written by Av Sinensky
Every single time I go to a supermarket, 7/11, or vending machine, I am confronted with the same overwhelming frustration: the lack of hashgacha on Lays' KC Masterpiece potato chips. Here's the problem: regular Lays' potato chips are kosher and KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce is kosher. So why is it that when you combine the two it all of a sudden becomes treif? Is there something involved in the chemical reaction when these products are combined that makes it not kosher?
Based on my many years of Jewish education and careful analysis of the logic and reason that causes things in our religion to become forbidden, I have devised a list of theories that may explain why KC Masterpiece chips can't have a hashgacha:
1. The rabbis instituted a gzeirah against this flavor of chips lest a person think all flavors of potato chips are kosher and eat them all.
2. Someone might see me eating these chips and mistake them for pork rinds, which have a similar appearance, causing a maris ayin problem.
3. Eating KC Masterpiece chips would bestow man with ultimate knowledge, which would inevitably lead to his downfall.
4. It is well documented that Christains eat KC Masterpiece chips. Allowing Jews to eat them as well would lead to intermarriage.
5. Minhag avoteinu b'yadenu. You think Avram Avinu ate KC Masterpiece chips??
6. Eating KC Masterpiece chips would be mocking the dead, who are unable to eat them.
7. If we allow you to eat KC Masterpiece chips, it might lead to using them to build a raft on Shabbos.
8. A blind person can't tell the difference between KC Masterpiece chips and regular chips, which would result in a possible lifnei iver problem, so we prohibit them altogether.
9. Shmos 17:16 reads “Ki yad al keis kah.” The word “keis” should be “kisei” (chair) but is famously missing a letter. Many commentators say that this letter was removed as a remez to KC Masterpiece chips, which you would otherwise think are kosher, but the Torah comes to teach us that they aren't.
10. When Yaakov fought the angel, there was a bag of KC Masterpiece chips in his pocket that got crushed as a result of his battle and anything damaged as a result of this feud can't be eaten.
11. Mixing 2 types of things together is kilayim and is patently assur.
12. If we allow you to eat them, they would be pareve, which means you can eat them together with dairy. However, the bbq flavor might give you a tayvah for meat, which may lead to you eating meat and milk together.
13. Not eating something that we should be allowed to eat confuses the satan.
14. A bag of KC Masterpiece has 365 chips in it, which corresponds to the number of lo tasseh's in the Torah, hardly a good omen.
15. These are a special type of chips and you might be come to carry them 4 amos in reshut harabim to show them to an expert.
16. In the manufacturing of the chips, there might be a spot that isn't covered in BBQ sauce, which could be a problem of gabruchts.
17. The name of the chips are gayvadik. There's only one Master- the Ribono Shel Olam.