Mayonnaise Conspiracy? Emails Show Egg Board Tried to Thwart Vegan Mayo Before FDA Stepped In
5th September 2015
So Quartz might be overstating it slightly with the headline “There is literally a U.S. government conspiracy against vegan mayo.” But emails uncovered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Ryan Shapiro do show that the American Egg Board (AEB)—an egg promotion group with members appointed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture—hired public relations professionals to help bring down vegan-mayo maker Hampton Creek, and advised the bigwigs behind Hellmann’s mayonnaise to report the California startup to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
‘Progressives’ will immediately go off on their ‘SEE! SEE! CORPORATE GREED!’ without pausing to think that if the government didn’t have power over food markets then food producers wouldn’t be spending billions trying to have government exercise that power in their favor. You can’t game the system unless there’s a system to game, and that system is the result of ‘progressive’ agitation.
In August, the FDA sent a warning letter to Hampton Creek about possible “misbranding.” Among the FDA’s complaints: Hampton Creek’s “Just Mayo” line doesn’t meet the legal requirements for labeling something mayo. Only products containing vegetable oil, eggs, and vinegar and/or lemon juice may use the term, providing they don’t stray beyond these and a few additional ingredients, like salt and sugar. The lack of eggs and presence of beta-carotene and pea protein puts Just Mayo at odds with federal condiment rules.
WE DO NOT NEED a world in which there are ‘federal condiment rules’. At least in a Zombie Apocalypse you can shoot the zombies.