After 800 Years, Rice, Beans, and Corn Are Now OK for Passover (2024)

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After 800 Years, Rice, Beans, and Corn Are Now OK for Passover? ›

The ban has been in place since the 13th century, but it's always been controversial. In fairly recent history, it's been overturned. According to NPR, in December of 2015 an international group of conservative rabbis made the decision that it's acceptable to eat rice, beans, and corn during Passover.

The original reasons behind the custom of not eating kitniyot during Passover are not clear. Suggestions include: The grains which form chametz are commonly found mixed into kitniyot. Therefore, someone who cooks kitniyot may inadvertently eat chametz.

These new kosher foods have always been a part of the diet of Sephardic Jews, whose ancestry goes back to the Middle East, North Africa and other areas around the Mediterranean Sea. Legumes and grains are considered kosher, and rice, bean and lentil dishes have long been served at Passover.

Actually, three groups of Rabbis in the recent past have met and, independent of each other, ruled that both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews should be permitted to eat rice, corn, and kitniyot during Passover.

Traditionally, the category of forbidden foods on Passover — known as hametz — was defined as the fermented products of five grains: wheat, spelt, barley, oats and rye.

The fact that quinoa wasn't a known food when the prohibition was enacted, while an important factor, is by itself insufficient to exclude quinoa from kitniyot, explained Rabbi Rabinowitz.

This includes all beans, peas, rice, corn, millet, buckwheat, even sunflowers (partial list). However, coffee beans and cocoa beans are not really beans. They are actually the seeds of a fruit that grows on a tree. They are not harvested in a manner similar to the five grains, nor are they used to bake bread.

During Passover, Ashkenazi Jews traditionally stay away from not only leavened foods like bread, namely barley, oats, rye, spelt, and wheat, but also legumes, rice, seeds, and corn. The ban has been in place since the 13th century, but it's always been controversial. In fairly recent history, it's been overturned.

Along with wheat, barley, rye and spelt, oats are one of the “five grains,” which can become chametz when brought into contact with water. On Passover, it is forbidden to eat or even own chametz. Oatmeal (and most other oat products) is therefore not kosher for Passover.

You don't have to give up potatoes to balance your meals—just add something to them! Pesach is the perfect time to experiment with potato-combination dishes. How about a baked potato topped with other veggies, like broccoli or spinach, and a bit of cheese?

Can Jews eat peanut butter during Passover? ›

Additionally, it should only contain ingredients that are specifically designated as kosher for Passover, like 100% peanuts that have been processed solely through pasteurization. By following these guidelines, you will be able to eat peanut butter during the Passover holiday.

The matzah (a thin, cracker-like flatbread) that we eat on Passover is baked under controlled conditions that do not permit the thin bread to become leavened. The pasta we eat year round is made from wheat flour and is not baked under those conditions. For this reason we do not eat it on Passover.

Grains to avoid are wheat (such as wheat berries, spelt, kamut, farro and bulgur), rye, barley and triticale. Oats are technically gluten-free, but they carry a higher possibility of cross-contamination during manufacturing.

This group of foods—which includes rice, beans, corn and peanuts—was originally banned because the items were often mixed with wheat, which Jews refrain from eating during Passover except in the form of an unleavened flatbread called matzah, David Holzel reports for the Times of Israel.

YES TO QUINOA

The CRC recommends inspecting quinoa before Passover by spreading "one layer of quinoa at a time on a board or plate" and checking to be sure that there are no other grains or foreign matter mixed in with the quinoa"—a time-consuming exercise that Jews rushing to prepare seders are unlikely to embrace.

5. Popcorn. Good news for movie lovers — if you eat kitniyot during Passover, you can keep your popcorn throughout the festival.

The kitniyot controversy harks back to medieval times. Ashkenazi rabbis decided that eating kitniyot should be prohibited because their similarity to chametz might confuse people. It's a little more complicated, but that's the gist. Thus, cutting out kitniyot became the minhag (custom) among Ashkenazi Jews.

Matzos which are labeled “Not Kosher for Passover” are made without a full-time mashgiach present during production, and the water used in kneading the dough is not mayim she'lanu (specially drawn water).

During Passover, Ashkenazi Jews traditionally stay away from not only leavened foods like bread, namely barley, oats, rye, spelt, and wheat, but also legumes, rice, seeds, and corn. The ban has been in place since the 13th century, but it's always been controversial.

Halachos of kitniyot

Although one may not eat kitniyot , one may own and derive benefit from kitniyot. Therefore, on Pesach one may keep cans of sweet corn in their property or feed millet to their parrot.