Wednesday, February 2, 2011

If you can't spell it, for God's sake, don't eat it


I eat some nasty stuff, okay? Once at a Tigermart, I ate some spiced ground meat shaped like a tube and stuffed with American cheese food. I ate this stuff from a dim sum cart that looked like Jell-O, quivered like Jell-O, but emphatically was NOT Jell-O. But I'm throwing a bullshit flag at the gastronomic infraction that is DiGiorno "wyngz". Not because they're gross (and I have no doubt that they taste like congealed sphincter), but because the government had to pass a special regulation so DiGiorno could start selling this crap in the frozen food aisle. Think I'm exaggerating for effect again? Well, slam your eyes up against the following, smartass:


Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has a standard of identity in Title 9 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Section 381.170(b)(7) that defines a poultry "wing." The use of the term "wing" cannot be used on any poultry product unless it complies with this standard of identity. In comparison, FSIS allows the use of the term "wyngz" to denote a product that is in the shape of a wing or a bite-size appetizer type product under the following conditions in which the Agency considers its use fanciful and not misleading:

  1. The statement may only reference the term "wyngz" (no other misspellings are permitted). All labels bearing the term "wyngz" need to be submitted to the Labeling and Program Delivery Division (LPDD) for sketch approval because it is considered a special statement that cannot be generically approved;
  2. the poultry used is white chicken (with or without skin);
  3. "wyngz" is placed contiguous to a prominent, conspicuous, and legible descriptive name (e.g., "white chicken fritters") in the same color font;
  4. the smallest letter in the descriptive name is no smaller than 1/3 the size of the largest letter used in "wyngz;" and
  5. a statement that further clarifies that the product does not contain any wing meat or is not derived only from wing meat (e.g., "contains no wing meat," "with no wing meat," "contains breast meat and wing meat") is placed in close proximity to the descriptive name and linked to "wyngz" by use of an asterisk. "Wyngz" referenced elsewhere on the package, e.g., on the front riser panel, would also need to be displayed with an asterisk linking it to this statement on the principal display panel.
Go ahead, DiGiorno. Package up those poultry tendons and skin bits. But if spell check doesn't recognize it, I'm not about to ingest it.

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