Does the Injunction of Gevinas Akum Apply to Whey?
There is a Rabbinic injunction against eating cheese which is produced without proper supervision. Such unsupervised cheese is known as gevinas akum. Does gevinas akum status apply to whey as well, since whey is a cheese byproduct?
Whey is the portion of the milk remaining in the cheese vat that does not become cheese. Whey is actually milk that has been stripped of its casein (milk protein) and most of its fat – as casein and fat are the parts of milk which coalesce and form cheese. Since whey is milk that lacks most of the milk’s original protein and fat, whey does not have the status of cheese, and it is kosher even when derived from productions of gevinas akum. (See Teshuvos Chasam Sofer YD 79.) Nonetheless, there are three requirements that are necessary for whey to be kosher:
- All ingredients used in the cheese vat together with the whey must be kosher.
- The gevinas akum cheese must be processed without heat. Otherwise, the whey would absorb the non-kosher taam (taste) of the gevinas akum.
After whey is created and removed from the cheese vat, it is often processed in various pieces of equipment (such as pasteurizers, evaporators and spray dryers) with heat. All processing equipment must be kosher.
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