[whafro]

Mayonnaise is oil, egg yolks, and an acid (typically vinegar or lemon juice). If you don't have these things, it's not mayonnaise.

It seems like it'd be pretty easy for them to call it "Vegan Mayo," where folks are assuming there's a major substitute for a core ingredient. "Just Mayo," on the other hand, seems to claim the opposite.

It's still pretty whiny for Hellmann's/Best Foods/Unilever/Whomever to file the lawsuit, but that doesn't mean they're wrong.

[batbomb]

Technically speaking, mayonnaise is oil, an lecithin based emulsifier derived from egg yolks, and an acid (which may be vinegar, or mustard, or something else).

If you get a vegan emulsifier to work as good or better than eggs, then go ahead and call it the generic, unprotected "mayo"- because that's what it is, and that's how it will be used.

This blog post/article is a bit hyperbolic with the whole the dirty egg industry thing.

[Turing_Machine]

I disagree.

A hamburger is beef. People often call them "burgers" for short.

Vegan substitutes exist, but they are called "veggieburgers", "gardenburgers", or similar, not "burgers".

If you try to sell gardenburgers as "burgers", you're being misleading, and you're likely to run afoul of the law.

[abandonliberty]

Whiny?

>Unilever is asking the court not only to make Hampton Creek stop using the Just Mayo name (and remove all current product from store shelves), but also to pay Unilever the amount obtained from profits, plus triple damages.

I do not understand how our legal system entitles Unilever to anything.

[smackfu]

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1125 and http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1117

First section says that someone using a misleading word or term "shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act." Second section says a winning plaintiff is entitled to profits, and up to treble damages.

[igurari]

Depends on which meaning of "Just" you use:

1. guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness: We hope to be just in our understanding of such difficult situations.

2. exactly or precisely: This is just what I mean.

[entee]

Neither are a lot of Hellmann’s products. Lots of their products are called "mayonnaise dressing" instead of "mayonnaise" probably because they don’t fit the criteria either. Do you care though? You probably never noticed, and just had a really nice sandwich.

The standard is actually super specific:

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRS...

for example you have to have at least 65% by weight oil and at least 2.5% acid.

If I buy something that has "mayonnaise" on it, then I’m buying "mayonnaise". If my sandwich sucks, then I won’t buy it again. No need for the government to tell me what is and isn’t mayonnaise.

[zzalpha]

"You probably never noticed, and just had a really nice sandwich."

Speak for yourself. When I buy spread for my sandwiches, I buy mayonnaise, not some ill-defined "spread". I'm sure I'm not the only one.

The entire point of labeling regulations is to prevent exactly this kind of misleading branding.

To me the true irony is that when it's some massive conglomerate labeling "pink slime" as meat, folks cry foul and demand government action. But when it's a sweetheart little startup being all "green" and "sustainable" while using similarly deceptive labeling (well, save that "pink slime" is at least a meat product whereas "Just Mayo" isn't mayo by any traditional definition), suddenly it's okay because they're the "good guys".

[AceJohnny2]

> No need for the government to tell me what is and isn’t mayonnaise.

If I need "mayonnaise" for a recipe that depends on the specific chemical properties of the stuff (as a metaphor, see chocolate), I want to be sure that the stuff I'm buying at the store is actually oil+acid+egg that won't break down unexpectedly in my cooking. So by all means, I want regulation that ensures that "mayonnaise" is reasonably close to the actual stuff, and not some recreation that just happens to mimic the original.

Which, of course, goes against Hampton Creek's marketing.

[ginko]

If I buy something that has mayonnaise on it then I'm expecting _mayonnaise_.

[entee]

Fair enough, but if you buy a lot of the mayo products in the condiments aisle, the FDA doesn't think you're getting it. Check it out next time you're in the supermarket, lots of things are dressing and not mayonnaise, but I'll bet you never noticed or cared. I live with someone who's vegan so I've been paying a lot of attention to labels lately.

I feel like this is sort of the Turing test of food, given two jars, one FDA-approved and the other not. If you can't tell one from the other, aren't they both mayo?

[delinka]

In the extreme case, the answer is "no" - just because the flavor and texture are 'correct' doesn't mean the product is even safe. Back off from the extreme case of unsafe ingredients, and you're still not necessarily getting what was advertised. I think the question becomes "at what point should a particular formulation of a food product does it cease to be the original and start being something different."

[JoeAltmaier]

There's a difference between "didn't check the label" and "can't check the label because the info isn't on it".

[Turing_Machine]

Yes, there are "salad dressings", "sandwich spreads", and the like in the condiment aisle.

No, they're not called "mayo".

Note that Hellman's/Best Foods biggest competitor, Kraft, makes both a mayonnaise ("Kraft Mayo") and a salad dressing ("Miracle Whip").