Ashkenazim, kitniyos, and kitniyos derivatives (and kids)

If you're ashkenazi and you don't eat kitniyos:

Do you use kitniyos derivatives, like kitniyos oils? It seems this is getting more and more common even though I'd only heard of it recently. Did you always keep like that or is it a new thing you follow?

Do you use cottonseed or peanut oils or does your rav consider them kitniyos?

If someone offered your young child something with kitniyos in it, or especially if your kid already has that food in his mouth, how would you react?

Will you eat at someone's house who cooks kitniyos in their pots, etc?

Platinum Member Joined: Jan 01 2006 Posts: 48224

I would not buy or eat such a thing, and here, no one offers each other food. thank goodness !!!!

I used to be very uptight against kitniyos, until I started living around a lot of people who eat it. And now that I've heard that there is one MO rav who poskens that Israelis can eat kitniyos no matter if they didn't before, no matter if they are ashkenazi, then while I still cant bring myself to eat straight kitniyos, I bought two packages of dried fruit that were likely sprayed with kitniyos. We've not eaten them, but we bought them! I'd let my child eat kitniyos and say nothing.. I have a child who is allergic to milk and our charedi rav poskined that he could drink soy milk during pesach 'until he got older' and so this year, even though he is much older, I bought him soy milk and kitniyos margarine and he is grateful.

I recall that it is not a problem to eat from kitniyos pots. These people are eating kosher l'pesach also, don't forget!! They are not eating chametz!!

Gold Member Joined: Dec 25 2008 Posts: 2067

didn't the chief rabbi of israel say that all jews should be allowed to eat the same thing in israel? I am pretty sure that we would eat kitniyot if we lived in israel.

Which one? rabbi Lau? because it seems charedim do not allow it even in Israel, without a mesora for it?
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Gold Member Joined: Dec 25 2008 Posts: 2067

no idea, but then I am not haredi...I am sure if I was living in israel we would do the research.
(and remember we are not eating gebrokts - except whole wheat matzah balls, and matzah brei because we just don't like em.)

AFAIK no rav actually considers cottonseed oil kitniyos. It is just that israeli charedim are nohaig not to use it and there is nothing with a charedi hechsher that contains it.
Its nasty anyway, better not to eat it.

It depends on the age of the kid. My toddler was given matza ashira in the park on shabbos, I tried stopping him from eating it but then just put it on the bench and let him pick it up again. Then he picked up someone;s bag of x eegul and started eating it. I stopped him when he started picking up actual pieces from the floor.

to cm- BH that I live in ERETZ YISRAEL where all jews treat each other LIKE FAMILY (for better or worse) and will always SHARE THEIR FOOD, out of the kindness of their heart.
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Silver Member Joined: Nov 17 2011 Posts: 912

I was under the impression that not eating kitniyos is straight out halacha for ashkenazim. I would not use derivatives. As for a child, it depends on the age/maturity level. If its a baby who can easily be distracted, yes, I would take it away. If its a toddler who doesn't really get it and would tantrum, I would make an effort but wouldn't make a fuss. If its a child old enough to understand that we don't eat it on pesach AND can follow through, I would explain and expect him to refrain. Basically the way I handle muktza on Shabbos.

Its a minhag. The halacha surrounding the minhag is decided by a posek.

Ashkenazim frequently ate kitniyot derivatives until recently. For an interesting example, see

http://www.sadiesalome.com/recipes/passover-rolls.html

Great recipe, BTW. I make them several times during the holiday.

Last edited by ra_mom on Mon, Apr 09 2012, 9:31 pm; edited 2 times in total

We don't consider cottonseed kitniyus, and were told that as long as it has a Heimish KLP hechsher we could use it. (We use other things on Pesach that don't need a Heimish hechsher. It depends on the product.) Cottonseed oil is readily available in the US with a Heimish hechsher. And all the KLP potato chip products and other processed products contain cottonseed oil.

We don't use peanut oil, and AFAIK, peanut oil is not available here with a KLP hechsher.

As far as a child and kitniyus is concerned- When dd was smaller she hardly ate on Pesach, and we asked the Rav if we could take her to our Sefardi friend to eat Kitniyus. We were told it was fine. BH today she has expanded her palate and doesn't need special kitniyus and gebrokts products bought for her.

In order to eat something cooked in a pot used for kitniyus, we would have to wait 24 hours after that pot was used for said kitniyus. So I don't think we would generally eat cooked foods on Pesach from someone who cooks with kitniyus. When I visit my friend she serves store bought cakes, drinks, snacks, things we eat anyway, and we are fine with it.
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Diamond Member Joined: Aug 07 2006 Posts: 2556

OP, are you saying it is now more common to use kitniyot-derived oils, or less common? Peanut oil was marked kosher for Passover in the US until very recently. I grew up using it, although we did not use peanuts or peanut butter. The only reason I don't use it now is because I only use KLP-marked processed foods.

It has never happened that someone put questionable food in my child's mouth on Pesach, but there have been a couple of kashrut mixups over the years. For a child too young to understand why the food is being taken away, and who already has the food in his/her mouth, I would let him/her swallow and forget about it. Depending on the details, I might try to talk it out with the other adult, or simply avoid situations where it might be a problem in the future.

Eating non-kitniyot at a Sephardic person's home, where we assume utensils have been used for kitniyot, is not a problem AFAIK.

I thought kitniyot wasn't prohibited for Israelis - maybe I am mistaken?

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Diamond Member Joined: Nov 30 2006 Posts: 2613

Actually, it's not so clear that peanuts are kitniyot. Here's R' Moshe:

�Concerning peanuts, which were called stashkes in Europe�they have been accepted as being permitted on Pesach and are not considered kitniyos (legumes that are forbidden on Pesach) because all the reasons for the prohibition of kitniyos do not apply to peanuts. Peanuts are not sown in fields (with grain), and even if they were there is no fear that grain would be mixed together with the peanuts; bread is not baked from peanuts; and generally speaking though they are vegetables they have the appearance of nuts rather than kitniyos. And even though I have heard that in some places they were considered kitniyos, peanuts should not be forbidden in places where it is not known for certain what the custom had been in their city, because, with reference to kitniyos, when in doubt one should be lenient.

Therefore you may give certification for peanuts and the oil derived from them, and they will be permissible to the majority of persons. Those who know for certain that the custom of their city was not to eat peanuts on Passover should not eat them; others are permitted to eat them.�

The London Beth Din approves sunflower oil for Pesach, which is not done here in the USA. There are definitely differences of opinion, especially on derivatives.

My son's formula contains corn syrup. There's no alternative, so he keeps drinking it for Pesach.

Peanuts on Pesach (actually, KLP Bamba) is the bane of my existence. In chu"l when I grew up it was unheard of to use peanut products (Toronto - COR) and I could leave my epi-pen at home for a week. Here it's probably the most dangerous week of the year for me, and for my peanut allergic son. When he was younger (2?) someone actually handed him a piece of Bamba on shvi'I and when I hit the roof said "but it's not chametz". No, but our minhag is it's kitniyot, he's allergic to it, and YOU ASK BEFORE YOU GIVE A CHILD FOOD! Not because I'm mean but because I love my kid and you could have killed him (literally, at the time) with your "kindness".

That said, we use sunflower oil because we can't use the nut oils 100% safely.
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Our kids get kitniyos snack foods... nothing that involves cooking. My toddlers are 3years3months and almost 2 years old... they would die if they couldn't have rice cakes as a snack or their favorite fruit-flavored white cheese, which has some kind of kitniyos ingredient in it.
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We were told we can use derivatives of kitnyot as long as they were not in the original ban, such as beans and rice. At one time the only oils one could get were peanut and almost everyone used them, at least in the states.
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