zlacker

> the example of it being a federal crime to sell jam made from more than five types of fruit is remarkable

Wow! I really applied myself to looking for a motivation for regulation but failed. Any hints?

>>macleg+(OP)
~~I'm not a lawyer and the citation provided in the article is too much text for me to try to parse, but I have to assume this is a case of unintended consequences. I expect that each individual section of the law makes sense, and it's only when you read them with an eye to finding gotchas that you realize they work together to prohibit this. In other words, congress needs better QA.~~

Edit: I take it all back. It turns out that you only have to read 21 CFR §150.160(b)(2) to see it, and it turns out that that law is just unreasonably prescriptivist.

>(2) The following combinations of fruit ingredients may be used:

>(i) Any combination of two, three, four, or five of such fruits in which the weight of each is not less than one-fifth of the weight of the combination; except that the weight of pineapple may be not less than one-tenth of the weight of the combination.

It's against the law to make a jam with more than 5 fruits because the law only explicitly allows jams with up to 5 fruits. Bizarre.

>>0xffff+86
My best guess: this prevents situations like selling jars of "strawberry jam" which is only 10% strawberry.

Which is partly backed up by 21 CFR § 150.160 (e)(1):

(e)

>(1) The name of each preserve or jam for which a definition and standard of identity is prescribed by this section is as follows:...

>>vharuc+Ue
Well, no, the section you quoted is what prevents you from selling "Strawberry jam" that has fruits other than strawberry. The section about number of fruits seems to just be about arbitrarily restricting the amount of any fruit present to at least one fifth of the total (except pineapple for some reason). I don't see why that's necessary, but you could at least write the law as

>(2) The following combinations of fruit ingredients may be used:

>(i) Any combination of such fruits in which the weight of each is not less than one-fifth of the weight of the combination, or in which the weight of each part is no less than half the weight of any other part; except that the weight of pineapple may be not less than one-tenth of the weight of the combination.

I'm not quite sure what the right legal wording is for or such that you can comply with whichever half works for you is, but that would both allow for everything the existing law allows and allow for arbitrary numbers of fruit without requiring that they be mixed in exactly equal ratios.

>>0xffff+86
I thought it was "labeling it jam" and using more than 5 fruits?