15 August 2005 (Monday)
oops
It has come to the COR's attention that an unauthorized COR 386 has been put on the following products:* Trader Joe's Chick Peas
* Trader Joe's Black Beans
* Trader Joe's Red Kidney BeansThese products are not kosher supervised.
This alert came out on August 8, 2005, and was brought to our attention today. On August 1, 2005, I made a pot of chili using a can of Trader Joe's Red Kidney Beans. A question is out to R' G as to the status of the can opener, crockpot, spoon, and ladle involved in the cooking process. The bowls and spoons we ate with have long since been cycled through the dishwasher and mixed up with our other dairy stuff, and apparently now we can just assume they're all okay. Ah, what a crazy religion.
But if you'd like to write or call TJ's and complain about the mislabeling - by all means, go ahead.
Update(Tuesday afternoon, 16 August): I've heard back from R' G. As Mr. Elf suggested in the comments, the amount of any possible non-kosher ingredients would be so small in proportion to everything else as to be halachicly nullified. Which, in case you couldn't tell from my original post and follow-up comments, was pretty mich what I suspected all along. But, as I stated (also in the comments), we try to be extra careful about kashrut in our home, so as to maximize the number of people who feel comfortable sharing our meals.
Were the beans dried? If so, check this out: http://www.kosherquest.org/index.asp?theaction=nocert
Rabbi Eidlitz (who also has the improper TJ hashgacha noted at the entrance to his site) says that dried beans do not require hashgacha.
Good luck--I hope R"G says the utensils, etc. are fine.
No, they were canned (and therefore cooked). I mentioned that fact in passing, but I suppose it's unclear from the COR alert.
I wouldn't be too worried.
I don't think the can opener would be an issue at all. You didn't cook the can before using the can opener and you cleaned it after you used it, right?
I would highly doubt that any of these products, even though they were not supervised, actually contained a halachically significant portion of actual non-kosher ingredients in them anyway. All the more so after their accidental addition into a larger pot.
Elf-Man - You are probably correct, and I'm not too worried about this. However, kashrut in our home is one of those areas where we tend to be more careful than necessary (rather than purely logical). It's nice, when you invite new people into your home for a meal, to be able to point to the shul's rabbi and say, "When it comes to food-related stuff, we follow what he says."
I'll give TJ a call. I love them, would like them to fly right.
Glad your kitchen stuff is OK.
