveling somewhere with your family and you have five people, you could take a minivan (the extra seats could be used to store stuff) and drive there instead of taking a plane. By the time the trip is over, you might be spending the equivalent to two round trip tickets or less in gas if you were traveling from New York to Florida.
Yaakov Doe, if I am not mistaken, there is no cane sugar grown in mainland US. Beet sugar maybe
<more people using Hand made Shmura for 8 dayss>
Unfortunately, the linkage of hand made Shmura and absence of chometz is not a priori. Machine shmura is often toasted to perfection, tasty, way cheaper, and more often chometz free.
Old man, if you are in the US, where olive oil is fairly cheap in large quantity, why would you use canola which is likely a GMO product, and omega-6s are implicated in degenerative diseases, bar minan.
Rebdoniel
It is impressive how you know every kula that exists in halacha and use it!
The Shulchan Aruch if I am not mistaken says to make yourself a rabbi (as opposed to picking leniencies from here and there) and I don’t recall it saying imposing anyone’s opinions, even legitimate opinions, upon others. Much less does it suggest R”L to despise those who hold different than your hypotetical rabbi (aka Rabbi Google) and mock them as “frummer than”.
I checked with OU. They don’t consider regular US salt pesahdig, because the iodization process involves corn, they don’t advise it and certainly don’t certify it. They told me it’s really kitniyot and not chometz gamur, but obviously, Askhenazim don’t eat kitniyot and most include corn among kitniyot. Pure sea salt is obviously acceptable for Pesach, but in the US is mainly available as the coarser “kosher salt”, of course one can buy finely ground sea salt (non-iodized), but one has to be aware of the issue and to look for non-iodized salt.
Some sorts of sugar may also have corn starch or traces of it.
If you eat corn, enjoy. But many people don’t, and don’t eat corn derivatives. If you think you are qualified to pasken for yourself, it is none of my business, but please don’t try to be “helpful” with leniencies which are not necessarily acceptable. Our rabbis are perfectly capable of telling us leniencies and they don’t enjoy making us miserable for Passover, as you seem to insinuate. Shops also are there to make a living as well as to offer us products that lighten our workload and that allow us to enjoy a variety of foods. If you think that checking quinoa – for those who eat it – is easy and fun, it is obvious you do not know how to check it properly, it is obvious you are assuming that you only have to check for wheat kernels, please ask your Sefaradi grandmother to check for you a handful of quinoa, and watch her. Besides, your comments on price-gouging do not deserve a reply.
It is also interesting you rely on the OU when you find it convenient, but then you appear to be following Sefaradi minhag, and as I am sure you know, Sefaradim can not rely on the OU, as there are OU certified products which are not acceptable for Sefaradim. Please check with your Sefaradi posek and/or with OU themselves.
Quinoa doesnt taste very good, I was excited when I found out it was ok for ME to eat (I am not poskening here, My Rabbi Permitted it, but I know plenty who dont permit it)
daniela, Just a question, are you aware that peanuts and peanut products were kosher for Pesach and widely available, and indeed R’ Moshe says that peanuts are NOT kitniyos. I wonder why people “didn’t ask a rav” and decided that peanuts are kitniyos.
While keeping minhag is fine, Pesach also has a “competitive” (for lack of a better word) part to it. There is a thing called Chumra creep and it might not be the best thing in the world. We’ve seen it over the past 50 years with tefillin and kashrus and maybe people want to stop it from getting too much.
As far as the commercial brands R’ Gavriel Cohen says to use- they all use synthetic vinegar, non-grain.
First you said “Kosher ketchup is fine for Sephardim” and “Any mayonnaise, mustard, peanut butter, pickles with a hechsher” but this is R’ Cohen’s actual statement from 2011:
I haven’t seen his statement on which brands are kosher this year but I doubt that he made a blanket statement.
There is so much misinformation, I think the opening post should be struckthrough and the thread closed.
There is so much misinformation, I think the opening post should be struckthrough and the thread closed.
- The topic ‘Pesach Done Affordably’ is closed to new replies.