Faqs

Q. Some of the canned baby food I see in the store has a hechsher, and other varieties from the same company do not. The one I was looking at had just peas and water which seemed to pose no kashrus issue. May I buy it?


A. We would not recommend it.

After the baby food is put into the jar, the entire jar is put into a machine called a "retort", where the jar and contents are cooked at high temperatures to prevent the food from spoiling. Those same retorts are usually also used to cook non-kosher varieties of baby food, such as those with beef or chicken. The hashgacha on the label assures you that the specific jar was produced on kosher machinery - either because the company has special machines for kosher, or because they kasher the retort before they produce that variety of baby food, but if there is no hechsher, then the jar may have been cooked when the machinery was non-kosher. Accordingly, we recommend that you should only purchase jars of baby food that have hashgacha, even if the ingredients seem innocuous.