The OU (Orthodox Union) Stands up against Obama

[Lisa]

CJD, I don't think you were misled.  From what I've always understood, the OU logo means food is kosher by Orthodox standards.  The K logo means kosher by Conservative standards.  As for the difference, one time, my sister bought this fruit flavored yogurt with a "K" logo, which also contained gelatin.  So she called the company and asked why the yogurt was given the K logo being that it contained gelatin.  The people she spoke with gave her some cockamamie explanation of how the gelatin was so processed that it didn't really matter, or something to that effect. 

[muman613]

I have heard that OU is of higher Kosher standard than K... But it depends on who you ask...

[muman613]

CJD, I don't think you were misled.  From what I've always understood, the OU logo means food is kosher by Orthodox standards.  The K logo means kosher by Conservative standards.  As for the difference, one time, my sister bought this fruit flavored yogurt with a "K" logo, which also contained gelatin.  So she called the company and asked why the yogurt was given the K logo being that it contained gelatin.  The people she spoke with gave her some cockamamie explanation of how the gelatin was so processed that it didn't really matter, or something to that effect. 

Lisa,

This may be relevant to what you were talking about:

http://www.yeshiva.org.il/ask/printAsk.aspx/ENG/2628

Topic: When is a "by-product" no longer a "by-product"?
Shalom! I saw a recent news item that a company has developed a machine to turn the waste parts left from animal slaughter into "food-grade" proteins, flavorings, colorings, etc. I know that this is the very thing the kashering organizations are to guard against, but I was disturbed to hear that some rabbinic opinions hold that this "waste" undergoes such an amount of processing that it becomes parve. Do the major organizations (i.e. OU, Circle K, Triangle K, Star-K in the US) hold this opinion or does the material remain trafe?

Rabbi Elchanan Lewis
   
Answer:
I don't know exactly what you are talking about but it sounds very much like the Gelatin case.

Gelatin is made of non kosher animals' bones etc. and yet can be Kosher.
Derivatives of animals which are uneatable under specific circumstances can be kosher as it is not classified as meat from a non-kosher animal.

There are endless Responses over this issue and more than one opinion can be found.

The Kashrut authorities follow the different Halachic authorities and will treat Gelatin and similar by products accordingly.
(Rambam Maachalot Asurot 4, 18; Rema YD 87, 10; Har Tzvi YD 83; Minchat Yitzchak 5, 5; Tzitz Eliezer 4 introduction, and many more)

[The One and Only Mo]

I have heard that OU is of higher Kosher standard than K... But it depends on who you ask...

K is BAD hashgacha! It's conservative or something. OK is good (it's a K inside of an O, like how OU has the U inside and O). Triangle K is also iffy from what I heard.

[muman613]

K is BAD hashgacha! It's conservative or something. OK is good (it's a K inside of an O, like how OU has the U inside and O). Triangle K is also iffy from what I heard.

Yes, I know about triangle K... I think that is what Hebrew National Hot-Dogs has...

http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=71361

Hebrew National, a major purveyor of kosher products, last year replaced its in-house supervision with the independent Triangle K kashrut organization.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Yes, I know about triangle K... I think that is what Hebrew National Hot-Dogs has...

http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=71361

Yeah but Rav Abadi (former posek of Lakewood!) on his site kashrut.org says that it's kosher, it's just that some may want to keep to higher stringencies if they are completely observant and punctilious about everything else.  But m'ikkar ha din (the essence of the law is the translation I guess), the hebrew national hotdogs are kosher if a person eats them, and if they are not holding at a high level in everything else, it's the least of their worries.  That was the basic overview of the response on his site to queries about that.

(BTW the triangle K is run by a frum Jew (orthodox rabbi), not a conservative rabbi!)

It is a combination of politics and extra stringencies which have caused the "controversy" over hebrew national hotdogs.

As to just a letter "K" - I don't even know if that's a hashgaha at all because any company can put any letter on a box of their products, there is no trademark on just a letter, it has to have a design.   So a letter K by itself means nothing.

However, some cereals which have a K, or which have no hashgaha (and no K at all) are indeed kosher, which I found listed at Rav Abadi's site, where they determine this based on the ingredients (the old-fashioned way).    For instance - Fruit loops.     Because there really is no need at all for certification on non-dairy, non-meat product if the ingredients are verified and known individually to be kosher.  Certification is red tape in that case or a certainty so the buyer doesn't have to look up every ingredient (or post them to Rav Abadi's site, or whatever) to determine if the product is kosher.

Nowadays there are a great number of hashgaha's including half-moon-K (which is now kosher to orthodox standards), circle K, triangle K, OU, Khof-K, etc etc etc

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

Years ago I always had great respect for the OU and organizations  like it because I always felt the were keeping an eye on the foods they put their seal of approval on... As time went on I see that they are not what the uninformed believe them to be... This is sad in a way because whenever I bought a product with their seal on it I always felt that I was getting a better product since the supplier was being held to a standard... Organizations like the OU should go back to basics and concern themselves with issues of kashrut and nothing else.

Indeed it was once a great organization led by a great man Rabbi Shlomo Alexander Rosenberg ZT"L.   He was a tzaddik who refused to compromise his values and kept the standards no matter what monetary concerns arose.    I don't know what to think about its state of affairs today.   

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

The OU are vicious Jew-hating Nazi beasts who consider oceans of Jewish blood and endless Jewish torture to be Kosher.

LOL, that's one way of putting it.