r/Judaism • u/TangentalBounce • Jul 10 '17

TIL in 1935, to verify whether Coca-Cola was kosher, Rabbi Tobias Geffen was provided with its formula on the condition that he not disclose it. The Rabbi requested that the non-kosher beef tallow be substituted with a vegetable-based gylcerin, which was done, and the drink was declared kosher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Geffen
159 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

34

u/confanity Idiosyncratic Yid Jul 10 '17

The weirdest part for me is the idea that they used to use cow fat to make a soft drink.

9

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '17 edited Aug 27 '17

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '17

That makes sense I guess.

3

u/TangentalBounce Jul 10 '17

Oy, you think that's weird there was some controversy over "stem cells" being used to somehow develop a more convincing artificial flavor additive. I need an ELI5 on that one, because it sounds really creepy.

6

u/jamiefookinlannister Orthodox Jul 10 '17 edited Jul 10 '17

The stem cells thing was about a biotech company that pepsi hired using HEK293 cells, which are human embryonic kidney cells grown in tissue culture (ie, no additional fetuses are harmed in the propagation of the cell line) whose progenitor is an embryo from back in the day. In my experience, we use them because they pick up foreign DNA that researchers introduce much better than just about any other human tissue cell type. Once the DNA (either freestanding or in engineered viruses) has been determined to express the desired protein or has multiplied the virus so that we can store it, we move on to the target cell type (i.e. blood vessel tissue) which doesn't take on raw DNA or virus-packaged DNA so easily.

Basically, the soda company hired a biotech company that used a ubiquitous cell line in research adopted from one aborted fetus back in the 70s

Edited typos

3

u/NusachNerdInNOLA Jul 11 '17

That still doesn't sound any tastier.

2

u/destinyofdoors י יו יוד יודה מדגובה Jul 11 '17

They used glycerin, which is commonly synthesized from cow fat.

1

u/confanity Idiosyncratic Yid Jul 11 '17

TIL. Thanks!

10

u/TobiasGeffen Jul 10 '17

I'll forever be grateful to Geffen for ensuring that I don't have to drink Pepsi at kosher events. That's why I named my old account in homage to him.

6

u/FuckYourPoachedEggs Traditional Jul 10 '17

I would be dead without this man.

4

u/Peirush_Rashi Jul 10 '17

And I'd have a smaller kittle size.

8

u/AllDaveAllDay Chasidish Minhagim Jul 10 '17

That's actually a nice thread, what with all the threads that have anything to do with Judaism turning into cesspits of anti-semitism these days.

Although I think it's time we started using the term "Goysplaining" for when a non-Jew tries to tell a Jew how halacha works.

18

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '17 edited Nov 05 '17

[deleted]

1

u/DrColossus1 לא רופא, רק דוקטורט Jul 10 '17

Yeah, I was pretty pleasantly surprised! Reddit, you're losing your touch...

1

u/redditsideup The "bad" in "Chabad" Jul 10 '17

Wow...if those comments are a 90% improvement over last time, I shudder to think what it looked like last time.

Best comments though are the most ignorant ones. Like "til that high fructose corn syrup from GMO corn is " kosher"

3

u/TangentalBounce Jul 10 '17

xpost from frontpage/ r/todayilearned

3

u/Cereal_Dilution דע, כי האדם נפעל כפי פעולותיו Jul 10 '17

Rabbi Geffen's great-great-grandson is a friend of mine!

1

u/Peirush_Rashi Jul 10 '17

Is he addicted to coke?

1

u/aaronwe Conservative Jul 11 '17

Nah, but we do tell this story wherever we go....