Garbage disposal question (probably stupid)

No cite, just experience with a plumber who said “the disposer has to go on that side”. Of course that was 10 years ago.

I just got off the phone with my current plumber and he says it can go on either, or both sides. So I either misunderstood, or was misinformed. :smack:

What is the difference between mixing meat and dairy in the sink and mixing them in the drain beneath the sink?

(I know, I should have waited until Friday…) :slight_smile:

Yes - a friend of mine did this when they remodeled their kitchen. She likes not having to worry about where her husband dumps the table scraps - I guess he was bad about dumping them into the wrong side.

As others have said, there’s a cost tradeoff however.

No, I hadn’t. That would be handy for those who won’t use the same dishwasher for dairy and meat. Our rabbi said it was OK to use the same dishwasher, though (we’re Conservative), so we do.

You’re not allowed to eat a mixture of milk and meat. We keep separate dishes, so no milk or mixed milk and meat touches our meat dishes (we will eat off non-kosher dishes in restaurants or in somebody else’s home, but we keep ours kosher). Once the meat and dairy have gone down the drain, they’re not going to touch our dishes, and we’re obviously not going to eat them (I suppose it’s theoretically possible that our cats might try, but cats, even Jewish gefilte-fish-loving cats like ours, aren’t required to keep kosher), so no problem. We don’t keep separate garbage cans for meat and dairy, either, for the same reason (well, we do have two garbage cans, but that’s for recyclable and non-recyclable).

I thought we weren’t allowed to mix them, period; that I should clean the meat dishes before putting dairy on the dishes, in the sink or the drain. I’ll look up Telushkin when I get home.
:slight_smile:

You’re not supposed to derive benefit from any mixture of meat and dairy. So you can’t sell cheeseburgers, even if you only sell them to non-Jews (this one doesn’t come up for us, as our jobs don’t involve preparing food). I don’t derive benefit from stuff that I’ve poured down the sink or thrown in the trash- in fact, I pay the city to take those things away.

No, but it’d be way cool if you did have a cat who kept kosher.

I don’t know why, but the idea tickles me.

Ah, thanks!

Good luck stacking dishes in that center bowl where the disposer lives.

I think the suggestion was to pile meat dishes on one side, milk dishes on the other and still have a disposal open for use.

Friends of mine have this exact dishwasher. I never in my life thought I would have appliance envy but I was wrong. :wink:

This is what did when we remodeled our kitchen. Interestingly enough, when I went over our plans as part of getting the electrical permit, I had them on separate circuits. The inspector said to make it easier and put the dishwasher and disposal together, so that’s what I did. During the final inspection, the inspector (a different one) said they’re supposed to be separate. I mentioned the first inspector, and he grumbled something like “Oh, him.” But at least he let me leave it together.

When we looked at them, but didn’t buy, the salesman said that the way some folks use them is to put the dirty dishes in say the top unit. Then when they are clean they don’t empty the drawer until they set the table. Then the dirty dishes go in the bottom drawer while the top drawer still has clean dishes. Eventually all the dirty dishes are in the bottom unit and the top unit’s empty. Run the bottom unit and reverse the process. It sounded reasonable, but I’m not sure it would work out too well in practice.

I was responding to

I understand what the suggestion was, I was responding to Anne Neville’s objection.

Actually, I think it would be great for your situation, since you only have to fill up half a dishwasher to run it, very similar to the two sides of the sink. Plus everyone who has them raves, so they must be cool.

As for the garbage disposal, the hardest part is getting the old basket out. We’ve installed a few on old sinks, and that part’s a bitch. Putting in the actual disposal is quite easy, but hooking up the plumbing can be difficult.

We’ve always had cheap disposals, and have never had a problem with any of them, but I guess YMMV.

Got it!

I just picked up one of these. There’s a few different veraties, but this one worked of me.

A plumber told me that a lot of the problems he sees with garbage disposals is that not enough water is flushed through them to prevent clogging. He advised that when the garbage is sufficiently disposed of, leave the water running for about a minute (or what seems like a minute) to make sure the the pipes are flushed.

The extension of that thinking is that you should not run both units at the same time because you could overload and clog the drain pipes. Always make sure they are flushed well. An expensive unit is probably worth it. The better ones will handle stuff (like celery) that can get into the drain before it is really chopped up sufficiently. One call to the plumber will probably make up for the difference in cost.

I get the kosher thing. If it make you feel better to have two separate units then go for it. Again, you primary consideration should be overloading and clogging the drain pipes.

Yeah, we have one of those too, but we’ve put garbage disposals in 3 old sinks and every time we ended up spinning the whole thing–the top wouldn’t come loose from the bottom without considerable struggle. We always got it eventually, but it was a pain.

I’ve lectured Mr. Neville on this a few times…

Some people take the “don’t derive benefit from a mixture of meat and milk” to the extent that they won’t buy pet food that contains such a mixture. I don’t buy pet food where the main ingredient is pork or shellfish, because that would just seem weird, even though I think it’s allowed. Some people also buy kosher-for-Passover pet food, because you’re not supposed to derive benefit from chametz during Passover, and most pet foods contain chametz of some sort.

We don’t go that far, though the Neville kitties think we have perfectly good kosher-for-Passover pet food, namely gefilte fish and the frozen ahi tuna steaks I got from Costco earlier this week (frozen fish doesn’t need to be certified kosher for Passover if you buy it before and it’s not breaded or anything like that). They would like to live on sashimi and gefilte fish for eight days of Passover, I’m sure.