4 ms·

As someone who lives in France that's an interesting article; I've never heard of or seen this condiment before. Wine and Cheese are highly regulated in France

by Stevvo 5y ago

As someone who lives in France that's an interesting article; I've never heard of or seen this condiment before. Wine and Cheese are highly regulated in France under the AOC system in order to preserve French culture. Is the same thing going on the US? The FDA is protecting the American culinary culture of 'french dressing'?

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Is the same thing going on the US? The FDA is protecting the American culinary culture of 'french dressing'? That's not what's going on. French dressing is not a significant part of American culture; I'd be willing to believe a majority of Americans have no idea what it is. (I cannot recall ever seeing or hearing of it either, though it's probably visible as an option on restaurant menus.) Salad dressing in general is very common, but French dressing isn't. The wording of the decision implies that the rule was justified on basically "truth in advertising" premises - the worry was that customers might rely on the label "French dressing" and be fooled into purchasing something they didn't want: > After a comment and evaluation period, the FDA determined "that the standard of identity for French dressing no longer promotes honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers [...]" There's no real way to know what the motivation actually was. A very neurotic regulator may have genuinely been worried about innovation in French dressing. Or something else might have been going on. A somewhat similar issue that I also learned about from coverage in Reason is that the FDA imposes some "nutritional" requirements on products that are labeled "pasta", notably a minimum iron content. "Noodles", by contrast, are unregulated. (The words are synonymous.) In that case, the legislative history is apparently fairly clear that the motivation for regulation was protecting "pasta" manufacturers against economic competition from Asian imports. But the official justification is that these are nutritional standards on which customers rely. (Obviously false; the number of people in the US who are even aware that the definition of "pasta" is regulated is nearly zero.)

by Stevvo 5y ago

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> Is the same thing going on the US? The FDA is protecting the American culinary culture of 'french dressing'? That's not what's going on. French dressing is not a significant part of American culture; I'd be willing to believe a majority of Americans have no idea what it is. (I cannot recall ever seeing or hearing of it either, though it's probably visible as an option on restaurant menus.) Salad dressing in general is very common, but French dressing isn't. The wording of the decision implies that the rule was justified on basically "truth in advertising" premises - the worry was that customers might rely on the label "French dressing" and be fooled into purchasing something they didn't want: > After a comment and evaluation period, the FDA determined "that the standard of identity for French dressing no longer promotes honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers [...]" There's no real way to know what the motivation actually was. A very neurotic regulator may have genuinely been worried about innovation in French dressing. Or something else might have been going on. A somewhat similar issue that I also learned about from coverage in Reason is that the FDA imposes some "nutritional" requirements on products that are labeled "pasta", notably a minimum iron content. "Noodles", by contrast, are unregulated. (The words are synonymous.) In that case, the legislative history is apparently fairly clear that the motivation for regulation was protecting "pasta" manufacturers against economic competition from Asian imports. But the official justification is that these are nutritional standards on which customers rely. (Obviously false; the number of people in the US who are even aware that the definition of "pasta" is regulated is nearly zero.)