I would tell them, because it’s the right thing to do. Also, if they later find out that you knew and didn’t tell them they would have no reason to trust you in the future.
I have a good friend (and business partner) who is a Chabadnik. He won’t even have a glass of water in our house. I suppose he might accept a store-bought bottle of water, but I don’t even bother anymore. I have eaten at his house a number of times, but I can’t return the favor.
Assuming there is no health issue involved, why is it the right thing to do? It happened in the past, was unintentional, and made no actual difference. On what basis should you trust people to tell you things they didn’t know about at the time, and again, makes no actual difference?
If you died before telling them they’d never know. Never have any need to know. It would be exactly the same as if it never happened. I suppose you might have a problem keeping this to yourself, but why does that obligate you to make this a problem for someone else?
It made no difference because you didn’t tell them. If you had, it might have. It’s not my decision whether it’s important, I prefer to let them decide. Physically/medically it may not make a difference. But emotionally/spiritually, it may. I defer to them to decide.
I used to work with several Orthodox Jews who kept strictly kosher. They all talked about traveling away from their homeland of the NYC metro area and needing to find some food going to grocery stores and buying canned tuna fish and vegetables they could wash and examine themselves to determine could not be non-kosher in any way. I can see avoiding eating food prepared by someone else who might unintentionally have done something unapproved, but there are foods that they can determine are acceptable. One would not eat meat not approved by a Rabbi they did not know, but still were able to find sustenance they could eat if necessary.
@thorny_locust , if someone is sincere about their beliefs shouldn’t they know better than to eat something not clearly labeled in its contents?
I can understand maybe if this was your spouse and you had that kind of relationship with to tell them everything you know in this circumstance but I don’t think this is typical of most relationships. These circumstances would typical arise only with people less close to you, friends, acquaintances, colleagues, etc., not someone you are obligated to inform of this kind of detail. You certainly may hold yourself to this kind of standard but I think you are burdening someone else with a problem you have when you don’t know that it would matter to them. Not like you are doing something wrong either, but they may not trust you any more than if you had not told them, but still think less of you even bringing this up.
This is true, but I feel I owe it to them to be honest about what happened. The scenario here is that this was an honest mistake on my part, nothing malicious or careless. If the other person feels poorly towards me because of it, so be it.
One reason to tell the parents in the OP’s scenario is to make it clear to the parents that having their kid convey their dietary restrictions to another kid and trusting it will get to the parents and be understood is not really a good way to ensure the restrictions are met. There’s little chance that a non-halal kid is going to know what halal means. And kids are pretty bad in general about conveying things to their parents. In the future, the parents should contact the host family and verify themselves that they understand what halal means and they’ll have halal-compliant food.
But in general, I would think that it’s not reasonable to expect hosts to comply 100% with these kinds of dietary restrictions. There are too many ways for prohibited foods to make it into the meal. If the host knows the guest can’t eat pork, they won’t do something like serve pork chops, but they may not realize that pork may be included as an ingredient in other foods. For instance, the baked beans mentioned in the OP may have had bacon fat as one of the ingredients. So even if the pork loin hadn’t been included in the chili, there could have easily been non-halal ingredients in the smorgasbord of stuff added to the “clean out the fridge” chili.
A child, who has told his friend that he only eats halal, and doesn’t realize that the friend not only has no idea what that means but won’t mention it to the cook?
I have fed vegetarian and vegan friends; most of them adults. They’ve never demanded to see the labels, nor would I expect them to. Admittedly, they do have some reason to expect that I understand the difference; and I check with the particular vegan about things like honey,
I would expect a cook who was genuinely trying to comply with dietary requirements to check for such things. I can see slipping on something like gelatin, which many people don’t realize usually has animal origins; but checking for bacon fat in baked beans is certainly something I would have done.
If I didn’t know what was in some of what I was contemplating putting in a clean-out-the-fridge dish, I’d either leave such ingredients out or not serve the dish to people with dietary restrictions; or at least warn them, ‘I don’t know for sure that there isn’t any meat/dairy/whatever in there’. Would you think it acceptable to serve something to a person who you’d been told was severely allergic to peanuts if you didn’t know whether it contained peanut oil and hadn’t bothered to check?
My ex had a 54 yr. old son that was celiac. On 2 occasions he ate dishes that I had cooked that had flower in them. I read up on it a little and decided to just keep my mouth shut. He suffered no ill effects.
A problem is that someone unfamiliar with a peanut allergy may not know everything they need to look for. They would probably understand not to feed the person peanut butter, but they might not think to read the ingredient label of everything they use in the meal to ensure it doesn’t have peanut products. For instance, they may make meatballs with bread crumbs, but not realize the bread crumbs have peanut oil. Also, there may be derivative products which aren’t immediately recognizable as coming from peanuts. I’m not sure about derivative peanut products, but this is common with gluten. First off, I’m not sure that everyone understands where gluten comes from. But even if they know it comes from wheat, they may not realize it’s also in other grains like rye, barely, spelt and triticale. And they may not realize gluten may be in unexpected things, such as soy sauce and as thickeners in soups. So even if someone has good intentions, unless they actually have experience with that food allergy, they can easily end up serving someone food that has the allergen in it.
I used to be invited from time to time to Shabbat at the parental home of a friend of my ex-wife.
I like to bake, so I looked into what would be necessary for me, a non-jew, in a non-religious house, to produce a kosher challah bread.
It is actually suprisingly easy: basically, wash anything that you are going to use in seawater, and don’t let anything unclean touch them.
Unfortunately I was not eager to take my expensive oven down to the beach for a cleansing!
Our friend and her parents were observant but not extreme, they were happy for me to make it in my own unclean kitchen when I offered, and grateful when I produced a very professional looking loaf.
I did once get a lot of gentle-hearted mockery from a different, totally non-observant Jewish friend for making a challah during Passover, which is apparently not kosher. I ate it anyway. He probably would have too.
What can I say? I like challah!
I was mainly referring to adults purchasing labeled food. Feeding children does require extra care though.
I worked at a locally-owned bagel bakery/restaurant in the New Haven area that was definitely not kosher; I think I remember eating a bacon cheeseburger for lunch. But on Fridays we baked challah bread for the Friday evening dinner. I was told never to use those loaf pans for anything else.
I presume you mean flour, not flower? and that it was a type of flour containing gluten?
How do you know he suffered no ill effects? Does he report to you how much time he spends in the bathroom and what the output is like, or report to you every time he has a cramp? And some of the effects can be long-term damage not easily attributable to a particular meal.
True. Which is why, if they’re informed the person has a peanut allergy, they ought to either find out what they need to look for, and to read the labels on any multi-ingredient product they intend to use; or else to not provide food for the person with that allergy.
Potentially killing somebody because you refuse to do either of those things, or because you don’t want to be bothered reading labels, is not a great idea.
Actually yes he does, his mother had decided she wanted to try a few secret flour introductions to see if it affected him. He was diagnosed strictly on symptoms and no definitive tests had been taken. Sometimes with celiacs this is done to rule out the placebo or anti placebo affects.
You would be correct if this was an adult. When you take a child into your house, however, you stand in place of the parent and take on more responsibilities than that of a mere host.
For example, it is your responsibility as a parent to enforce bed time. If Johnny’s parents say he must be in bed by 8:30pm, and you learn of this rule, you have to make the choice whether to respect their rules or not as applied in your house. Johnny may not be your child but he is staying at your house and thus you enforce the rules regarding bed time. If you find your charge sneaking around at 9:00pm, you decide whether to ignore him, send him to bed, discipline him, tell his parents, &etc.
If Johnny’s parents say he must pray before every meal, again, that is a rule that his parents aren’t there to enforce while he stays at your house. Once appraised of the rule, you have to choose whether to respect it. If you find him eating without prayer, you decide whether to ignore it, remind him to pray first, discipline him, tell his parents, &etc.
If Johnny’s parents say he is only supposed to eat halal food, again, that is a rule that his parents aren’t there to enforce while he stays at your house. You don’t have to enforce the rule, but once appraised of it, you have to choose whether to respect it. If you find him eating non-halal food, you decide whether to ignore it, remind him that food isn’t halal, discipline him, tell his parents, &etc.
If Johnny’s parents say he is supposed to inform the chef about his dietary restrictions, that is but another rule that his parents aren’t there to enforce while he stays at your house. You don’t have to enforce the rule, but once appraised of it, you have to choose whether to respect it. If you find out he didn’t inform the chef, you decide whether to ignore it, remind him to tell the chef (next time), discipline him, tell his parents, &etc.
In the general case - how do you know it made no actual difference? How do you know it would be exactly the same as if it never happened? Aren’t you assuming the dietary restrictions don’t make an actual difference? By not telling, you are saying you don’t respect the basis of the restrictions. You are saying whatever their religion or morals might say about prohibited foods, it isn’t worth the inconvenience to you and your relationship. You’ll tell if a food allergy is involved because you think allergic reactions cause real harm, but violating a religious/moral rule (that you don’t believe in) isn’t real harm.
~Max
I think you might be talking about something different - it’s one thing to decide it’s too inconvenient to follow someone’s known dietary restrictions. That absolutely shouldn’t happen. But it would be a very strange religion that would hold that a person could sin unintentionally or would expect the person to take any action if they unintentionally broke a rule * - and in that case, it wouldn’t be a matter of bliss over religious adherence. It would be bliss or worry/guilt over something they couldn’t do anything about.
In the particular case of a child in the OP , I would probably try to find a way to let the parents know they shouldn’t count on communication going from their kid to another kid to the parents. TBH, in the story in the OP , I probably would have called the kid’s parents to make sure it was OK with them for him to stay unless the kid was in high school and I’m guessing they were a bit younger than that.
* there actually used to be a joke of sorts, about what happened to all the Catholics in hell for eating meat on Friday and dying immediately without confession when the rules changed so that it was only forbidden during Lent. And the answer was they’re still in hell, because the sin was never eating meat, the sin was in disobeying God. Which didn’t happen if it was unintentional.
Decades ago I had friends over for a football game. They brought their kids. I made a roast. An ostrich roast. The adults all knew I was serving ostrich, and they were cool with that.
A little boy was asking for a third helping. His mom laughed and said, “I guess you don’t know you are eating ostrich”. He looked at me and I confirmed it was indeed an ostrich roast.
The kid became hysterical, vomited repeatedly. and was crying. He’s in his mid 30s now and hasn’t gotten over it.
I would put that on his parents. That reads to me as if they knew the child would be upset – maybe he was wild about ostriches and kept wanting one for a pet, or something of the sort.