Cheesy Bureaucracy: Noodle Nonsense in Mac & Government
By Owen Yingling
The Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 Chapter 1 Subchapter B Part 139 reads:
“Macaroni is the macaroni product the units of which are tube-shaped and more than 0.11 inch but not more than 0.27 inch in diameter.”
The beauty of this passage, of course, lies in its production. Imagine an agency staffer sitting in their small, gray cubicle. Indistinguishable from all the others that fill some Kafkaesque hellscape. But real magic is being done: neatly organized yellow shells cover the desk, pinned paper scribblings clothe the soft fabric walls, and in the center of the desk there, right in the center of this work of art, is a calculator – the screen frozen on “0.27.”
Following the staffers' determination on the specifics of that genre of noodle, stern men in double breasted suits convene around a table in furious debate over the dimensions. In the center lies a ruler and a cornucopia of different pastas. The crying protests of Italians fall on deaf ears, and the Neapolitan efforts are once again overrun. Hundreds of years of pasta manufacturing cannot stand up to the thin, printed pages of the Federal Registrar.
It’s unclear whether the FDA Standard of Identity for macaroni was conceived in a firestorm of discourse, a furious war between regulators and company representatives, or if it was a work of passion by a lonely genius, intent on reining in the adulterating pasta oligarchs. Agencies should recognize their consequent ‘creative ownership’ over the look and make of American foods and, by extension, the American public should recognize our ownership over them as well.
Source: FDA
These regulations are, ultimately, ours. Not because they exist to protect us. They’re ours because we paid for them, and continue to pay for them.
At a very real point in time, someone, likely now deceased, got paid by the American taxpayer to measure individual pieces of macaroni. Indeed it is possible, quite possible, that today, at this exact moment, someone is getting paid to do this, or measure the density of an orange peel, or determine the tomato-y-ness of a new sauce.
Food safety is important because food can kill. Unwashed lettuce and leafy greens claim lives every year, but it’s unclear how many lives have been saved by regulating the beef percentage of packaged lasagna.
Bureaucrats crave power like squirrels crave acorns. They are eternally, earnestly, seeking, and often forget where they have carefully stored their previous finds. The regulatory history of macaroni and cheese has similarly been squirreled away, and our present standard for the side dish is the oak tree which grew from a former government worker's stashed power, which now shades the picnic table we have lunch at.
Not all regulations are nefariously created, but sometimes people don't understand the implications of introducing a particular seed into an unfamiliar field.
This is not to say that food regulations are always a slippery slope down to the Butter Wars, but the risk is ever-present. Sometimes, it’s more beneficial for invested parties to ignore the demands of your palate and instead just wine and dine soft-bellied regulators and ancient legislators.
Perhaps it is unromantic to extinguish this source of humor and amazement. Scenes of late night action at the Association of Dressing and Sauces(ADS) as they tirelessly hammer out their Citizen’s Petition to revoke the French Dressing Standard of Identity while sleepless interns circulate the cafeteria salad bar cannot be purged from a mind easily. Nor can the subsequent 23 years of consideration– surely a time of Intertestamental significance for the Association of Dressing and Sauces – before their prayers were finally answered.
It is true then that there is love and heartbreak, grace and mercy in this nebulous regulatory space, but we can not forget that these administrative theatrics comes at the taxpayer’s expense and cost far more than the paltry hundred million we give the arts each year.
Owen Yingling is a Mercatus intern and student at The University of Chicago (Class of 2027)
Further Reading:
Pharming: Past, Present, and Future By Owen Yingling
Farming Abundance | Lab Grown Meat: To Eat Or Not To Eat? A Response To The Cultivated Meat Panic By Patricia Patnode and Owen Yingling
Farmers, Cover Up With Cover Crops By David Norcross