French dressing might pour freely

FDA proposal would end 70 years of regulating ingredients

In the grand pantheon of salad dressings, French dressing can be easily forgotten — a sticky, sweet, carrot-colored blend overshadowed by America’s undisputed heavyweight champion of dressings, ranch.

But the federal government has shown great interest in the humble dressing, painstakingly regulating since 1950 the ingredients that it must contain and revising the rules at least five times since then.

Now the government wants to get out of the French dressing business.

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration said it was proposing to revoke its definition and standard of identity for French dressing — effectively erasing the government-sanctioned list of ingredients at the request of an industry group, the Association for Dressings & Sauces.

“The standard does not appear necessary to ensure that the product meets consumer expectations, and the FDA has tentatively concluded that it is no longer necessary to promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers and may limit flexibility for innovation,” the agency said.

Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, offered a slightly less sunny reading of the industry’s motivation for seeking the change.

“They want to do it because they want less fat than what’s in the standard of identity, and they want to put more junk in it,” she said. “And their argument is, everybody knows what these things are, and everybody knows what they’re buying.”

Nestle said she had laughed when she read the agency proposal and another one announced the day before that proposed to revoke the definition and standards of identity and quality for frozen cherry pie.

“This is how our government is spending its time?” she said. “I think there are many things that are more important they could be doing.”

French dressing is one of hundreds of foods — including mayonnaise, bread, ketchup and milk chocolate — whose makeup the agency regulates. It has argued that many of the rules are more than 75 years old and are no longer needed.

The lengthy and legalistic regulations for French dressing require that it contain vegetable oil and an acid, like vinegar or lemon or lime juice. It also lists other ingredients that are acceptable but not required, such as salt, spices and tomato paste.

Despite its name, French dressing is not French at all, according to Paul Freedman, a professor of history at Yale and the author of “American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way.”

The dressing was originally a simple vinaigrette made of oil and vinegar, but it gradually became the gooey, sweet, tomato-inflected dressing we recognize today, Freedman said.

Unlike the French, who tend to relegate sugar to dessert, the dressing reflects Americans’ love of all things sugary, from honey mustard to bacon slathered in maple syrup, he said.

Still, it barely ranked in a 2017 study by the Association for Dressings & Sauces, in which 40% of Americans named ranch as their favorite dressing. Its nearest competitor, Italian, came in at 10%.