How The Progressive Grinches Stole Passover

Kosher for Passover Coca Cola is a favorite of Jews and non-Jewish Coke aficionados. In 1980, Coke eliminated sugar from its recipe and substituted hi fructose corn syrup.  Since corn is not Kosher for Passover for Ashkenazi Jews they go to an all sugar recipe during for the Passover season.  While  there are other changes, to the aficionado the holiday recipe comes closet to the taste of Coke they remember.  Some Coca Cola fans have been known to purchase cases of the Passover version to last well beyond end of the holiday.

And of course Jews love the opportunity to keep drinking their favorite soda during the holiday.  But in California it's off the menu.

Coke directed its suppliers last year to change the way they manufacture caramel to reduce levels of the chemical 4-methylimidazole, or 4-MEI, which California has listed as a carcinogen.

Although the manufacturing changes didn't affect the formula or the taste, the resulting product doesn't meet Jewish dietary laws for Passover, the company said.

As a result, the company announced that it will not offer "kosher for Passover" products in California until 2013.

Some might say, "But its a carcinogen," and 4-MEI may very well be, at least according to the "People's  Republic of California." But then again, California has its own rules, and the product is available in all other states (for Obama fans that's 56 other states).

Kosher markets in California are trying to "import" Kosher for Passover soda from other states, creating something of a black market for that yellow-capped soda.

This is what happens when the nanny state runs amok. They become the progressive grinches that stole Passover.