Why do Vegetables need to be Checked for Bugs by a Mashgiach?

For the last couple weeks I’ve been acting mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at Eden Village Camp. The camp serves mostly vegetarian organic food. A vegetarian kitchen has fewer complications when it comes to kosher supervision. However because Eden Village is using only organically grown produce and, well, this makes for lots of bug checking.  Eden Village also uses far more green leafy vegetables than almost any summer camp.

The Torah forbids eating an insect or any part of one. This prohibition of eating sheratzim includes a multitude of insects: from ones that crawl to ones that fly, to ones that both crawl and fly, etc. Thus, from a kosher perspective, a salad filled with bugs could be worse than eating a piece of pork.

Well what about the whole idea of ‘batel b’shishim?’  This is a kosher concept that says that if something non-kosher gets mixed into with something kosher as long as there remains 60 parts more of the kosher stuff, it is okay to eat. However there is the rule of a ‘bari,’ which means that a complete entity never becomes nullified. A complete bug floating in a bowl of soup or on a piece of lettuce must be removed. If the bug were mashed up than it could be okay, however a Jew may not deliberately mash the bugs up.  Therefore, many products that contain mashed up bugs are still kosher.

For Example, the FDA permits the following insect counts in spices. These spices with the ground up bugs and maggots could still be kosher. Yummy!

• Ground Oregano: Less than 1,250 insect fragments per 10 grams
• Ground Paprika: Less  than 11 rodent hairs per 25 grams
• Ground Cinnamon: Less than 400 insect fragments per 50 grams
• Ground Pepper: Less than 2 rodent hairs per 50 grams

And for spinach:

• Less than 50 aphids, thrips, and/or mites per 100 grams
• Less than 12 mm of combined length of caterpillar

In frozen broccoli the FDA will allow up to 60 aphids, thrips or mites per 100 grams of the vegetable….sounds good!

Well it’s only a few more weeks of bug checking for me. I took the job because it is the pre-camp season at Eden Village Camp. When the summer arrives there will be 200 people here and I’d not want to be checking vegetables for bugs nonstop.

You can find the above info on the FDA site. Makes for happy reading. Enjoy!

http://www.fda.gov/food/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinformation/guidancedocuments/sanitation/ucm056174.htm#intro