What really happened with eggnog?
I was talking with a food chemist about eggnog, and mentioned some weird thing I had found: The FDA's
definition for eggnog, said that eggnog may not contain any sort of yellow food coloring, which would make the public think that there were more eggs in the nog then there were. That would be misleading, that would be fraud, and that would be wrong. Yet, if you go to the store and look at commercial eggnog, nearly all of them have some form of yellow food coloring. What sort of loop hole exists, I wondered.
The food chemist got really quiet, and in a conspiratorial whisper she said that this sort of thing happens all the time. She suggested I talked to a professor of food regulation law.
So I found a law professor who does that sort of thing. I told him about the FDA regulations on eggnog, told him that most eggnog manufacturers violate the regulation, and asked him what the loophole was. He got very quiet, and I heard him tap away on his computer. He came back and said that if he were advising these companies, he'd tell them to stop using yellow food coloring immediately, as there was no loophole he could find. He suggested I talk to a lawyer who actually does food regulation litigation.
So I looked up the largest law firm in that did that kind of thing. They put me in touch with the partner emeritus, the old guy that law firms put out to talk to the press. I told him the story. You could practically hear his excitement crackle through the phone: he was on the case! If he put the phone down on the desk, and not on hold, so I could hear him bark orders to his minions. "Get me the Federal regulations! Get me the latest decisions! Get me more coffee!" He was having the time of his retired life. Finally, he came back on the phone. "Young fella," he said, "this story is big!" If the story got traction, he said, it would bust the FDA wide open!
Bust open the FDA! "I'd like to accept this Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism..."
"What action will the FDA take," I asked.
The lawyer asked when the story would come out? End of November... hmm, early Decmber... hmm. He opined that the FDA would probably remove all egg nog from store shelves. Right before Christmas.
Thirty seconds before I had visions of winning prizes. Now I had visions of being lynched by angry egg nog starved mobs. I would be the Man Who Destroyed Christmas.
Fortunately, there was a loophole.
So, after a buttload of more research, which involved interviews with the American Dairy Association and the National Archives, we finally found the eggnog loophole.
Back in 1981, the FDA put forth the prohibition on yellow food coloring in eggnog. In 1982, the eggnog manufacturers rose up in protest. The public demands yellow eggnog, they claimed. Not using yellow food coloring would put us at a disadvantage!
So the FDA compromised. They said that the law against yellow would remain on the books, but that it would not be enforced, at least until a proper hearing could be held in which both sides could present their case.
That was in 1982. Thirty three years ago. The FDA has no records indicating that the hearing was ever held.
Think about that. Everyone who was at the FDA in 1982 is either retired or dead now. No one at the FDA even remembers that there was supposed to be a hearing on eggnog. Face it, there never will be a hearing on the use of yellow food coloring in eggnog. The law will remain on the books, but it will never be enforced.
Now, here's something for /r/nosleep: We know this story about eggnog. But how many other foodstuffs are operating under the same "arrangement": technically forbidden, but realistically allowed? We may never know the answer.