Wednesday, July 13, 2016

DATES may be from Eretz Yisroel and from Shmitah.

Dates usually have a one year date on them. Check the source (if from Eretz Israel). check
the date, as it may be from Shmitah

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Chodosh season begins early

CHODOSH BULLETIN-12 JUL 16

Those who want to purchase Yoshon items to store over the Chodosh season should do so now, as soon as possible.


The progress of the 3 crops, spring wheat, oats and barley is ahead of normal. According to the latest weekly bulletin from the US Department of Agriculture, the harvest of the Chodosh oats has just barely started. The spring wheat and barley harvest may start within 1 week. 

Our tentative recommended cutoff dates for packaged foods is Jul 20 for oats and July 27 for wheat and barley products (not malt, which is much later). These are packaging dates. It should take several weeks beyond that for the Chodosh packages to reach the local groceries. However, freshly baked goods in bakeries, such as bread, challah, bagels may be Chodosh (tentative) starting Jul 27 in the mid West and Aug 3 elsewhere in the US.

Even though pesach was late on the solar calendar this year, still almost all of the 3 crops of interest were planted after pesach and are Chodosh. The early harvest this year is due to weather conditions in the growing areas.




The next revised update on this topic is due BE”H one week from now.

The "solution" to the lack of trained mashgichim for infestation

A properly trained Mashgiach is required to have good eyesight ($20 bill test), patience, serious, yiras-shu'mayim", etc. Of course he is to be compensated more that a regular mashgiach.

In each area there is to trained qualified infestation mashgichim that will go around to the various establishments "just checking their leafy vegetables & herbs", as coordinated by the Kosher certifier.

The regular in-house mashgiach will be trained just for leaf miners and pearled barley, etc.

In an area that has currently 50-75 plus mashgichim for food service, 5-10 trained mashgichim for infestation should be trained.

BTW- In Eretz Yisroel they have roaming mashgichim for "nikur", Terumos-maasrois, infestation, etc.