However, many items marked K-D have no dairy in them. When they are processed by machines which have at one time processed something with dairy in them, they must be marked K-D even though they have no dairy. The best bet is to read the label. Sherry >Parve or Pareve is a kosher indicator. Jews who keep kosher do not consume >meat and milk in the same meal (and there are waiting times in between). >Kosher products must thus indicate whether or not they contain any milk >products, or meat products, or neither, in which case they may be eaten with >anything. The parve products are the ones containing neither milk nor meat. >The kashrut definition of milk is a stringent one, which includes everything >a milk-allergic person needs to avoid. > >Kosher products are labelled with a number of different symbols, indicating >who supervised the determinitation of kashrut. One of the most reliable is >O-U, which is a U in a circle. Unfortunately they don't always specify >pareve explicitly, unless you might expect the product to contain milk or >meat products. Usually they will specify dairy with a small D beside the >symbol, or meat with the word MEAT, unless it's obvious (i.e. cheese or >chicken soup are not explicitly labled Dairy or MEAT). So usually a plain >O-U on a product means it's pareve. Of course kosher meat products are also >100% dairy-free (i.e. some of the Near East rice mixes). Occaisionally >you will see a Dairy mark on something where you don't recognize any dairy >ingredients -- this occurs when the item is made on a line used for other >dairy-containing products, or too close to a line used for other dairy >products. > >For this reason kosher cookbooks can be a good source of dairy-free recipes, >especially desserts (to be served after a meat meal). > >Some kosher marks are not considered reliable. In particluar a plain K >is not a supervised mark. Others vary regionally. > >Hope this helps more than it adds to the confusion, >--Robyn >