Passover restrictions

Passover restrictions

During Passover, there are additional food restrictions in Orthodox Judaism; in this branch of Judaism, leavened products are prohibited during the festival. Jews who are concerned about accidentally consuming leavened food, during passover, typically maintain an entirely separate set of crockery and cutlery for Passover; it is also common for those concerned about such things to rigorously clean their homes, to ensure that even the tiniest of remains of leavened products are removed. Some Jews even have a separate kitchen exclusively for use during Passover.

Products made from the traditional five species of grain, which might have been inadvertently moistened after harvest, and thus begun to ferment (an aspect of the leavening process), are regarded by Orthodox Jews as prohibited during Passover; the five species are conventionally viewed to be wheat, rye, barley, spelt and oats, although the latter two may actually refer to emmer (sometimes confused with spelt, which did not historically grow in the Middle East) and two-rowed barley.

Among the Ashkenazi Jews there is an additional customary practice of avoiding the consumption of kitniyot (literally meaning little things) during Passover; the list of items regarded as kitniyot varies between communities, and can include things such as rice, legumes (including peas, peanuts, and beans), and corn. Due to the prevalence of corn syrup in certain well-known processed foods, such as Coca-Cola, many items common in western countries are regarded as impermissible by Ashkenazic Jews during Passover. [For Passover consumption, some companies produce products similar to their standard versions but with Kosher-for-Passover ingredients. Coca-Cola, for example, produces and distributes kosher for Passover Coke, made with cane sugar instead of corn syrup, in the U.S. during Passover since Rabbi Tobias Geffen certified Coca-Cola as kosher 1935.