Big Government in action: FDA busybodies target... 'vegan mayonnaise.'.

Via Reason comes this charming look into the soul of a federal food bureaucrat:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed the labels and website labeling for your Just Mayo and Just Mayo Sriracha products in June, 2015. The label for these products directs the consumer to your website at the Internet address www.hamptoncreek.com. We examined your website in June, 2015. Based on our review, we have concluded that these products are in violation of section 403 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) [21 U.S.C. § 343] and its implementing regulations found in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 101 (21 CFR 101). You can find the Act and FDA regulations through links on FDA’s home page athttp://www.fda.gov.

[snip of violations]

The above violations are not meant to be an all-inclusive list of violations that may exist in connection with your products or their labeling. It is your responsibility to ensure that your products comply with the Act and its implementing regulations. You should take prompt action to correct the violations cited in this letter. Failure to promptly correct these violations may result in regulatory action without further notice, such as seizure and/or injunction.

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Normally this would be the point where I note that I wouldn’t eat ‘vegan mayonnaise’ – or, indeed, ‘vegan’ anything – on a bet; except that after reading that letter I’m tempted to take a selfie of myself doing precisely that, and then send the video to the FDA. And I’d be doing it aware that the average consumer of vegan mayo probably wouldn’t return the courtesy, too. It’s a really obnoxious letter, not least because of the entire sense of absolute entitlement that comes off of it.

Having established my good faith on this issue, let me gently point out to the vegans that this sort of thing is not something that happens despite of Big Government; it happens because of Big Government. This is what Big Government does. It meddles. And it is curiously amoral in its meddling, too: the bureaucrat who sent that letter (one William A. Correll, Jr., Director of the Office of Compliance in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition) probably doesn’t care about vegan mayo in the slightest. But it doesn’t matter: when the State wants something, it will try to accomplish it whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s vegan mayo or raw milk or medical marijuana or same-sex marriage or regulating ditch-water or any other topic. The State does not ask ‘why’ one must obey; it simply requires that obedience takes place.

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And that’s why small-government conservatism exists. Because it doesn’t matter if you think that the issues mentioned in the paragraph above are not equal in importance; the State does, and it will expend resources as available and prudent to enforce compliance with the State’s rules on the subject. And everybody has an issue or situation in which they’re in disagreement with the State. Everybody.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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