Like Mother Used to Make

The following takes place in the canned green beans idea meeting.

Alright fellas, we’ve been holding this meeting for six years now and no one has come up with an idea on how we can make more money selling canned green beans. Come on guys, give me something. 

Silence.

“Well, OK, I guess I have an idea.”

“Great Bill, tell us.”

“You know how we clean all the beans before we cook ‘em. Suppose instead of taking off all of the little strings, we just left some on. We could say ‘it’s natural.’ That’s the way they grow, and you get more fiber if you eat them.”

“‘Fiber,’ that’s good, people need more of it. ‘Natural’ works because, well, just because. I love it. Let’s get started on that. George, you go on the production floor and tell the guys not to cut all of the strings off. We’ll save, what, at least a penny a can. Harvey, you start to work on the label, make ‘natural’ a prominent part of it.”

A hand goes up.

“Yes, what Tom?”

“I’m sorry, we can’t do it. FDA has a regulation.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, actually, they revised it just last year. It’s Title 21, Chapter 1, Subchapter B, Part 155, Subpart B, Section 155.120.” The strings have to be weighed by attaching a 250 gram weight and if it doesn’t break within 5 seconds, you have to test each part of the string by dividing it into 13 millimeter sections. And if they don’t break with the weight attached, the beans are to be counted as ‘tough.’ There’s a lot more too it, but unless there is only a for a very small number of very thin strings, the whole package has to be labeled ‘substandard.’”

The boss says, “What kind of regulation is that?”

Tom responds, “Well Sir, it’s called a food standard, they’ve been around since 1938. They wanted to make sure that foods would always stay ‘like mother used to make.’ They regulate the names so that anyone changing the recipe has to call it ‘imitation’ or, in this case, ‘substandard.’”

The boss says, “My mother used to make godawful Jello when she would put carrot strips or some other sliced up vegetable in it. She also made mushed up yellow squash that tasted like vomit.”

The room laughs.

Tom says, “It’s important, catsup has a standard so that it can only be made one way. Salsa doesn’t, so there are thousands of varieties. Today, there are huge fights all over the country, not just in federal regulatory agencies, but also in state legislatures and courts over what we call substitute meats made from plants.”

George jumps in. “What, like that Beyond Meat Burger that says ‘Plant-based burger patties?’ First off, mother never made those, they’re new. Second, who the hell would get confused about that?”

Tom gets defensive. “Look, it’s my job to know these things to keep us out of trouble. It’s not just burgers either. It’s milk and cheese made from plants. I mean, they’re selling something called ‘Spelt Milk’ for God’s sake.” 

From the back of the room Bill says, “Has anyone been to Jose’s Taqueria? Their salsa is out of this world.”

The guy next to Bill says, “I went there. I didn’t think the salsa was that great.”

Bill responds, “You don’t have to eat it, do you?”

The boss jumps in, “Let’s just stick to the issue, can we. What are we going to do here?”

Bill says, “Actually, I didn’t want to say anything, but no one wants to eat string bean strings, natural, fiber or not. If we do that, when people open up the can they’re going to just toss it and never buy our brand again.” Some decades old food standard isn’t the problem.”

The boss jumps in. “Alright, back to the drawing board I guess.”