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I was recently posed the following puzzle:

You have a pot of meat. You put in milk. It becomes pareve. How can this be?

Any ideas on how this is possible?

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closed as not a real question by Isaac Moses Jun 16 '11 at 15:31

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

2 Answers

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From Ohr Sameyach's archive, #156:

Mix 1 fluid ounce of beef gravy with 59 fluid ounces of water. We don't have 1:60 yet, so the pot is "meaty." Then pour in 1 fluid ounce milk. The pot now contains 60:1 against the milk, but also 60:1 against the meat. It's therefore pareve.

Compared to my previous answer:

-- Both answers only work if there are no recognizable pieces of meat.
-- This answer is better in that the milk is "normal" milk.
-- This answer is also better in that the pot is really, really pareve (human milk, while pareve after-the-fact, should not be used to cook with meat, as it looks really weird!)
-- The previous answer is better as the only ingredients are in fact "meat" and "milk"; not "very dilute meaty substance."

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Are you allowed to do this? Or would this count as a problem of אין מבטלין איסור לכתחילה? – Curiouser May 30 '11 at 14:56
Yes you'd be allowed to do so; at no point was there a pot of "issur" that you diluted. You took one thing that was 100% kosher (albeit dairy) and added another that was 100% kosher (albeit meat). – Shalom Oct 28 '11 at 0:15
You have a meat mixture and you are intentionally adding milk to it. When the first drop of milk hits the meat mixture, you are nullifying it l'chatchila, no? – Curiouser Oct 28 '11 at 2:37
Nope. The prohibition is to take something that is right now non-kosher, and add something to it. Pot A is kosher, Pot B is kosher. – Shalom Oct 28 '11 at 12:40
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If you look at Ohr Sameach's answer, you will see they are talking about how does one "have" such a mixture, not "make" such a mixture. They don't say "mix", rather they say "falls in". So your "recipe" is, I think, ossur. If you disagree, find a source to allow it. – Curiouser Oct 28 '11 at 19:55
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If the milk was halachically pareve to begin with (e.g. human milk), and you added 60:1 by volume against the meat, the result would be pareve.

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Would that help if there are recognizable peices of meat? – Bas613 Jan 11 '10 at 2:53
No, it wouldn't. This assumes everything became a mush, or the meat was liquid to begin with, or something. – Shalom Jan 11 '10 at 3:43

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