Do Lay's BBQ flavor chips contain meat?
No.Here are the full ingredients… Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (Sunflower, Corn, and/or Canola Oil), BBQ Seasoning (Sugar, Dextrose, Salt, Malted Barley Flour, Torula Yeast, Molasses, Maltodextrin [Made From Corn], Natural Flavors [Including Natural Smoke Flavor], Spices, Paprika, Corn Starch, Tomato Powder, Garlic Powder, Yeast Extract, Onion Powder, and Paprika Extract).
I found Serrano Ham Pringles that have kosher OU Certification. Is it correct?
Why not? Pringles are slices of fried potatoes. What is treif about fried potatoes?The flavoring added to the chips was not made by killing a pig. The flavoring is a chemistry set concoction of smells and tastes designed to (a) remind consumers of the taste of serrano ham, and (b) be easy to manufacture and use in the chip manufacturing process.
Why is Spanish ham forbidden in the US?
Near as I can tell it isn't. Jamon iberico can be found in specialty markets in the US. It's just absurdly expensive. It is illegal to buy it in Spain and import it as a private citizen for personal consumption because imported meat must meet American health standards, so only meat processed by facilities authorized by the USDA can export Spanish ham to the United States.In the early 1990s there were several outbreaks of African Swine Fever, a haemorrhagic fever (think Ebola) that afflicts porcine species, in Spain. The USDA banned imports of Spanish pork products because it feared that the disease to could spread to porcine populations in the United States. The Spanish began an eradication program in 1992 to eliminate African swine fever from their country, but until 2009 the USDA was still not satisfied that this had been completed and only afterwards decided to relax the ban. It was newsworthy that Spanish ham was available in the US in 2011: Top Spanish Ham Makes It to the United States Because of the health implications, the USDA regulates the facilities where the ham can be prepared, and until 2005 all facilities that could export Spanish ham to the US were located outside of Spain. You can buy Spanish ham a quick jaunt away from where I live at Despaña Brand Foods, a specialty retailer, and Fairway, a local supermarket, for roughly $150-$200 per pound.Edit: I should note that worldwide, lobby groups will typically pull all sorts of shenanigans on agricultural product import restrictions for legitimate-sounding reasons to extend these bans when they occur. I've no doubt that the ASF outbreak in Spain was under control a few years after, but that the USDA dragged its heels on moving forward with relaxing the ban. Japan has famously used health as an excuse to ban imports of US products that compete with their high cost producers. And in the news recently, US beef producers strongly protested that allowing the resumption of Argentine and Brazilian beef into the US potentially exposed American cattle to Foot and Mouth disease, despite the USDA signing off on the resumption of imports (http://www.foodsafetynews.com/20...).