But there’s more: most soy yogurts are DE/D, because the live cultures are typically grown on dairy proteins. The temperature to encourage growth would be warm, but not very hot. How warm is too warm?

For myself, I note that Silk admits to sharing all but one factory with companies who use dairy. So we are now considering the cleaning habits of not one, but multiple companies. And yet, I find the whole business somewhat arbitrary. Graham crackers, for example, are typically made on shared lines with dairy - and I’ve seen a number labeled pareve. The list of exceptions and eyebrow raisings go on…no wonder the dairy allergy folks are going a little crazy over here. Thankfully, allergy is not halacha - halacha is far more forgiving.

For myself, I pour soy milk into coffee. So, I treat Silk as if it is milchigs, and go buy my soymilk from Whole Foods. Their house brand, at least, is pareve!

Before they were certified by the OU, Silk soymilk and yogurt were all Scroll-K DE.

Purely Decadent, a premium soy-based dessert made by Turtle Mountain (makers of So Delicious), is sometimes certified California-K DE (other varieties are Heart-K parve), as is So Delicious yogurt.

Organic Valley soymilk is also OU-D and says next to the hechsher that it contains no dairy. One would have to check with the OU as to whether it is halachically DE or actual dairy. Whole Foods 365 Organic soymilk is parve, as are several others.

Be happy — its the Nine Days, and we all get a break this week from fussing over how long we are going to be fleishig!

You can also definitely eat the pareve-but-DE food cold on meat dishes (at least as long as the food isn’t spicy/sharp, which complicates matters) because flavor isn’t transmitted through cold contact.

It gets more interesting if you want to eat it hot on meat dishes. I think some authorities permit it, while others may not. Any flavor transmitted from the food to the plates is Nat bar Nat bar Nat (3rd generation flavor), while any meat/milk flavor in the food itself is 4th generation (dairy item -> dairy pan -> pareve food + meat food -> meat plate -> pareve food, so there are 4 steps between meat and milk). Sephardic poskim, who generally follow the position Nat Bar Nat l’hetera l’chatchila (2nd generation tastes are permissible even preferably), would certainly allow this because they even allow you to eat pareve-but-DE food directly with meat. Ashkenazic poskim generally hold Nat Bar Nat l’hetera b’Deavad (2nd generation tastes are permissible only after-the-fact). Now I think most Ashkenazic poskim allow 3rd and 4th generation flavors, which would mean that you can indeed eat the DE food on meat dishes even hot. See http://rabbi.bendory.com/docs/kashrus/kashrus02.php for a similar conclusion.

1) after meat meals
2) on meat dishes

Devon: Good question. I’ve wondered about that, too. Anyone?

DeisCane: Silk doesn’t make dairy products, so the dairy the equipment is used for is probably for something made by a sister brand.

Eden Soy is certified kosher parve by circle-k. (I think West Soy may be parve, too, but I don’t really like the way it tastes.)