>
> Can anyone explain why some foods have the OU and some say parve or pareve next
> to it? Am am I correct in believing they are both dairy free?

In general there are 2 parts to a Kosher symbol, the part identifying the
certifying agency, and the part saying whether the product is dairy,
meat or parve.  The tricky part is that sometimes this second part is
left off, when it should be "obvious" which category the item falls into.

So the OU means that the Union of Orthodox Rabbis is certifying the
product as Kosher.  That alone does not mean dairy-free.  The food has
to fall into the parve or meat categories to be dairy-free.  But OU
usually does not specify parve explicitly.  Usually it specifies Dairy
or Meat explicitly with a D or MEAT next to the OU, and an OU.  There
are exceptions though.  For example Ice Cream or fresh poultry will
carry the OU without a modifier; I guess they figure we can figure
those categories out ;-)  And something like non-dairy creamer would
always say parve explicitly if it is, since creamers, even the
"non-dairy" ones are usually dairy.  So the long answer is that if it
has an OU on it with no modifiers, and it's not something obvioulsy and
inherently dairy, then it's parve, and should be completely safe for
milk-allergic people.

There are 2 important things to note:  1) P means Kosher for Passover,
not Parve.  The item may still be dairy, meat or parve and you will
have to use the above strategy to determine which is the case

2) Parve alone on a package without the symbol from a reliable Kosher
certification agency should not be trusted.  That just means Athat
someone at the company that produces the package is *claiming* that
the item is parve, without necessarily understanding what that means.
A plain K is not a reliable Kosher indicator -- anyone may put that on
their package if they want; it is not regulated as the trademarked
symbols are.

I have also written a FAQ on Parve labelling, which can be found in this
list's archive.


--Robyn