Eating English Muffins with Meat

A previous Halacha Yomis mentioned that the OU permits dairy English muffins provided that the dairy ingredients are less than one part in sixty. Does this mean that these English muffins are really pareve? Can I use these English muffins as a hamburger bun?

(A Subscriber’s Question)

It is inappropriate to serve a dairy English muffin with meat. This type of situation is known in halacha as a “davar she’yeish lo matirin” (a situation which can be rectified without having to rely on bitul [nullification]). Since the “dairy” English muffin can be eaten with pareve or with dairy food, the muffin has a permitted use without bitul.

Ordinarily, dairy ingredients are batel if mixed with sixty times their volume of pareve ingredients, since it is a mixture of dissimilar items, and the rule that an ingredient that is a “davar sheyeish lo matirin” is not batel only applies to mixtures of similar items (min bimino). However, when the dairy component is an integral ingredient in the product, it is considered to be a similar item with the rest of the mixture. Since the dairy ingredients in the English muffin might be considered necessary and integral to the muffin, it is proper to avoid eating it with meat.

For a related issue, see Rama (Yoreh De’ah 108:1).

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.