<< As I said earlier I understand why the letters are there and I can understand its motive for capturing a larger market. But why put it on laundry detergent or something that isnt anyway remotely connected with food. >>
Could simply be a way of indicating that even if it's not a food product, it isn't made with products that practicing Jews might wish to avoid. I'm just pulling that out of my own erse, so that could be wrong.
<< but why hide it when your a sizeable population. To me it seems that corporate america hides the symbols so to hide the existance of the reason for doing so. If their product is kosher why not label in bigger letters in a place where I will find it. >>
I'm not sure what you're looking for....I'm a Christian, but I've known for quite some time what the K an U and Pareve indicated. It's really unnecessary to make it such a plain marking.
Think about it this way:
If you only eat kosher foods, then you probably know which foods are kosher and which ones aren't. You don't need it plainly marked because you already know. For a few products that may be new or you just forgot whether they were kosher or not, you just need a little indication.
Also, making in big letters something like "Ore'Ida KOSHER French Fries" would probably turn away a large number of people in thinking the food is weird, or is only meant for Jewish people at Passover time.
A friend of mine went to Israel and came back with a bag of Cheetos that had the K on them. She had the bag on her wall. It was significant because in the US, Cheetos are made with gelatin (comes from chicken bones) and cheese, thus they can't be kosher. In Israel, a special kosher recipe is used.
The bags have a K on them just to let people that care know.
If they were KOSHER CHEETOS, I'd probably dodge them the same way I dodge Matzos.
<< However Mc.Donalds didnt counter the rise of vegetarian hindu's who recently found out that their fries sold in the united states of america are tainted with a beef extract. >>
This particular issue has been hashed and rehashed on ATOT and other places, and the bottom line is more that FDA labelling specs required that McDonald's said they were fried in pure veggie oil, but did not have to mention the beef extract because it was added at the production stage, and it also may not come from beef at all (it can be synthesized).
In this case, the FDA regulations have a shortcoming. The beef extract was always listed on the ingredients.
McDonalds was following FDA labelling rules....K, U and Pareve are voluntary and not government-related, so there really isn't any correlation between the two.
