REGULATIONWATCH: The Federal Government's Salad Dressing Recipe
After re-reading Peter Jaworski's piece in the Western Standard commenting on the ridiculous regulations relating to the content of baked beans sold in Canada, I decided to examine the Food and Drugs Act and its accompanying regulations to review other government-prescribed food ingredient lists for the latest installment of REGULATIONWATCH.
While PLVQ readers are encouraged to review the consolidated regulations if you are interested in seeing more provisions of Canada's food governance regime, I've decided to include for your pleasure the government-mandated content of "salad dressing" below:
B.07.042. [S]. Salad Dressing
(a) shall be a combination of
(i) vegetable oil,
(ii) whole egg or egg yolk, in liquid, frozen or dried form,
(iii) vinegar or lemon juice, and
(iv) starch, flour, rye flour or tapioca flour or any combination thereof;
(b) may contain
(i) water,
(ii) salt,
(iii) a sweetening agent,
(iv) spice or other seasoning,
(v) an emulsifying agent,
(vi) citric, tartaric or lactic acid, and
(vii) a sequestering agent; and
(c) shall contain not less than 35 per cent vegetable oil.
Lest you think that violating the government's recipe chart is entirely benign behaviour, here are the corresponding penalties for a violation of the act and/or its regulations:
Offences and Punishment
Contravention of Act and regulations
31. Subject to section 31.1 every person who contravenes any of the provisions of this Act or of the
regulations made under this Part is guilty of an offence and liable
(a) on summary conviction for a first offence to a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars or to imprisonment
for a term not exceeding three months or to both and, for a subsequent offence, to a fine not exceeding
one thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both; and
(b) on conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term
not exceeding three years or to both.
Offences relating to food
31.1 Every person who contravenes any provision of this Act or the regulations, as it relates to food,
is guilty of an offence and liable
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding $50,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding
six months or to both; or
(b) on conviction by indictment, to a fine not exceeding $250,000 or to imprisonment for a term not
exceeding three years or to both.
And I thought government bans on smoking in private establishments were excessive.
posted by ROC @ 7:18 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
There was a time in NZ where you could buy a "meat pie", and not be at all sure of just how much meat it would have in it.
Occasionally people would complaint that the mouse inside did not taste at all like the beef that was supposed to be in the pie, or that the bandaid was a bit on the chewy side.
Well, as a result of government regulation, every pie must now contain a minimum proportion by weight of solid meat (which I suspect of being old horse but that is a different story), a maximum proportion by weight of piecrust, and the balance as gravy containing not more than... of flour and thickeners.
Yep, they have improved.
After doing the bean story, I pitched the idea of a regular feature at the Western Standard aimed at finding absurd regulations. Ed-in-Chief Libin wasn't so fond of the idea, although he did encourage me to find more silly regulations and to report on them. It would have been something like your 'RegulationWatch.'
The Bean story was recently picked up by the Reader's Digest in Canada. They even added a nifty cartoon to the story (you can see that here.) The most interesting part of this whole experience was talking to one of the regulators about the regulation. I've posted that conversation on my blog here . Have a listen.
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