Kosher Issues in Canned Vegetables (Part 1)

You often hear questions like: 'What could be wrong with ordinary canned vegetables? There's only vegetables, water and salt in the can!' Indeed. Today you can buy kosher vegetables, kosher salt, kosher water, and even a kosher can! But does 1+1+1+1 equal 4? Can a kosher consumer buy canned corn off the shelf without hesitation? Or should the kosher consumer be careful?

As long as humans have been harvesting food, they have faced the challenge of preserving food from spoiling. Therefore, people created the science of food storage, so that a product's shelf life could be extended right from the field. Ancient food storage methods include drying, salting, spicing and fermenting. Canning, discovered in the 18th century, is a relatively recent food storage method; it developed in the 19th century and became a major way of storing food, continuing to develop in the 21st century.

Under the requirements of low cost, high quality and long shelf life, canning is the most commonly used method. Canned products range from dairy products to meat products, from dehydrated milk to canned meat, with many products in between. Today, there are more than 600 canneries in North America, many of which have more than one type of production equipment and are ready to produce a variety of products.

Now, in this bountiful country, canned vegetables play an important role in this huge industry. Do cans give rise to kosher issues? Where do the kosher concerns lie? Let's look at these different processes and focus on the kosher issues in canned vegetables.

The industry divides canned vegetables into six major categories:

1. Root vegetables, mainly referring to beets, carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes—the so-called 'yams.' Like most vegetables, root vegetables are also seasonal. Potatoes are dug up in spring and summer, while yams are a summer and autumn product.

2. Leafy vegetables, including spinach and other garden vegetables such as collard greens, kale and mustard greens, which are all spring and summer varieties.

3. Green beans, whose various forms (cut, whole and French-style) make up a cannery's green bean production line.

4. Fresh-pack, including fresh corn and peas.

5. Dry-pack, referring to various dried beans such as chickpeas, kidney beans, great northern beans, butter beans and black-eyed peas.

6. Specialty canned vegetables. Mushrooms, asparagus or kohlrabi are good examples of specialty canned vegetables.

For the kosher issues involved in canned vegetables, please refer to the document 'Kosher Issues in Canned Vegetables (Part 2).'

Or call SINOQUAL to learn about specific kosher certification matters.