DailyDirt: Serious Food Regulations That Don't Sound So Serious...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are plenty of cases where food regulations are reasonable safety measures, but sometimes there are serious government decisions that sound a bit ridiculous (eg. the Supreme Court deciding that a tomato is a vegetable in 1893). Here are just a few examples of more recent politically-charged food proposals. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.
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Filed Under: food, gmo, meatless mondays, pizza, prop37, regulations, usda, vegetable


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 19 Oct 2012 @ 5:25pm

    the USDA should suggest meatless fridays...

    during Lent, and see how that goes over.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    abc gum, 19 Oct 2012 @ 6:15pm

    Many people actually read the list of ingredients on packaging and believe that GMO should be listed, this is a contentious issue for many reasons blah blah blah. But the attempt to block competitors from stating that their product does not contain something (GMO, hormones, whatever) is simply ridiculous. If a product actually does not contain some ingredient and the producer believes this fact is a selling point which needs to be advertised, then they have a right to do so.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    JeroenW, 19 Oct 2012 @ 11:34pm

    So.... A recommendation, which people can ignore, of having one meatless day is being lobbied away? Despite that fact that it would be a simple way to do something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Rekrul, 20 Oct 2012 @ 1:32am

    Great, now I have a craving for pizza...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Oct 2012 @ 7:51am

    Re:

    We have a person, an animal and some oxygen producing plants inside a room. Not eating the animal, instead consuming one of the plants and letting the animal consume another so so can reduce that terrible greenhouse gas known as oxygen.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Joe Escalante (profile), 20 Oct 2012 @ 10:33am

    Meatless Mondays

    They could have piggy-backed on the Meatless Fridays tradition already in place (for centuries) and followed by tens of millions of Catholics like me all over the world. We would have helped. It's rather dismissive to try to start a new campaign on Mondays just because you hate Catholics. Missed opportunity. Fail.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    DNY (profile), 20 Oct 2012 @ 10:35am

    Secular Fasting (a.k.a. Meatless Monday) vs. Christian Fasting (Wednesdays and Fridays and....)

    In the Orthodox Church, we are bidden to fast on almost every Wednesday and Friday, throughout the 40 day Nativity Fast, the 50 day Great Lent, the variable length Apostles' Fast, and the 15 day Dormition Fast. Fasting consists not in not eating (though there are periods when the strictly observant do that for a day or a few days running) but in eating less than usual and abstaining from all products of vertebrates (meat, milk, eggs, though on certain days fish is permitted), from olive oil (some say all cooking oils) and from wine (and strong drink, some hold beer counts, some don't).

    I and my coreligionists jolly well aren't going to go meatless on the Mondays when Holy Mother Church allows us to eat meat just because the USDA or some pack of officious we-know-what's-good-for-you health nuts or "save the planet" do-gooders tells us we should eat less meat for the health and environmental benefits. I invite anyone who thinks people in general should eat less meat to join us on our schedule of not eating meat, from which they will gain more of the same benefits advertised for meatless Mondays (albeit without the alliteration -- of course, "Lunes sin carnes", "lundi sans vivande",... don't alliterate).

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    Joe Escalante (profile), 20 Oct 2012 @ 10:49am

    Re: Secular Fasting (a.k.a. Meatless Monday) vs. Christian Fasting (Wednesdays and Fridays and....)

    Well put. These Meatless Mondays people are clueless.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Oct 2012 @ 6:30am

    Re: the USDA should suggest meatless fridays...

    Does anybody actually observe that anymore?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    Joe Escalante (profile), 21 Oct 2012 @ 10:35pm

    Re: Re: the USDA should suggest meatless fridays...

    Millions do, millions don't. The rule is you have to either give up meat on Friday, or pick another penance. It's very simple but it's a common myth that it's not required anymore.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Oct 2012 @ 2:42pm

    Re: Re:

    By the year 2065, you're saying, we'll be overwhelmed by cow breath if we remain vegetarians.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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