Suite Dreams

Kosher Breakfast Hacks

So, you're on vacation and the hotel has a free continental breakfast. What can you eat? What must be avoided? Rabbi Sholom Tendler - Kashrus Administrator at the STAR-K gives us some seasoned travel hacks for our next vacation.

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R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus, presented by the Kashrus Awareness Project and the Chicago Rabbinical Council. Today I am privileged to be joined by Rabbi Sholom Tendler, kashrus administrator at the Star-K. Thank you Rabbi Tendler for joining us once again.

R’ Sholom Tendler: Pleasure, thank you for having me back. Appreciate it.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Today we'd like to discuss a very important topic, something that comes up, perhaps at one time it would have been only during the summer or only during travel season, but now people seem to be traveling all over all year round and we get inundated with questions about what people can eat, what they can't eat, they're staying at hotels, staying in hotel rooms, so on and so forth. So let's start with a basic question that we get, which is when people are staying at hotels, they want to know if they could eat from the free breakfast that's offered, the often known as the continental breakfast. Give us a little guidance as to what people may or may not eat in such a setting.

R’ Sholom Tendler: Sure, popular, very common question. Just a little background and that is is that, we're not just coming over here from people calling us with questions and we deal with restaurants and things like that, so we'll answer your questions. We all travel too in the kashrus world, not just on vacation. Personally myself, I am a 1k member on United, so we're out and about, we are out there having the same situations that everyone else is and we've, as they say, been there and done that ourselves.

So we've been to these continental breakfasts in the hotels and we've been able to see because we're also hungry and we want to know what's going on in there. So the first thing I would tell you is is that you really have to check, there are potentially a number of items that could be enjoyed by the kosher conscious consumer, but it's something that people really have to check into. And the reason for that is is because let's go through some of the more popular items, the bagels, the breads, the muffins. So obviously if they're prepackaged, usually in cheaper places, you could see for yourself is a hechsher on the package or not and make your own determination.

Often they're just put out in the spread, loose. In that kind of situation, you really want to ask to see the box. And don't just go over to the front desk or the lady who's setting up and say, are they kosher? And they'll say, yeah. Maybe someone was there previously and asked, maybe yeah, maybe not.

At the end of the day, you have to recognize the fact that they don't keep kosher and I always like to tell people, keep in mind that the most upstanding, ehrlich non-Jewish person has as much care about kashrus as you have for halal. That's not a political statement, but just think about it, you're not in tune to the nuances of what we're looking for. A story that just happened recently, I love saying this over is that we had an event, a waitress comes over to one of the mashgichim and asks to borrow a phone charger. Right? And she takes the phone charger, goes over to the wall, and is about to plug it in, turns to the mashgiach and says, can I plug it in, or you need to plug it in? Right? So you see Baruch Hashem they're well trained, but they also have no clue what we're trying to do over here, really no clue.

So that's something you have to keep in mind. When you're asking your question, you have to really confirm everything yourself. And I always like to throw it back at the people. If you would call us, I work for the Star-K, and say how do you certify that factory? Very simple.

We call the factory and ask them, is it kosher? And they say yes, so we issue them a letter of certification. You'd run the other way, rightfully so. Why would you do that to yourself? Right? So ask to see the box. Maybe it's Lender's Bagels or something like that, one of the well-known brands that has a hechsher on it.

That's fine. You want to confirm that. The other thing you want to be concerned about potentially is that they a lot of times they will reheat them in an oven before they put them out loose to defrost them, reheat them to give them a little more fresh tasting, a little fresher. So the best thing would be is you could try to ask them if they reheat them.

Otherwise, take a bag right out of the box, take bagels straight out of the box. Maybe it's a little bit frozen, might be a little bit defrosted. Still, that's the safest thing to do and usually they're more than happy to accommodate. I've been in many situations myself, they're they they try to accommodate guests as much as possible.

You can tell them a kosher rule, don't worry, they're not going to ask too many questions and people always wonder, oh it sounds weird. I'm very self-conscious asking those questions. Like listen, in America, walk out in the streets, you're not weird, okay? It's just your religion, Baruch Hashem, we're doing it because of your yiras shamayim. Ask the question, you'll be fine, you'll get an answer.

Worst case scenario, they'll say no. I've never had that happen to me before. Never.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: I think that's good to hear.

R’ Sholom Tendler: Never had that happen to me before and I've been in the situation many times. So that's as far as the bagels go. Moving on to other items, there's the hard-boiled eggs. We got a lot of questions about that.

So first of all, hard-boiled eggs, bishul akum, right? Not for me who just learned that recently, straight up bishul akum. So there's really no heter on that unless they're buying them already cooked, which is possible. You get commercial. With a hechsher.

They come in like a big a big bucket with a hechsher on them, and then obviously that would be okay, but you want to confirm that. The waffle maker, just stay away. I have seen so many situations with the waffle maker. They don't necessarily always use the same brand.

They tell you they do. Again, same thing. Because they told you you do, you're going to rely on that. There's plenty of stuff that they put on there that might not be 100% kosher.

They they re-oil it often in the kitchen as well. Just just it's not worth relying on the waffle maker. Will I tell you it's treif if you get a waffle off there because you did it already this past summer when you were traveling? I'm not going that far to say that, but again, we're talking about people that when you travel. we're yirei Shamayim, we try to do the best job possible.

So this is something that in general people should be aware of. It's not so simple, you should try to stay away from it. Even the toaster oven, whether it's the pop-up toaster or the belt toaster. I have seen myself, because I've been in many hotels, what goes on in those things.

First of all pop-tarts, which a lot of them are not kosher, go in the pop-up toaster, and then on the conveyor toaster, many times people are putting all kinds of things in, they're warming up their pizza from supper. I have seen this. Hot dogs, right through there. Wow.

That's as far as that goes. As far as the cereals go, same thing, check the box. Most of the time it's just the regular Cheerios and Raisin Bran that they have that you'll buy, the Kellogg's or General Mills, whatever. Sometimes it's the Malt-O-Meal, all pretty much kosher, but that's something again you should confirm.

Apple juices, orange juices, 100% pure juices typically are considered okay. Cranberry juice is not. Cranberry juice is very often, very often, have grape juice added as sweetener because they're very tart. So that's something you'd want to avoid unless it has a proper hashgacha on it.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: How about if they have non-dairy milk? like almond milk, things like that, oat milk. First of all, do those need a hashgacha?

R’ Sholom Tendler: They do need a hashgacha. You'd be hard pressed to find without a hashgacha in the United States at least. But very common now, especially to someone like myself who is lactose intolerant, I'm very in tune to it.

Everybody has those available, so especially for the cholov Yisroel conscious consumers, it's something that's a big boon. And those are some, those are things that are pretty much available in many, many places. Oat milk, by the way, if you're makpid on yashan, at some point in the season would be a yashan problem. Okay.

So just keep that in mind as well.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Okay. How about coffee and tea and hot water in that setting?

R’ Sholom Tendler: Those are those are going to be okay. Those are going to be those those machines are only used for plain coffee.

They're not using anything funny or flavored or Frappuccino’s or refreshers or any kinds of things that make coffee shops potentially complicated. It's straight, simple, plain coffee which is kosher. in those things. And obviously the cheeses would have to be kosher.

Very unlikely you're going to find kosher cheeses in a type of hotel situation. Yogurts as well. There are some, let's say, yogurts that have a very reliable hashgachos. You could have the same brand of yogurt that doesn't have a hashgacha on it.

There's anytime you have that, there's a reason for that. And in this kind of situation, yogurts typically contain gelatin. If it does not have a reliable hashgacha, it's almost guaranteed it contains treif gelatin in it. So that's the reason why it doesn't have a valid hashgacha on it.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: As far as utensils, plates, bowls, if they don't have disposable, is there any way that you could use these items on cold and things like that?

R’ Sholom Tendler: So typically cold, especially if it's derech arai, then something you could rely on, but it's not geshmak. Derech arai, I would say most poskim would be meikel on it, but ideally you want to just stick to disposable. If they don't have it available, bring your own. Obviously if a hotel has fresh cooked to order items, those, there's nothing to talk about, they're made in a treif kitchen, there's nothing really you can get from such a menu.

In the hotel room itself, let's move to that. So you have the coffee maker in the hotel room, whether it's a Keurig, whether it's a single serve cup. Those are pretty much okay. They don't really make treif Keurig cups anymore.

They used to make soups, they don't make those anymore. If you want to be extra careful with the Keurig, you can just run it through a hot water cycle first to be extra careful. Even if they have the old-fashioned carafes, which I haven't seen in a while. The old-fashioned carafes again, I know during COVID, there was a guy that made a TikTok video how he made chicken soup in that thing.

But we're not in bachurim diras here, we're being so creative. Typically you don't have to worry about that, you could use the coffee machine in the room. Okay. The microwaves in the room, you should just double wrap everything you put in there.

In two bags, doesn't have to be mamash hermetically sealed. Any two bags would work. Even if it opens up a little bit, also it's okay. That's something you should do.

Don't bother trying to kasher the microwave unless you're experienced in kashering. Just just don't. Double wrap. Just double wrap.

Safest thing to go, safest thing to do, and stick to that.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: I want to go back just to one thing in the hotel. I think we we omitted, and it it comes up not only in a hotel setting but people traveling, they go to, you know, convenience stores and that is cut-up fruit.

Cut-up fruit in a hotel and cut-up fruit in, you know, you go to one of these convenience gas stations, sometimes they have them packaged. Talk about the cut-up fruit for a moment.

R’ Sholom Tendler: So again, so keep in mind with cut-up fruit, there are plenty of poskim, including Shulchan Aruch, that seem to say it will be okay if you don't see any treif residue on there. You could assume that there was bittel by the time the knives were finished cutting all the fruit.

And there's certainly merit to that, not that it needs my haskama to say that. At the end of the day though, just knowing what goes on in kitchens, it just does make me personally feel a little uncomfortable knowing that this was cut literally side by side with treif. And that is what goes on, by the way. That is what goes on.

Supermarkets may be a little bit better because they tend to have vegetable departments, but I've seen it myself. Not always. I've been in one supermarket where just because of space constraints, they moved the vegetable check vegetable cutting and fruit cutting into the meat room, because again, there's no allergen concerns. They couldn't move into the fish, they move into the meat room.

Did not make me so comfortable looking at that kind of a setup. Then you have places, let's say like Wegmans, where they have you can see in front of you a separate fruit and vegetable cutting department. So that really there's no problem with. And that you could do.

The other thing that I'd like to mention also is that especially when you're traveling. traveling, packaged fruit that you find in places that don't have a place area to cut up food. 7-Eleven, Sunoco's, Jersey Turnpike stores, they have cut up mangoes and cut up apples and things like that, 100% kosher l'mehadrin, even without a hashgacha. Those will come from companies that just package fruit and vegetables all day long.

It's all they do. And really no problem at all.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: You know where I've actually seen it? I'm curious. Very often in Manhattan, you'll find on the corner, on the corner you'll see like these little fruit shops under a little umbrella, and very often they're selling cut up fruit there.

Now, I would never buy it just because my my my kashrus antenna goes up. I don't feel comfortable.

R’ Sholom Tendler: I mean that guy brought those knives from his house.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Yeah, I don't know, right, exactly.

I don't know how comfortable I would be, some guy selling it on the corner. But you're saying when you're buying it in a store, very often it's it's being produced commercially or most of the time.

R’ Sholom Tendler: If the store doesn't have a place to cut fruit and vegetables, like a Sunoco station, 7-Eleven, they're getting it from a company that makes fruits and vegetables and that is 100% kosher l'mehadrin. There's no problem at all.

Thank you so much.