>Hi everyone,
>        I'm getting more and more confused!  I called Heryshey's because
>of their chocolate syrup.  All the ingredients are clearly labeled except
>it has that D on the bottle.  I didn't even notice the D until someone
>from the list mentioned it.  The Hershey's rep explained that it did not
>contain any dairy, but it was run on the same machine as a product that
>contained dairy.  All I know is my son is very allergic to dairy.  Any
>dairy.  He has not had a reaction from that!

Your confusion is over the meaning of the D. Let's see if I can clarify it
further. The D could mean either of the following:

- the food has one or more dairy ingredients or dairy-derived ingredients
- the food has been made using equipment that has had dairy ingredients in
it sometime in the past.

If the machinery has recently been used for dairy, then there is a higher
chance of contamination. But if they're on their umpteenth batch, there may
be no appreciable dairy contamination imparted to the food being processed.

Therefore the presence of a D is not entirely definitive, nor does it mean
that your son will definitely react to the food.

The laws of Kashrut are interpreted as a strict dietary code, with a strong
emphasis on separation of milk products from meat products, based on the
Old Testament's decree in Exodus 23:19 "...Thou shalt not seethe a kid in
his mother's milk." To be on the safe side, people keeping strictly kosher
consider

- anything with the remotest possibility of having come in contact with
milk to be "michig"  (containing milk, but no meat)
- anything with the remotest possibility of having come in contact with
meat to be "fleshig" (containing meat, but no milk)
- any forbidden animal (e.g., pork, shellfish, etc.) or forbidden food to
be "tref" (unclean and inedible) - this includes mixtures of milk and meat,
such as pepperoni pizza and cheeseburgers
- anything that is niether michig, fleshig, or tref, to be pareve.



It's hit or miss with "OU-D". Many foods that are labeled with a D are ok
for Josh (my 11-year-old hair-trigger allergic) and for me.

For us, it's sometimes worth the risk. Since the potential for
contamination is small and since the total amount of the contaminant is so
small, any reactions that we have are also small. We tend to avoid the
D-lableled items when any of the following are true:

- there's a safe, pareve alternative available
- we've had a recent reaction
- we don't have our rescue meds around
- we're far from emergency medical treatment
- we're sick or our asthma is flaring
- it just isn't worth the risk

Mark Feblowitz                  GTE Laboratories Incorporated
[log in to unmask]              40 Sylvan Road, Waltham, MA 02154-1120