Milk and Meat - Enzyme-Modified Cheese (Cont'd.)

QUESTION: The OU certifies crackers and popcorn with parmesan seasoning. Since parmesan is a hard cheese that requires one who ate it to wait six hours before eating meat, do I similarly need to wait six hours after eating these snacks, before eating meat?

ANSWER: If the seasoning is primarily made from parmesan cheese, then one should wait six hours (or whatever one’s custom is). However, cheese seasonings are often made with enzyme modified cheese (EMC) which is mixed and essentially diluted with other bulkier ingredients, such as whey or blander cheese powders. In volume, the other ingredients constitute the majority of the seasoning. Yad Yehuda (Y.D. 89, 30) writes that a hard cheese which is blended into another food and softened through cooking does not necessitate waiting six hours. Similarly, in the case of enzyme modified cheese, Rav Schachter explained that since it is actually a soft cheese (albeit with a very strong flavor), once it is diluted to become a fraction of the seasoning, one would not have to wait after eating it.

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The Gerald & Karin Feldhamer OU Kosher Halacha Yomis is dedicated to the memory of Rav Yisroel Belsky, zt"l, who served as halachic consultant for OU Kosher for more than 28 years; many of the responses in Halacha Yomis are based on the rulings of Rabbi Belsky. Subscribe to the Halacha Yomis daily email here.