Is it Permissible to Drink Cola Worldwide?

If you're among those who never leave our Holy Land and don't drink beverages imported from abroad, even if that abroad is very close and located at the edge of the village of Bitunya, you may not encounter the kosher issue we'll discuss. But if you're among those who do travel the world, and sometimes find yourself somewhere far away, exhausted from the heat, needing a sugary, colored drink to revive yourself and taste the artificial "taste of life," you'll find this question interesting - is it permissible to drink Coca-Cola anywhere in the world?... And if not from everywhere, perhaps we can be lenient with beverages from our neighbors in the West Bank and "territories"?

To understand the problem, let's begin with some background: There are many brands that can be seen almost anywhere a human foot has stepped on Earth. But make no mistake: it's no longer a single factory producing for everyone. Today, it's a patent distributed to the highest bidder, who uses the name and brand, producing the product in their own way. The base must be consistent, but many ingredients can vary according to the franchisee's discretion. One brand that best symbolizes this phenomenon is Coca-Cola, which produces its essence under a veil of secrecy in a special factory in Ireland. However, the remaining ingredients - water, sugar, carbonation, etc. - are added by the franchisee themselves, including one very basic material left to their decision: glycerin.

Indeed, until 1935, God-fearing Jews avoided consuming the famous cola from Coca-Cola, due to reasonable concerns that its ingredients included non-kosher materials, or those whose kosher status was questionable or disputed among halachic authorities. And truthfully, these concerns had solid foundation. As was discovered in those years, Cola contains glycerin.

Glycerin is a sweetening agent, even extremely sweet to the point of bitterness, and only after mixing it with many liquids can one sense the sweetness it provides. However, its main role is to connect water with other stabilizing materials and flavor and scent components, creating a kind of thickness and stability for the drink, and ensuring it doesn't change during its shelf life. For example, preventing the color from settling at the bottom of the bottle, and keeping the taste similar to what it was when the bottle left the factory.

Glycerin is produced from a type of fat, and here begins the kosher issue. What fat source is used for glycerin production? Is it produced from palm oil and the like, or possibly from animal fats, as was the case with cola in those days?

Eventually, the owners of Coca-Cola factories in the United States agreed to replace these forbidden ingredients with other kosher ones, and only then was kosher certification granted to Coca-Cola by Rabbi Tobias Geffen z"l, who was then the Chief Rabbi of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. After his passing, kosher supervision in the United States went through several changes until today it is provided by the "OU," and likewise in our country we merit Coca-Cola that is kosher l'mehadrin.

But all this applies to those countries. What happens in other countries of the world, in Europe, throughout the Americas, and even what is the status of Coca-Cola quickly imported from Gaza? Here we enter an endless debate...

There is a rumor, originating from one of the rabbis involved in the kosher certification of Cola in Israel, that Sprite can be consumed without concern... but Cola is problematic, even forbidden. They explained that kosher Cola is produced in special production, six times a year in Ireland, after all raw materials are thoroughly examined, including the secret formula of the drink. Only after the glycerin is replaced with plant-based glycerin. According to this claim, Coca-Cola Company prefers for their own reasons to use glycerin made from animal fats. Since glycerin is sixty percent as sweet as sugar, and therefore the FDA considers it a carbohydrate, Coca-Cola (wanting to maintain a uniform sweet taste across all types of Cola worldwide) is careful to calculate glycerin's sweetness as part of the drink's sweeteners. However, in the special kosher production, glycerin derived from animal sources is replaced. If indeed this is the case, Cola without kosher certification is forbidden to drink, because one benefits from sweetness derived from animal fats.

On the other hand, rabbis providing kosher certification abroad, and the vast majority of European rabbis, strongly claim that Coca-Cola Company uses, at least throughout Europe and North America, only plant-based glycerin. Therefore, according to them, there is no concern about drinking Coca-Cola throughout Europe, because besides glycerin there is no kosher issue with consuming Cola. This is true for the rest of the year, excluding Passover, which is a separate topic for discussion.

Thus, even Cola produced in Bitunya has made headlines, with questions about whether it is permissible to drink, whether it differs from its European counterparts, and in truth, a fierce debate continues about the source of the glycerin...

In conclusion, even when glycerin is derived from animal fats, there is a major discussion among contemporary poskim whether it should be completely forbidden, since during production, there was a stage where the forbidden fat completely lost its taste and natural form, and perhaps its status as forbidden was nullified. However, Torah scholars always understand the preferred path in such doubts: to proceed with caution, to distance oneself from dangers, and heaven forbid not to get lost when all around one sees the effervescent taste of life...

Courtesy of "Oneg Shabbat" Torah supplement of Yom L'Yom