Clinical Insight: Does Pareve or Parev Really Mean Milk-Free?

For many years, milk-allergic persons have used the kosher designation “pareve” or “parev” to mean that the food is milk-free and therefore “safe.” Pareve (which means “neutral” in Hebrew) products are considered milk or dairy-free from a religious standpoint and meet Jewish Dietary Law requirements and thus have kosher certification.

However, from a food allergy standpoint, pareve may not mean 100% milk-free. Equipment that has been cleaned to the kosher certification specifications may still contain trace amounts of milk or trace contamination from airborne dust in the food plant. These trace amounts of milk in products labeled “pareve” do not violate religious law, and these products can still be labeled as such. However, these products could present a problem for the exquisitely milk allergic person or child. Kosher labeling does help identify products that do have milk, such as “kosher dairy (D)” and “dairy equipment (DE)” designations, but relying on pareve-labeled products to be milk-free is not recommended.

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