So, I suppose a hechsher on something like soap might be justifiable on the basis that soap could conceivably be edible. The hechsher serves to tell us that this soap is either not edible, or it is is made entirely of kosher ingredients. Something like aluminum foil seems more problematic because that is clearly not edible, but I wonder if foils are ever coated with a film of some edible substance. Again, I think that is very unlikely, but I don’t know much about that industry.

Thanks
Sioux

It is a pet peeve of mine that things that were universally kosher in the old days are no longer acceptable because they don’t have a supervising agency, eg, many shnaps and fish from a non-Jew. This is madness and it ain’t cheap. And I don’t buy that trash that they protect the unwitting consumer.

Part Two: In Europe, they put out large lists of acceptable foods that have no certification. For example, see the London Beit Din’s kosher guide. The main reason for that is that they have so few certified products by comparison to what we have here. Yet, in spite of that, they manage to keep kosher by having a good knowledge of the products that are GRAK (generally recognized as kosher). Over on the Kosher Nexus, we have on occasion listed many GRAK items (plain seltzer, regular tea, etc). We need to know more about the things we buy as Jon pointed out. Not everything needs a hechsher. Why filtered spring water carries a hechsher is beyond me.

Part three
Every year, products come on the market with a hechsher that leaves us wondering. In the Kosher Nexus, we wrote about KP window cleaner. I guess if you run out of plates, you can eat off the window. Really- KP window cleaner? Was P T Barnum Jewish?

Part Four
I have to agree with Jon. Rubbing Alcohol should not have a hechsher. It frightens me that someone might drink the stuff. And according to the research I did, it seems that people do drink the stuff all the time and end up in the hospital. Some even die.

Part five
Easy hechsherim (like on spring water)do not cost very much, and the low fees that the hechsher company collects may be used to off set the much higher fee they might have to collect from someone else. So, in the end, it is a trade off. Company X pays a little, but it allows the hechsher company to subsidize Company Q. So what could be bad? Alcohol with a hechsher seems bad to us.

I always get a kick out of KP bleach.

Look, I can go to my dentist and say, for whatever crazy reason, that I need a molar pulled- even though there’s no legitimate reason for doing so. He can either refuse and, possibly, recommend that I see a psychologist (correct answer), or he can reason that I won’t be easily talked out of it and I might find another dentist who’ll humor me and pull the tooth, so he might as well make a few bucks for himself (wrong answer!).

My point is, it’s the rabbis who are advocating the current wave of stringencies, and their congregants aren’t going to ease up until the rabbis say it’s okay.

The CRC also maintains a few useful lists:
Spices
Dried Fruits
Booze

I was also told a story of a food manufacturer who asked an agency to certify the machine grease that lets cans move freely along their conveyor belt. Since the request was absurd, the agency refused, but the manufacturer insisted they had to have kosher machine grease. It was discovered that the manufacturer misunderstood his rabbinic administrator who demanded that all supplies entering the facility have kosher certification. The agency spoke with the rabbi, cleared up the situation, and kept the company from paying unnecessary fees for irrelevant certification.

It’s healthy to question authority, but ultimately the consumer and his dollars hold the power. If it weren’t lucrative for companies to certify their products, they simply wouldn’t do it.