Blended Blessings _ Let's Talk Kashrus

The Art of Tasting and Understanding Cereals: A Delve into the World of Taste Profiles

When it comes to cereals, most consumers don't pay much attention to the ingredients beyond their favorite flavor. However, for those who have spent years developing a palate for taste profiles, each cereal presents a unique challenge. These professionals can pinpoint even slight variations in sugar and corn content, making them crucial in determining the quality of a particular brand.

Professional taste testers can discern subtle differences between various cereals, allowing manufacturers to identify areas that need improvement. For instance, if a manufacturer's sugar content is too high or too low, it may affect the overall taste profile of their cereal. Similarly, differences in corn content can greatly impact the texture and flavor of a cereal. These experts are able to detect even slight variations in sugar levels, ensuring that each brand meets the highest standards.

One key aspect of tasting cereals is understanding percentage percentages. In many cases, brands may use clever labeling techniques to disguise their ingredients. For instance, a brand might claim to contain only "natural flavors" or "hazelnut flavoring," when in reality, these terms encompass a wide range of ingredients, including sugar and corn. To truly understand what's going into your cereal, it's essential to look beyond the label and check the ingredient list.

Gluten-free cereals present an additional layer of complexity. While some brands may appear gluten-free on their labels, they might still contain hidden sources of gluten, such as oats. Oats are naturally gluten-free, but they can become contaminated during processing or storage, making them unsuitable for individuals with celiac disease or severe gluten intolerance. Some brands may use a small amount of oat flour to achieve the desired texture or flavor, which could trigger adverse reactions in sensitive consumers.

To navigate these challenges, manufacturers often turn to alternative ingredients like tapioca flour and corn-based products. These substitutes can help replicate the taste and texture of oats without the risk of gluten contamination. However, finding the perfect balance between flavors is crucial. Too much oat content can lead to unpleasant textures or tastes, while too little may result in an unidentifiable product.

In recent years, some brands have taken to using clever labeling techniques to differentiate their products from one another. Some may claim to be "gluten-free" when, in reality, they contain only 51% of oats and the remaining ingredients are naturally gluten-free or inert compounds. This can make it difficult for consumers to discern between products that share similar ingredient lists.

To address this issue, manufacturers have begun experimenting with alternative flours like rice-based or corn-based options. These alternatives can provide a similar texture and flavor profile to oats without the risk of gluten contamination. By using these substitutes in combination with other ingredients, brands can create products that cater to the needs of both gluten-free and regular consumers.

In some cases, manufacturers may choose to use more traditional ingredients like sugar and salt to enhance their products' flavors. However, even these staples can become problematic if not used judiciously. For instance, adding too much sugar can throw off the delicate balance of flavors in a cereal, making it difficult for taste testers to discern subtle differences between brands.

For those with severe gluten intolerance or celiac disease, finding suitable cereals can be an arduous task. While many brands claim to be "gluten-free," some may contain hidden sources of gluten that could trigger adverse reactions. In these cases, manufacturers must tread carefully, using alternative ingredients and precise labeling techniques to ensure their products meet the highest standards.

In conclusion, understanding cereal taste profiles and ingredient lists is crucial for those seeking to make informed choices about their breakfast options. From subtle differences in sugar content to more complex issues with gluten-free ingredients, each cereal presents a unique set of challenges that require careful consideration. By developing a keen palate and staying up-to-date on the latest developments in cereal manufacturing, consumers can ensure they're getting the best possible start to their day.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome back to let's talk ashas today I am joined by Rabbi David Heber a cashous administrator at the star k in Baltimore thank you Rabbi Heber for being here again thank you for inviting me back so we've spoken about different br's concerns and you gave some tremendous guidance as as far as cereals are concerned I'd like to talk today about iar and tff where we have cereals that are comprised of different ingredients and if you could walk us through how that impacts uh BR if you have uh you know wheat flour and then you also have uh you know a different ingredient that might impact the braa talk about that okay so many cereals or a number of cereals are um are have both a do and and now you have this mixture so there's an important rule as well as brings down and that's the r which means anything normally when you have a mixture of ingredients you go by the r what what and what's what's what's the majority again you really go by what you want most but when it's a taru is a mixture of flowers and different such ingredients that it's one entity you go by you go by the if you have then is that becomes the ior no matter what almost no matter what almost and that's called now says not so fast if the if the do is added only as a binder right to hold it together then it's not enough it's not called the it's not called the right it's not called the unless unless it's the majority of the ingredient which is not that's us is that the case so now like licorice for example licorice is really sugar right you want the sugar and the flavor the flour is really there to is a binder so the first AG is sugar second is flour but the prevalent mining is to make a shahak on licorice because the purpose of the flower is a binding agent it's only to hold it together and therefore it's not it's not an ior so the the issue in cereals is that when you see your first ingredient is sugar and your second ingredient is corn flour and your third ingredient is wheat flour and your fourth ingredient is oat flour now the question is one second was it or was it a consumer has no way to know this right and that's again where we mentioned last last time the the the consumer needs to turn to the cous agencies because the agencies make this determination of is it an i is it a t and the fact that it's listed fourth on the ingredient panel is not sufficient enough to tell you that leav good question if it would just be fourth then it would POS just be leav um we starch is lvic but when it's third and fourth so then you get into this issue like how much sugar was in here how much cornflour was in here and and then you have third and fourth they're together or even third fourth alone might not but so so very interesting the way really toire this is what's the cavana of the person making this product it was why did you add this did you add it Lam or did you add it leav and this really the list that we did the star did 20 20 you know 25 years ago um we would ask the company this question you know what's the cavana we we went behind and we said sometimes it's very hard to be mged there because think about it some of these formulations were made you know 25 years ago 40 years ago we may not even know the reason they don't know the reason I remember when we were learning they just likeed the way it came out right you don't mess with success it works that's right so they keep doing it I remember an example we were learning the I was the San Diego many years ago and we learned bras and and's wife made meatballs and the meatballs she used as a filler oatmeal and he went on maybe Theus on the on the on the on the meatballs now this gets the whole other Shila of well you really want the meat but put that aside for a minute he went home he as his wife what's the cavana why are you why are you putting in the the the oatmeal and is it Lam is it Le is it is it K budget right what what's the reason so it's very hard even for balabusta you you quiz them she might just be doing that cuz her Bubba did it exactly right and it works it works what's so so we went to R so he said that okay we're going to make percentages and that is um so 25% or more is LAM CL um less than 15% is lvic it's called lvic now this obviously I mean is is 1.6% so but means your kav is to put it in it's interesting not a lot of cereals fall in between 15 and 25% when they do then you have to done on you're saying it's usually either less or more correct so something like a Froot Loop cereal is going to be misus because in Froot Loops you have you have U the the amount of is enough that's what's the first ingredient sugar sugar I say sugar corn or corn sugar or baby only sugar I think I think it's and then weed is later later correct I I I want I don't know CLA what if it's sugar and corn or corn and then sugar or just or sugar is definitely up there but the would be misus misus because it's enough there something like Captain Crunch cereal is a is a small percentage and I even once spoke to the company um many many years ago and they told me the following when they when they test the cereal they they you know the people it's interesting parosa to be a tast a taste tester right they make a batch and they want to make sure it's good before they release it to the public and they taste it they say the taste profile they're tasting for corn and they're tasting for sugar MH and that's that's what they're looking for so if the sugar is a little bit too sugary pule it's not enough sugar not sweet enough pule corn a little this way a little that way most consumers can't even tell the corn like you you could tast sugar but like what's corn but if you're professional then you can taste it and they said we don't we don't our taste testers don't taste for the the oat profile in here therefore that was a Rya plus you know we found it was a lower percentage that was that on that now again B on this I tell you what comes out but that is that's so that's and cial you can look at two labels and you see one second this is corn and this is dogun but unless you know percentages percentage or or the kavana which or the percentages which allow you to understand this then you're able to to know what the Paka what cereal is now on this topic talk about glutenfree cereals right so glutenfree so gluten-free are going to be um so gluten-free cereals are are typically going to be free of the real gluten-free cereals are going to be free of and therefore they're going to be a Shak now however some might have some oat content but where this really spills over to are rols gluten-free this is really leaving a little breakfast topic but such a topic and it's the G you know cous because we're giving on you know an array of baked baked goods and now you have um recipes that use other ingredients in order to make these rolls or the bread gluten-free but here here's the issue if a person is totally gluten-free they cannot they get sick from it so they're po they're pabas because they get sick I know someone who tells me they bench because they get sick mat they push themselves and they even though they're sick for a few days I mean whatever their stomach they're willing to do it for the mitah mat and that's it right but okay but so we're not talking about that because they they're not going to eat it at all but there some people who need a limited amount of could only manage on a limited amount of they could get by limited oats are the are the least problematic so what they want to do is they want to have an oat um gluten-free oat roll in order to be so so here you get into all sorts of issues because if you have a little bit of oat flour so here you might have 15% oat in your rooll and it's enough to trigger ham because it's the rest of it is going to be um Zen gum and tapioca flour which are all Shak you got you got but one second have you been shabas right because you need you need a kazas of of of pass in order to to to have shabas what's of pass so here it's not going to be triggered by that's going to make you to make the because it's a roll but it's not a bread but it's not going to necessarily allow you to to to have the to be and for benching as well and for benching also the easiest way out is to have 51% amongst the flowers you don't need 51% Le to be the water or the salt or the yeast and so but if you take your various flowers right you have um you know old flowers 51% and now the rest of the 49% is the Tapioca And The Zan gum and maybe corn and and so on now that entire pass is going to be all need is one k i mean the for which is a little more than however you could be with one and if a person has these issues condition right then then have one Kaz all you need is one Kaz of this finished product and you're done if you have 25% oats so now already you have to start the pent you may need several kazm of this to beab because you can't you can add the sugar because that's coming to be is to be the things that are coming to be mat the pass which means the sugar and the salt or whatever but not the other typ flowers other flowers are competing so to speak so now you got to done how much what percentage is in here you may need two or three Kaz some of this only 30 or 35% of what you're eating qualifies correct so now you need so now it's You' you're trying to minimize you're going to have three Kaz of 25% you might be better off making a roll with 51% right very very Nea very very important M very interesting okay thank you so much for shedding light than important topicwelcome back to let's talk ashas today I am joined by Rabbi David Heber a cashous administrator at the star k in Baltimore thank you Rabbi Heber for being here again thank you for inviting me back so we've spoken about different br's concerns and you gave some tremendous guidance as as far as cereals are concerned I'd like to talk today about iar and tff where we have cereals that are comprised of different ingredients and if you could walk us through how that impacts uh BR if you have uh you know wheat flour and then you also have uh you know a different ingredient that might impact the braa talk about that okay so many cereals or a number of cereals are um are have both a do and and now you have this mixture so there's an important rule as well as brings down and that's the r which means anything normally when you have a mixture of ingredients you go by the r what what and what's what's what's the majority again you really go by what you want most but when it's a taru is a mixture of flowers and different such ingredients that it's one entity you go by you go by the if you have then is that becomes the ior no matter what almost no matter what almost and that's called now says not so fast if the if the do is added only as a binder right to hold it together then it's not enough it's not called the it's not called the right it's not called the unless unless it's the majority of the ingredient which is not that's us is that the case so now like licorice for example licorice is really sugar right you want the sugar and the flavor the flour is really there to is a binder so the first AG is sugar second is flour but the prevalent mining is to make a shahak on licorice because the purpose of the flower is a binding agent it's only to hold it together and therefore it's not it's not an ior so the the issue in cereals is that when you see your first ingredient is sugar and your second ingredient is corn flour and your third ingredient is wheat flour and your fourth ingredient is oat flour now the question is one second was it or was it a consumer has no way to know this right and that's again where we mentioned last last time the the the consumer needs to turn to the cous agencies because the agencies make this determination of is it an i is it a t and the fact that it's listed fourth on the ingredient panel is not sufficient enough to tell you that leav good question if it would just be fourth then it would POS just be leav um we starch is lvic but when it's third and fourth so then you get into this issue like how much sugar was in here how much cornflour was in here and and then you have third and fourth they're together or even third fourth alone might not but so so very interesting the way really toire this is what's the cavana of the person making this product it was why did you add this did you add it Lam or did you add it leav and this really the list that we did the star did 20 20 you know 25 years ago um we would ask the company this question you know what's the cavana we we went behind and we said sometimes it's very hard to be mged there because think about it some of these formulations were made you know 25 years ago 40 years ago we may not even know the reason they don't know the reason I remember when we were learning they just likeed the way it came out right you don't mess with success it works that's right so they keep doing it I remember an example we were learning the I was the San Diego many years ago and we learned bras and and's wife made meatballs and the meatballs she used as a filler oatmeal and he went on maybe Theus on the on the on the on the meatballs now this gets the whole other Shila of well you really want the meat but put that aside for a minute he went home he as his wife what's the cavana why are you why are you putting in the the the oatmeal and is it Lam is it Le is it is it K budget right what what's the reason so it's very hard even for balabusta you you quiz them she might just be doing that cuz her Bubba did it exactly right and it works it works what's so so we went to R so he said that okay we're going to make percentages and that is um so 25% or more is LAM CL um less than 15% is lvic it's called lvic now this obviously I mean is is 1.6% so but means your kav is to put it in it's interesting not a lot of cereals fall in between 15 and 25% when they do then you have to done on you're saying it's usually either less or more correct so something like a Froot Loop cereal is going to be misus because in Froot Loops you have you have U the the amount of is enough that's what's the first ingredient sugar sugar I say sugar corn or corn sugar or baby only sugar I think I think it's and then weed is later later correct I I I want I don't know CLA what if it's sugar and corn or corn and then sugar or just or sugar is definitely up there but the would be misus misus because it's enough there something like Captain Crunch cereal is a is a small percentage and I even once spoke to the company um many many years ago and they told me the following when they when they test the cereal they they you know the people it's interesting parosa to be a tast a taste tester right they make a batch and they want to make sure it's good before they release it to the public and they taste it they say the taste profile they're tasting for corn and they're tasting for sugar MH and that's that's what they're looking for so if the sugar is a little bit too sugary pule it's not enough sugar not sweet enough pule corn a little this way a little that way most consumers can't even tell the corn like you you could tast sugar but like what's corn but if you're professional then you can taste it and they said we don't we don't our taste testers don't taste for the the oat profile in here therefore that was a Rya plus you know we found it was a lower percentage that was that on that now again B on this I tell you what comes out but that is that's so that's and cial you can look at two labels and you see one second this is corn and this is dogun but unless you know percentages percentage or or the kavana which or the percentages which allow you to understand this then you're able to to know what the Paka what cereal is now on this topic talk about glutenfree cereals right so glutenfree so gluten-free are going to be um so gluten-free cereals are are typically going to be free of the real gluten-free cereals are going to be free of and therefore they're going to be a Shak now however some might have some oat content but where this really spills over to are rols gluten-free this is really leaving a little breakfast topic but such a topic and it's the G you know cous because we're giving on you know an array of baked baked goods and now you have um recipes that use other ingredients in order to make these rolls or the bread gluten-free but here here's the issue if a person is totally gluten-free they cannot they get sick from it so they're po they're pabas because they get sick I know someone who tells me they bench because they get sick mat they push themselves and they even though they're sick for a few days I mean whatever their stomach they're willing to do it for the mitah mat and that's it right but okay but so we're not talking about that because they they're not going to eat it at all but there some people who need a limited amount of could only manage on a limited amount of they could get by limited oats are the are the least problematic so what they want to do is they want to have an oat um gluten-free oat roll in order to be so so here you get into all sorts of issues because if you have a little bit of oat flour so here you might have 15% oat in your rooll and it's enough to trigger ham because it's the rest of it is going to be um Zen gum and tapioca flour which are all Shak you got you got but one second have you been shabas right because you need you need a kazas of of of pass in order to to to have shabas what's of pass so here it's not going to be triggered by that's going to make you to make the because it's a roll but it's not a bread but it's not going to necessarily allow you to to to have the to be and for benching as well and for benching also the easiest way out is to have 51% amongst the flowers you don't need 51% Le to be the water or the salt or the yeast and so but if you take your various flowers right you have um you know old flowers 51% and now the rest of the 49% is the Tapioca And The Zan gum and maybe corn and and so on now that entire pass is going to be all need is one k i mean the for which is a little more than however you could be with one and if a person has these issues condition right then then have one Kaz all you need is one Kaz of this finished product and you're done if you have 25% oats so now already you have to start the pent you may need several kazm of this to beab because you can't you can add the sugar because that's coming to be is to be the things that are coming to be mat the pass which means the sugar and the salt or whatever but not the other typ flowers other flowers are competing so to speak so now you got to done how much what percentage is in here you may need two or three Kaz some of this only 30 or 35% of what you're eating qualifies correct so now you need so now it's You' you're trying to minimize you're going to have three Kaz of 25% you might be better off making a roll with 51% right very very Nea very very important M very interesting okay thank you so much for shedding light than important topic\n"