>Is a product pareve if it has eggs?  I thought that pareve meant no
>dairy or other animal protein.  One of my sons has trouble with egg
>white as well as casein, so I thought mayo was really off limits.

Simply stated, "pareve" means that it contains neither milk-derived nor
meat-derived products (nor has the product been prepared on equipment that
has been used for the preparation of either milk or meat*).

This is important if you keep kosher, because you're supposed to keep milk
and meat products separate. A food that is pareve can be eaten either with
a milk product or a meat product and not break the laws of kashrut.

Eggs are neither milk nor meat, so they are considered pareve, too (I believe).

* Under the laws of kashrut, dairy equipment can be cleaned in a way that
purifies it for use with pareve foods. This is one of the gray areas in the
laws, since "clean enough to be pareve" is not necessarily the same as
"does not contain a molecule of dairy."  For virtually all of us, pareve is
good enough. But there is a very remote possibility that  minute particles
can remain in the cleaned equipment and be dislodged in some production run.

All of that said, "pareve" labeling is perhaps the most reliable indication
that we have that the process is being monitored and that certain rules are
being followed to guarantee the separation of dairy from non-dairy. I sure
would love it if there were some other certification that was an absolute
guarantee.


____________
Mark Feblowitz