He Who Has the Yolk Makes the Rules

It's been a long time since I liked mayonnaise -- nowadays I think it's gross. And there's the little matter of it being bad for you even if it hasn't gone over, which it can do pretty quickly without you noticing until you're paying the price for your lack of vision.

But if I was the American Egg Board, I would be very interested in mayonnaise, especially since I would be made up of representatives of the country's largest egg producers. And apparently, I would be very interested in a company called Hampton Creek. Because they make a vegetarian product resembling mayonnaise which they call "Just Mayo." And being vegetarian, they don't use eggs, which I as the American Egg Board must quash post-haste.

You might have worried that we do not have an official definition of mayonnaise, but allow the Food and Drug Administration to allay your qualms. We do, and it includes the specific phrase, "an ingredient containing egg yolks." Therefore, Hampton Creek may not claim their product is mayonnaise. Nor, for that matter, can Lou Gossett, Jr., use it as a nickname for Richard Gere's character in An Officer and a Gentleman, even though his name is actually Mayo, unless it can be proven that Gere includes ingredients containing egg yolks. This is unlikely, for even though Gere is not a strict vegetarian he generally limits his meat eating to fish.

In any event, the American Egg Board was apparently eager to help the FDA ensure that the egg production industry remained free of threats from boutique vegan condiment substitutes. Staff joked in e-mails about using organized crime techniques against the San Francisco-based company such as "hits." An e-mail from the actual President of the Egg Board references someone on her staff, apparently, who was supposed to be able to block Just Mayo from being sold at healthy-foods retailer Whole Foods.

So in other words, a regulatory board whose members are all from large companies that make the products it's supposed to regulate intend to work together with those companies to make sure another company can't get a seat at the sandwich-spread table.

Government regulation. It's what's for breakfast, lunch and dinner.