Hi,

I was on this mailing list several years ago.  At that time I wrote a
FAQ explaining what pareve meant and how to find pareve foods when shopping.
Recently Michael Lizzi has pointed out to me that I overstated the degree
of protection a pareve hechsher provides -- a food certified as pareve
may contain tiny amounts of cross-contamination with dairy products.
I emailed the Orthodox Union, the people who put the OU hechsher on items
and they confirmed that a pareve item may be produced on equipment that
has been used for dairy if it is "thoroughly cleaned" in between.  This
satisfies the Jewish kashrut laws, but may not be sufficient for someone
with a very serious, very sensitive allergy.  I will be changing the FAQ
shortly to reflect this, but I did want to give a heads-up here.

--Robyn Kozierok