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Quote of the Day: Department of Agriculture and Fruit Cocktail
My quote of the day comes courtesy of some bureaucrat (or possibly some committee of bureaucrats) at the US Department of Agriculture on the requirements for Grade A fruit cocktail:
Peach. The texture is typical of diced peaches prepared and processed from at least reasonably well-matured fruit and the units may range in tenderness from slightly firm to slightly soft but possess fairly well-defined edges;
Pear. The texture is typical of diced pears prepared and processed from properly ripened pears or from pears of moderate graininess and the units may range in tenderness from slightly firm to slightly soft and may have slightly rounded edges;
Pineapple. The units are practically uniform in ripeness with fruitlets of compact structure, are reasonably free from porosity and are practically free from hard core material;
Grape. The units are reasonably plump and reasonably firm; and
Cherry. The units are reasonably firm.
Until I read this profound statement from our fine regulators at the USDA, I was totally unaware that fruit cocktail with porous pineapple fruitlets or soft cherries could not qualify as Grade A fruit cocktail. I am also now pretty sure that as a child I consumed some canned fruit substances illegally masquerading as fruit cocktail. As the Department of Agriculture makes clear, cherries must comprise not less than “2 percent by weight of drained fruit” and not more than “6 percent by weight of drained fruit” in order to meet the government definition of fruit cocktail. There were never enough cherries, and I suspect that most of the cans of fruit cocktail I consumed as a child failed to meet that 2 percent cherry threshold.
Here is the full 21-page set of regulations for fruit cocktail in case you are interested. (If you are in fact interested, you are probably either a Del Monte insider or just really bored with the lockdown.)
While I find the fruit cocktail regulations humorous and ridiculous, these are precisely the types of regulations that cause me to worry about the future of freedom in America. Apparently, we have a regulatory state which sees fit to use government power to regulate the shape of the peach slices which can be canned and then labeled fruit cocktail. This is exactly the type of regulation that crushes innovation, consumer choice, and competition to the advantage of Big Fruit. How can we reasonably consider ourselves free if the regulatory state seeks to interfere in even the smallest minutiae of American life?
Even worse, we have millions of Americans who are so fearful of free markets and consumer choice that they are eager participants in this soft tyranny. These are the Americans who think that absent the heavy-handed regulatory state, our cans of fruit cocktail would consist of nothing more than rotten pears, maggots, and swamp water. There would be no cherries at all! These bureaucracy worshipers actually think that closing the Department of Education would mean the end of schools or eliminating the Department of Agriculture would lead to mass famine. They don’t seem to trust freedom and markets.
Had these people been in charge, George Washington’s camp at Valley Forge would have been closed down by some 18th-century version of OSHA. The pioneers would have been forbidden from building their log cabins by some 19th-century incarnation of the EPA until a comprehensive environmental impact study on prairie dog habitat had been completed. And the Wright Brothers would have been put out of business by an early version of the Department of Transportation for misuse of bicycle parts.
We need a major retreat of the regulatory state, and I say we start by making illegal mixes of fruit cocktail.
Published in Group Writing
I’m surprised we consumers have no regulation to always eat fruit cocktail cherries last.
At least we still have that freedom, yes?
There’s an emotional cost as well. Everyone is walking around with the weight of these regulations constantly on their shoulders. It’s the main cause of depression, I think. We are all serving too many unhappy bosses.
A post well worth the wait. No apologies needed. :-)
Life, liberty, and pineapple chunks reasonably free from porosity. It’s in one of Jefferson’s early drafts.
I’m going to do it! We don’t need no stinkin’ peaches! Cherries should be at least 50%! Who’s with me?
This is the Quote of the Day, an ongoing project to help get more voices on the site. It can be the easiest way to start a conversation on Ricochet. (Some people do put in a lot more effort, of course.) Our sign-up sheet for December is here and still has six openings starting with the 23rd. We welcome new participants and new members to Ricochet to share their favorite quotations.
Another ongoing project to encourage new voices is our Group Writing Project. December’s theme is ‘Tis the Season. If you’re looking to share your own thoughts rather than those of others and have some ideas about the holiday(s) season we are entering, why not sign up there?
I have no problem with this. Have you ever been to a state fair? Perfection in a can has a long heritage in this country.
Absolutely. This is going to be called the cocktail war. Drinks are my weapon.
Battle begins at 4pm. (It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!)
AA,
Thanks. A bunch of very good comments and now a good article from you today.
Are you new?
(Points to the charter member button beside AA’s penname.)
As someone who has rarely indulged in fruit cocktail since childhood, when such indulgence was frequent, even I can remember that the missing presence of cherries was very frustrating.
Actually it may not be as bad as you think. In my cheese business USDA grading was voluntary. I could request an inspection of certain varieties of cheese and have it stamped USDA grade A. However I didn’t need to do that. I could represent the cheese to my wholesale customers as grade A without an actual stamp on the cheese. There were descriptions describing what grade A was just like the fruit cocktail if I asked to have it graded. Some customers wanted the stamp. It was not a free service by the USDA so I charged for it in the price. Many times a producer of a consumer product will use a USDA grade as a sales tool to differentiate themselves form the competition. In the cheese business I didn’t need my plant inspected by the USDA however if I wanted product graded they made the entire facility be inspected twice a year. I was one of two plants in Pennsylvania at that time to be USDA inspected. Some industries such as meat are not voluntary. I don’t think fruit is mandatory.
Not new, just frequent reader, much less frequent commenter, and very rare poster.
If you adhere to the FDR-liberal/current-libertarian notion of interstate commerce law, you are probably not going to fix this.
Agreed we have to save the cherries for last. Fruit cocktail law says no more than 6% can be cherries, so government-imposed scarcity make the single half-cherry worth the suffering through the porous pineapple fruitlets.
Don’t blame Dole or Del Monte. Letters of complaint should be addressed to the Department of Agriculture.
Enjoyable post.
Now consider, the food pyramid was devised by the US Department of Agriculture. Because 1) farmers have no conflict of interest in advising people what to eat (lots and lots of carbs), and 2) they’re totally experts on human nutrition.
Sometimes I think government isn’t just a necessary evil. It’s just evil.
I agree with you on this. I think these are mostly guidelines, not necessarily law. But I could imagine a frivolous lawsuit from Big Fruit demanding that an innovative fruit cocktail formula from some upstart fruit canning company forcing them into ruinous litigation unless they change their product title from “fruit cocktail” to “fruit mix in syrup with extra cherries.”
Even if it is not law, my tax money is still going to some bureaucrat to write up this nonsense. We can’t let the regulatory state off the hook just because they are recommendations. After all, who want to eat fruit cocktail or cheese that can be tarred as “non-government approved.”
My hand is up. Anyone else?
Best point in this discussion so far.
I haven’t read it, but Harvey Silverglate wrote a book called Three Felonies a Day. His point was that the body of law and regulation had grown so out of control that we are all basically criminals. The government then gets to play “nice guy” by choosing not to prosecute us for our criminal acts. It is emotionally exhausting and potentially legally and financially ruinous.
Just wait until the FDA and DoA hear about this illicit home canning ring in Iowa. Do any of these criminals have industrial kitchens? Permits to can and share their food? This strikes me as even more dangerous than the custom of children selling lemonade poisoned with strychnine to strangers in their exhaust-fume contaminated driveways.
Me! And I want more pineapple too!
I’m with you brother, I hate tar in my cheese and fruit cocktail.
Did I miss the explanation for why there are so few cherries?
Good job, A. You’ve passed your annual Ricochet Member Alertness Test.
As Kate’s dad The Colonel always said, “You are alert, and the world needs more lerts.”
Government regulations. Not less than 2% and not more than 6% cherries is allowed in Grade A fruit cocktail. It is a fruit quota system. Peaches and pears have privilege in fruit cocktail. Grapes and cherries face systemic fruitism.
While growing up my siblings and I fought over the cherries. There were of us, and never enough cherry halves. Mom had to add Maraschino cherries to quell the fighting.
Can I use this to illustrate how government causes most of our problems?
Yes, but only if you read the regulation in full. “2 percent by weight of drained fruit; but not less than 1 approximate half for each 4½ oz avdp of product and each fraction thereof greater than 2 oz.”
Going to use it as a Quote of the Day? 😁
If the additional cherries exceeded 6%, then your mother has some explaining to do.