Shabbat: F - Food Preparation (part 2)

Richard B. Aiken

GRINDING (TOCHEIN)

Grinding on Shabbat: How Finely You May Grind

You may not grind, grate, or even finely chop or dice food on Shabbat. You may not use a garlic press on Shabbat.

The minimum size before violating the melacha of tochein varies by the type of food. The resulting pieces must be somewhat larger than the size you would normally use in order to be permitted.

Grinding on Shabbat: Avocadoes

You may crush or squash an avocado (such as when making guacamole) on Shabbat, but ONLY:

Using a shinu'i (such as a spoon, knife, or spatula),

Without using a specialized tool (such as a grinder, potato masher, or fork),

If you eat it immediately after preparing it, and

If you leave some pieces larger than you normally would.

NOTE: If you intend for all pieces to be somewhat larger than usual but some end up small, it is OK.

Grinding on Shabbat: Eggs

You may pulverize a cooked egg (such as a hard-boiled egg) on Shabbat but:

You may not use a specialized utensil (you may use a fork), and

You must eat it immediately.

NOTE: No shinu'i is needed.

KNEADING (LASH)

Mixing Powders with Liquid

You may mix powdered food substances with liquids on Shabbat if:

The resulting mixture will be fluid (you can pour it in a smooth and steady stream), AND

You put whatever is normally added second into the container first and then add the component that is normally added first to the other substance, AND

You mix it with your finger, not with a utensil.

NOTE: You may not mix a powdered food substance with a liquid on Shabbat if it will result in a paste (such as wasabi).

Mixing Soft Foods

Mixing tuna and mayonnaise and or other soft or mushy foods is permitted on Shabbat; it does not constitute the melacha of kneading/lash.

MUKTZA IN THE KITCHEN

Moving a Hotplate

You may move a hotplate on Shabbat but ONLY if you need the space where it is located. You do not need to use an unusual method (shinu'i).

NOTE: You may not unplug an operating hotplate. If the hotplate will not go on again, you may unplug it--but only in a non-standard manner.

Moving an Empty Pot

Pots become muktza on Shabbat once the food in them is all gone.

OPENING/SEALING/TEARING

Opening Plastic Bottles on Shabbat

You may completely open plastic bottle caps on plastic bottles on Shabbat (even if doing so will leave a plastic ring on the bottle), as long as it is theoretically possible to dispense the liquid without completely separating the cap from the bottle.

REASON: Since liquid can be poured with the cap still attached, the sealed bottle does not become a “new utensil”—a Shabbat violation.

However, if you will destroy letters that are printed on the cap, you may not open the bottle.

Opening Metal Bottle Caps on Shabbat

You may not open metal bottle caps on Shabbat if doing so will leave behind a metal ring. You may break the ring or open the bottle (and close it again, if desired) before Shabbat.

NOTE: If you need the contents for Shabbat (such as if it is a bottle of wine), you may ask a non-Jew to open it for you. But if the wine is not cooked/mevushal, the wine will become non-kosher once opened and handled by a non-Jew.

Non-Permanent Twist-Ties

You may twist or untwist twist ties on Shabbat, but only if you intend them to be a non-permanent seal. If you will (at any time in the future—even long after Shabbat is over) remove the twist-tie, it is considered non-permanent.

Tearing Paper and Plastic Wrap

You may tear paper, plastic, foil, or other wrappers around food in order to eat that food on Shabbat.

You may tear plastic and foil (but not paper) around napkins, plasticware, etc., that you need on Shabbat.

But you may not:

Do so if you will inevitably tear through any words or pictures on the package.

Use scissors.

Except for wrappers for food or eating utensils, do not tear paper, foil, toilet paper, parchment paper, plastic wrap, paper towels, etc., on Shabbat.

NOTE: If there is a perforation, that makes the tearing worse.

NOTE: If you do not have any torn toilet paper, tear it is an unusual way:

EXAMPLES:

Tear using the back of your hand.

Spread the toilet paper across your knees and then spread your knees apart.

SALTING

Salting Food

You may not salt certain foods, whether cooked or raw, on Shabbat if the:

Salt will materially (not just due to the flavor of the salt) change the flavor of the food, as in salting cut or chopped onions or salting tomatoes.

NOTE: You may dip the tomato or other food into salt using your hand as you are eating it.

Foods have a shell; e.g., corn kernels (on or off of the cob), beans, peas.

Salt has not been heated previously (e.g., during the processing of the salt) and the food you are salting is hot (over 120° F, or 49° C).

Leniency: If the food has oil in it, you may add salt even if the food contains onions or has a shell. Even a thin layer of oil will exempt the salt.

NOTE: You may pour salt into a liquid or a liquid onto salt, but you may not make a saturated salt solution (brine) on Shabbat.

SELECTING/BOREIR

Selecting Good from Bad and Bad from Good

Boreir Principle #1: You may eat anything in the manner in which it is normally eaten.

EXAMPLE: Peeling an orange.

Boreir Principle #2: You may not use a specialized tool.

Boreir Principle #3: You may not remove “bad” from “good.”

WHAT TO DO: Take good (edible or desired food) from the undesired (bad) components.

NOTE: You may do this only when you are ready to eat it or when you are preparing the food to be eaten soon afterward.

NOTE: Boreir is a complicated area of halacha. Because issues of boreir are almost always from the Torah (d'Oraita, not d'rabanan), we are stringent in applying restrictions concerning boreir. Consult a rabbi for specific questions.

Selecting Undesired from Desired Food

On Shabbat, you may not usually separate totally undesired from totally desired food in a standard way, even without a specialized tool.

Undesired Mixed with Desired Food

However, you may separate undesired elements from desired food—even with a specialized tool--if the undesired food is mixed with some desired food (any amount that you would use or eat is enough). This is called “taking some good with the bad.”

SITUATION: You want to remove fat on gravy.

WHAT TO DO: You may remove fat along with some gravy.

REASON: Boreir is separating bad from good. Here, the junction area is still intact, so separating fat from gravy is like separating good from good (gravy from gravy, not fat from gravy).

Removing Easily Removable Food in a Non-Standard Way

SITUATION: The undesired food is easily distinguishable and easily removable from the desired food.

WHAT TO DO: You may separate totally undesired food elements from desired food in a non-standard way--using only your hand, fingers, or implement that is not designed for separation. That is, you may not use a utensil that is designed to separate food from other foods, substances, or parts of foods, such as a slotted spoon, peeler, or sieve. But you may pick a lemon seed off a serving of fish, for example.

NOTE: As on Jewish festivals, an action needed to eat a food normally (derech achila) does not violate the prohibition of boreir on Shabbat. So you may peel a food that is normally separated from its peel or shell in order to be eaten, as long as you do not use a specialized instrument to do so. For example, on Shabbat, you may do the following by hand without a shinu'i:

Peel an orange

Remove the shell of a hard-boiled egg

Separate peanuts from their shells.

NOTE: If peanut shells are then put into a container that also has unshelled peanuts, you may not remove the empty shells from that mixture!

SITUATION: You want remove dirt from a carrot's surface on a Shabbat.

WHAT TO DO: You may remove the dirt with an altered method (shinu'i), such as scraping the peel with a knife (which is a tool not specialized for separating food)-- but not by using a peeler.

REASON: The normal way to eat the carrot is to peel it.

Selecting Desired from Undesired Food

While eating food (and some time before--within the amount of time you would normally need to prepare a meal), you may select desired food from undesired (or inedible) substances by hand or non-specialized tool. You may not use a specialized implement.

EXAMPLE: You may remove fish from its skeleton even before eating it, but you may not remove the skeleton from the fish (because you have removed bad from good).

NOTE: Once Shabbat has begun:

You may remove fish bones from fish while you are eating the fish, but not before you are eating the fish.

You may cut open a melon such as a cantaloupe and shake the seeds out (this is because some of the seeds remain), or take a bite of the melon and spit out the seeds. But you may not remove any remaining seeds using your hand or an implement.

EXCEPTION: If you take undesired elements along with the desired food, it is not considered to be separating: you may use a specialized tool and it does not have to be eaten soon (within the normal food-preparation time).

Removing Seeds in Foods

Easy to Remove

If each unwanted element is easy to identify and remove, there is no issue of boreir. Consult a rabbi regarding what is halachically considered easy to remove.

Removing Cantaloupe Seeds

You may remove cantaloupe seeds only by shaking, not by scooping, them out.

Removing Lemon Seeds

You generally may not remove lemon seeds (pits) from food. However, if you are squeezing a lemon and some pits get partly squeezed out, you may:

Shake the lemon in order to shake off the pits, or

Use your hand to remove the pits from the surface of the lemon.

Once the pits fall onto food, you may use your hand to push the seeds to the side of the plate. But you may not use any instrument to do so, not even a non-specialized instrument such as a spoon.

NOTE: If there are only one or two seeds and they are easily differentiated from the food, you may remove them by any means, except by using an instrument that is intended to separate food from non-food or from undesired food, such as a sieve, strainer, or slotted spoon.

Separating Good Food from Bad in Your Mouth

Boreir does not apply to separating anything inside of your mouth: you may separate anything that way, even if you remove the bad from the good.

Salt Shaker with Rice

On Shabbat you may not, due to boreir, use a salt shaker into which rice has been added (in order to keep the salt dry).

Washing-Draining Food

You may wash or rinse food on Shabbat and pour off the water afterwards if there is no tangible dirt. (This is not boreir.)

If the food does have tangible or visible dirt, you may not wash or rinse the food.

You may wash and drain olives and other canned fruits and vegetables on Shabbat.

Dropping Unwanted Food

When you have food mixed with non-desired substances, you may remove the non-desired ones by picking up the entire mixture and dropping away the non-desired elements.

Fat from Gravy

You may skim fat from gravy as long as you take some gravy, too, with your spoon. Or, you may pour the gravy with the fat into a container and then pour off fat, including a little gravy, from the top.

SQUEEZING (DASH)

Squeezing Fruit

On Shabbat, you may squeeze a lemon (or other fruit) onto solid food that you will eat right away but not into a container or into a liquid.

Squeezing Brine from Tuna

You may squeeze brine from canned tuna on Shabbat but only if you will eat the tuna soon afterward (at your next meal or snack).

Squeezing Liquid from Cooked Vegetables

You may squeeze liquid from cooked vegetables on Shabbat but only if you:

Throw out the liquid, and leave some liquid together with the food,

Eat the vegetables soon afterward (at your next meal or snack).

Shabbat: F - Food Preparation (part 2)

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