New York – Coca-Cola may be missing from Passover feasts for the second year in a row in California.
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The Coca-Cola Co. said Thursday it once again won’t be able to make “kosher for Passover” versions of its flagship cola this year because of manufacturing changes that were made in the state.
A spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based company said in an email that Coca-Cola has made “good progress” in developing kosher for Passover drinks in the state but that it’s still monitoring the shelf stability of those products for quality assurance.
She said they should be available next year.
Coke directed its suppliers last year to change the way they manufacture caramel to reduce levels of the chemical 4-methylimidazole, or 4-MEI, after California listed it as a carcinogen. Regular Coca-Cola is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup in the United States, but the Passover version is made with sugar.
Coca-Cola might not have produced the product in California but you can still purchase the Kosher for Passover soda at Western Kosher at both of their stores. On Pico and on Fairfax.
Let them drink seltzer!
Im chassidish myself, so I personally would not rely on this heter, because of minhag, but accorded to Rav Moshe, ztl, regular coke is kosher for passover, because he held that the gezeirah was only on actual kitniyos and not deritives from kitniyos – also it is not so clear that corn (maize) is even kitniyos. I have seen a chashuver rosh yeshivah, a talmid muvhak of Rav Moshe, actually one of the few rabbonim with dayanus smichah from Rav Moshe, who relies upon this and allows the talmidim in his yeshivah to drink regular coke on pesach. If someone consumes chalav stam, then it is certainly ok for someone who relies on that heter, which is a shaalah of an issur d’rabbanan, could rely on this heter, which is a question of minhag. Also, it goes without saying that acheinu haSefardim may drink regular coke. It has been ensured thay no chametz it in it. However, even goyim look forward to Pesach coke, because it is closer to the original formula, with regular sugar instead of corn syrup.
LaBrea Kosher Market and I’m sure all the kosher markets not just Western Kosher
carry it. They bring it from NY
You can totally get kosher for Pesach coke in LA. You could last year as well- they just bring it in from another state 🙂
Sefardim just need to buy usual Coke before Pessach starts.
Poor Californians I could only imagine how their seder table will look w/o coke. sniff sniff
I see a huge business opportunity here. Buy a ton of the stuff and fly it to California.
Make your own. There are plenty of cola recipes out there on the web. The ingredients are fairly simple, mostly essential oils, sugar and water.
now they even question canola and cottonseed oil. and yet regulat bags of sugar after all these years of needing a hechsher are now ok. without. a kosher for passover label. same bag same glue.
Is the tern chalav stam …mean .milk without any hechsher whatsoever.or milk that has for example ou , kosher but is not chalav yisroel.? just an aside if one eats ou meat why not drink ou milk??
and secondly there is no mention of diet coke? whats the story?
it canada we have become very frum.. Coke is labelled kosher for sephardim.
different colour than regular kosher for pesach.
Isnt life grand?
Don’t be so quick to compare corn syrup with peanut oil. Peanut (and, for that matter, corn) oil are made by extracting or pressing the oil out of the substance–mei kitnyos. But corn syrup is made from corn starch–part of the solid material of the corn, not a liquid extraction. The only thing you can say about corn syrup is that the starch is subjected to a series of chemcial reactions–a kitniyos derivative.
The Faygo company isn’t marketing a Pesachdig flavored seltzer this year, as they have in years past, because according to our local Vaad, they haven’t been able to get CO2 that isn’t the byproduct of fermentation. So maybe the Pesach hechsher covers the carbonation too. 🙂
Where does it end?
I’ve been thinking of starting a rumor that someone has paskened that buying anything that was handled by a non-Jew during Pesach constitutes getting benefit from the chametz he or she has eaten and is therefore assur. I wonder how many people would find that credible.
Corn itself in Europe was not eaten. Ask your great grandparents-Corn was only animal feed. My great-grandfather A”H refused to eat corn, because “what am I, a donkey?”