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I know that when it comes to blending fruit, that
there might be different halachos or a different
set of guidance. What's the difference
between blending and eating things raw?
So I think in order to answer your question, we
should probably take a step back. When dealing
with levels of infestation, right? We go what's
referred to as "Acharei Rabbim Lehatos," we go
after the majority, right? So if an item, the
majority of the time, is clean, it doesn't
have any bugs on it, on a Torah level, there's no
obligation to check. However, Chazal have a fence,
a gezer, to help us keep the Torah properly. So,
there's a thing called "Miut Hamatzoy," where it's
a "Miut," it's a minority of the time, however,
it's still "Matzoy," it's still found. So,
30% of the time, or what have you. So in that
instance, there's still an obligation to check on
a rabbinic level. But something that's even less
common, very rare, we refer to as "Miut Sheaino
Matzoy," which is a minority of the time, which
is "Aino Matzoy," it's not really found at all,
very rare. Rav Belsky said you'd have
to be surprised to find an insect.
So you have "Miut Sheaino Matzoy," which there's
no obligation to check, it'd be very rare to find.
Let's say you find a bug in a banana, right?
There's "Miut Hamatzoy," which we'll throw in,
let's say, something like romaine lettuce, where
there's a rabbinic obligation to check. And then
something which is majority the time infested, to
eat it without checking would be a De'Oraisa, from
the Torah itself, because we assume that there
are bugs there. So, you have these three levels.
I say that Chazal didn't give four categories.
They gave three. I don't think there's a fourth
category where there's no bugs in anything ever.
Like, I even got a consumer inquiry once where a
consumer found a bug in a seltzer bottle, and
he called the OU to complain about it, right?
It's like the study that the average
person swallows like four spiders a year.
I think that was like a snap
fun Snapple fact or something,
right? Yeah. Yeah. Seven spiders.
That's what it was. Yeah.
In any event, so number one is: what are the
levels of infestation? Now, when it comes to
blending, so we have another concept in halacha
called "Sfek Sfeika," where it's a double question
if something happened. So, in certain instances,
a "Sfek Sfeika" could permit something. So the
Rashba brings down, what happens if I took
something which is a "Miut Hamatzoy," which
the minority of the time would have bugs, not
majority of the time, only a minority of the time,
and then I went ahead and I blended it? So I
have here a classic case of a "Sfek Sfeika." And
it goes like this. Maybe there were no bugs. And
even if there were bugs, maybe they got ground up.
And now they're mixed in like a chulent.
Right. And if the bugs are accidentally
ground up, don't do this on purpose,
but if they were ground up, so the
reason why they wouldn't be nullified
in something is because something which
is a whole entity has a chashivus to it,
has a prominence associated with it. So you can't
say that it's nullified. But if it's in pieces,
it loses that status, and then it could
be nullified essentially. So over here,
in this instance, if it's ground up,
then you could say maybe it's nullified.
So based on what you're saying, if you have
kale and you want to make a smoothie out of it,
and you see on this kale that there are
bugs, then blending is not going to help you.
Right. Because essentially, what you only
have is one safek. "Maybe I ground up all
the bugs or not." The question with regard
to whether or not you could take something
which is minority of the time infested
and ideally, lechatchila, go ahead and
put it in a blender. That's something that the
person should ask their personal rabbi about.
So, you're waiting for your plane and there's a
place that makes smoothies. Can you
go and just say, "I want some mango,
and I want some apple juice, and I want some
kale," and then get that kind of smoothie?
That would not be recommended for a lot of
reasons aside from the bug issue we just
mentioned. Let's say it's a store chain,
and they want all the chain's consumers to
have the same experience. They actually have a
lot of ingredients other than just the fruits:
flavor inhibitors, flavor enhancers, and
so on and so forth. Sometimes these places,
they're full service, and they just
don't do juices. So there's just a
lot of reasons why it would definitely not
be recommended to do something like that.