Is it permitted for a person to eat something dairy then wash out his mouth and then eat a meat meal? Is there a waiting time between the dairy food and the meat food? or can the meat food be eaten immediately after the dairy as long as the person washes out his mouth?
Please include sources.
Thank you.
Answer:
After eating dairy one must wash out one’s mouth and eat bread (or something else that clears the mouth of dairy residue), and it is then permitted to eat meat (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 89:2).
If this is done there is no need to wait.
If this cannot be done, one should wait half an hour, which is the common custom, though it has not concrete halachic source. The Gemara only notes that it is permitted to eat meat after milk
Best wishes.
That’s only true if both were not in the same meal, plus the Shach brings that even if he hadn’t washed for bread he must make the after berocha on the milk food as well as to eat and drink imbetween before meat can be consumed.
Also if he ate the milk food with his hands, he must wash his hands first as well.
All true – thanks for the additions.
If one wishes to eat dairy and meaty at the same meal, the table must be first cleared of dairy foods and dishes, or the tablecloth removed. Then one must Wash out one’s mouth and eat bread or something that clears the mouth of milky residue. One need not recite birkas hamazon (though some require it; see Mishnah Berurah 494:16. It is true that one must ensure one’s hands are clean, and some write that one should wait half an hour (Hagahos Maimonios).
can’t we learn from the shach 89:7 that one should wait an hour if he did not clean his mouth, and from taz 89:2 even more than hour. Even though they are speaking about waiting after eatinf meat, since they are discussing the obligation of kinuach and hadacha there should be no difference between cleaning after meat than with cleaning after dairy.
My understanding of the minhag to wait a half hour is even after cleaning the mouth.
Yasher Koach for this wonderful forum
See Mishnah Berurah 494:16, where we see that the principles outlined by the Shulchan Aruch and the Shach do not apply to going from milk to meat, but only from meat to milk.
The customs of waiting an hour or more applies specifically to waiting after eating meat, for the same reasons that the custom of waiting 6 hours applies only to this case (because it is the way of meat to get stuck in teeth, or because of the lengthy digestion time, and so on).
I do not think there is a universal custom of waiting half an hour, but it is true that many simply don’t know that washing out one’s mouth helps.
Best wishes.
Regarding what was said that a half hour is enough even if one did not clean his mouth:
My understanding of the minhag of waiting one hour is even after one cleaned his mouth – this is only after eating meat.
If one does not clean his mouth – then there is a machloket between the shach and taz if the mouth cleans itself after one hour. Granted that they are speaking about after eating meat. But, according to the minhag of waiting one hour there is no chashash of meat stuck between the teeth, since m’ikar hadin all you need is siluk, kinuach vehdacha and washing hands. In this respect the only difference between meat and milk is the requirement of siluk. Therefore according to this minhag the kinuach and hadacha accomplishes the same thing – whether after eating meat and whether after eating dairy. Therefore – we see from the Shach that one hour is in lieu of kinuach and hadacha and according to the taz one hour is not enough.
regarding the half hour – my understanding is that a half hour is after kinuach and hadacha – not instead.
Thank you again.
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