I think I ate treif 😢😢😢

amother

Celeste

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 7:44 pm

amother OP wrote:

Bought Great value macaroni and cheese cups and for some reason totally forgot to check for hechser. 😢
My husband said there's a good chance it's actually not kosher.
How do I do teshuva😢😢😢

While certainly not kosher, almost all cheese these days is made with manufactured renin and therefore not treif anymore. It used to be made with animal renin and therefore teif.

csstb

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 7:49 pm

Apologize to Hashem and resolve to do better.

By no means am I trying to belittle the importance of any mitzvah, but also keep this in perspective that there are many things that people do all the time with little intent that are even more chamur than what you did, just kashrus has a much more emotional reaction. You’ll do teshuva for something that was totally beshogeg, and I imagine between that and Yom Kippur, you’ll be good to go.

Girl@Heart

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 8:01 pm

Mistakes happen. That’s why have Yom Kippur. And it come around each year!
1. Charata
2. Azivas hacheit
3. Kabbalah Al ha’asid

Put a note in your machzor by a vidu that is applicable to this to remind yourself on yk

H’shem built mistakes into this world and he built a system for fixing them. Remember you are human.

We all make mistakes and I can guarantee you that you are not the first person, nor the last to make this one.

amother

Nasturtium

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 9:30 pm

it happens to everyone.

two things
1. great value's whole what noodles currently don't have a hechsher but ARE kosher. seems they left out the ou on the box by accident or something according to the ou. don't know about the cheese thing

2. I realized that this happens even to very "frum" people, we are all human - like a rabbi in our community posted on the local group one year that he accidentally gave out something in the shaloch manos that didn't have a hechsher and whomever got it should be aware...

amother

SandyBrown

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 9:34 pm

I once had surgery and the hospital brought me chicken soup. I was completely out of sorts and ate it, and only after did I realize that it was most definitely treif. I felt so guilty! I did teshuva and asked hashem to forgive me, and im sure he has because I didn't do it on purpose.

amother

Lightblue

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 9:35 pm

I remember my friend saying she bought pesachdik blintzes from the Jewish geocery store, in the pesach section, and on pesach heated them in her toaster oven and enjoyed...the entire time she was eating them she kept saying "I cant believe these are pesachdik! They are So goooood!" Then she glanced at the box and aure enough, she had been eating pure chometz on pesach.
Understandably she felt horrible, and called her Rav, and he was so calm about it. Told her what to do about the toaster, in a calm voice just went about business...
It happens. It was a mistake
Do sincere teshuva and all will be good.

amother

Topaz

Tue, Jan 23 2024, 9:46 pm

amother Lightblue wrote:

😲😲😲

WhatFor

Wed, Jan 24 2024, 3:59 am

OP, eating something without a hechsher doesn't necessarily mean you ate treif.

A hechsher isn't what makes food kosher and its absence isn't what makes food treif. Either the food is kosher or not, according to Halacha. A hechsher is simply a super convenient way of knowing what's kosher, because we trust that the organization that issued the hechsher checked out the product and ensured it's kosher.

For example, and maybe this is your exact situation, say a company decided its religious Jewish clientele wasn't large enough to continue paying for a hechsher. So they stopped paying. Of course, since they're no longer under the supervision of a kashrut agency, people keeping kosher can no longer rely on the prior certification to know that the food is kosher. If they want to, they can change their processes and actually become treif. But if someone didn't realize that they dropped their hechsher and accidentally ate their food, they don't need to make a determination that they necessarily ate treif. It's possible that literally nothing changed since they had a hechsher and dropped it, and they are eating the same product they did previously. There are probably ways to find out by calling the company, or even calling the kashrut org and asking why they were dropped.

amother

Winterberry ↓

Mon, Jan 29 2024, 3:03 pm

That happened to me on a plane. I got coke and and it looked different than DH can and the guy next to him. Turns out the coke I got was treif Mexican coke DJ got the kosher coke bh and the guy next to him got the regular kosher American. I was so heartbroken even tho I had about a half a can maybe a bit less.
What made me look was the can seemed a bit different than DH.

Amelia Bedelia

Mon, Jan 29 2024, 3:14 pm

amother Winterberry wrote:

Isn't Coca Cola the same product all over the world? Like, possibly you may even be able to drink it anywhere even without a hechsher?

amother

Daffodil ↓

Mon, Jan 29 2024, 3:17 pm

WhatFor wrote:

This isn't a product that had a hechsher and it was dropped. It never had a hechsher. And it contains cheese.

It's really hard to remember that you have to check what you're buying if you're used to shopping at a kosher store where everything is kosher. Don't beat yourself up, just take it as a lesson learned and take it upon yourself that you'll be more careful in the future.

vintagebknyc

Mon, Jan 29 2024, 3:19 pm

Amelia Bedelia wrote:

Isn't Coca Cola the same product all over the world? Like, possibly you may even be able to drink it anywhere even without a hechsher?

It’s actually interesting, because it’s made all over the world with different ingredients. When my parents lived in Japan it was wholly different than in other Asian countries. As for the Mexican, it’s made with cane sugar; not sure why it’s trief.

amother

↑ Daffodil

Mon, Jan 29 2024, 3:23 pm

Amelia Bedelia wrote:

Isn't Coca Cola the same product all over the world? Like, possibly you may even be able to drink it anywhere even without a hechsher?

I think the ingredients may vary in different countries. Major kashrus orgs in the US have said that you can't just drink coke from other countries. Maybe a kashrus org in the country of question would have more info.