Turning leafy vegetables into a paste
Question
In my backyard I grow parsely, corriander, mint, and celery and I wanted to ask if there is any way for me to make them edible from a halachic perspective? If not, is it possible to turn them into a paste by grinding them, and then the principle that a partial organism is nullified in a ratio of 1:60 would apply (I understand that with strawberries you can grind them and turn them into ice cream). Thank you.
Answer
1. Chazal’s guidelines are that we have to check the leaves before eating them, so you can check each leaf to the sunlight. If you don’t find any insects, you can eat them.
2. If grinding them is the standard way of preparing this food (like crushing chickpeas to make hummus), you can rely on the total grinding/crushing process to nullify any insects present. The reason for this is that crushing/grinding is the regular food preparation process, and it is not done only to nullify the forbidden organisms, rather the nullification occurs as a result of the standard crushing/grinding process.