Sometimes government’s dishonesty, incompetence, wastefulness, and misguided nannyism combine to make a perfectly ridiculous story. Today’s comes to us from Florida, where the Ocheesee Creamery is being forced to dump gallons upon gallons of good, natural skim milk because the state is requiring the business to label its good, natural skim milk “imitation” because they haven’t added anything to it.
Paul and Mary Lou Wesselhoeft have been fighting this in federal court with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, which had formerly allowed them to sell their skim milk while calling it skim milk. No one seemed confused by this except the state government, which changed its requirements.
The Institute for Justice is helping the Wesselhoefts take on the state, arguing they should not be prohibited from telling the truth about their product.
DACS has decided what is commonly known as skim milk—whole milk with the cream skimmed off—cannot be called “skim milk” unless it is artificially injected with vitamin A. DACS has demanded that Mary Lou either inject vitamin A before she can call it skim milk, or use a confusing and misleading label that calls it something it is not: Non-Grade ‘A’ Milk Product, Natural Milk Vitamins Removed. Mary Lou suggested other labels that would ensure customers her skim milk is only pasteurized skim milk, not just a “milk product,” but DACS rejected each one.As the AP reports, the judge in the case seems confused by the government’s position, not the act of calling skim milk skim milk:
Webster’s dictionary defines skim milk as simply “milk from which cream has been removed,” with no mention of added vitamins. But Department lawyer Ashley Davis told a judge consumers expect whole milk and skim milk to have the same nutritional value and that the Wesselhoefts’ skim milk is nutritionally inferior because vitamins are removed when the milk fat is removed.
“Ocheessee’s product is imitating — literally imitating — skim milk,” Davis said.
Judge Robert Hinkle said he’s not so sure consumers expect skim milk to have the same nutritional value as whole milk.
“You know something’s been removed in order to make it skim milk,” he said.
Hinkle also seemed to have problems with the word imitation.
“It’s hard to call this imitation milk. It came right out of the cow,” Hinkle said. “Anyone who reads imitation skim milk would think it didn’t come out of a cow.”
I’m with Hinkle. Doesn’t it seem like common knowledge that skim milk is whole milk with a bunch of delicious fat removed (I have my own issues with allowing skim milk to be called milk, but it’s a personal peeve that need not be adjudicated by the state, and I digress)? We all understand they’re not the same product, nutritionally, and that’s precisely why some people choose skim over whole.
The Wesselhoeft refuse to add extra stuff to their all-natural product because the tiny creamery got into business to sell and all-natural product. Their commitment to natural products was just fine with consumers, but now the government’s actions a threatening this small business and the livelihoods of those who work there:
The dairy was selling 200 to 300 gallons of skim milk a week at $5 a gallon before the state ordered them to relabel it or stop selling it.http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/20/govt-to-creamery-your-milk-is-entirely-too-natural-to-not-be-labeled-imitation/--------------------------
Baffling...