Yellow margarine a crime in Missouri

[snopes]

A Missouri state legislator wants to dump a 19th-century law banning the sale of yellow margarine, though it's been years since any violator was ordered to spread em.

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/art...ttercrime.html

[barbrainey]

I have never heard of this law. I purchase yellow margarine all the time. And every supermarket and grocery store I shop at sells it.

Barb Rainey

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by barbrainey

I have never heard of this law. I purchase yellow margarine all the time. And every supermarket and grocery store I shop at sells it.

Barb Rainey

An admission of guilt in a public forum no less. Expect a knock at the door very soon, and get back to us when you manage to post bail.

[LizardWizard]

As a very small child in Wisconsin in the mid-60s, I have a memory of traveling to Illinois to stock up on yellow margarine. I wonder if we could have been arrested for transporting margarine across state lines. Maybe they can still get us. . .

[AnglRdr]

Originally Posted by LizardWizard

As a very small child in Wisconsin in the mid-60s, I have a memory of traveling to Illinois to stock up on yellow margarine. I wonder if we could have been arrested for transporting margarine across state lines. Maybe they can still get us. . .

I heard that it was illegal in Wisconsin to sell yellow margarine, too, some sort of wartime law or something.

[Aud 1]

I've heard a couple different interviews with the lady who started this. She held a contest in her district to find odd old laws that need to be taken off the books. This butter law was supposed to protect Missouri's dairy industry back when it was passed. Now it is never enforced. No really intended for this story to end up all over the place.

Aud "perhaps off the hook for using soy based "buttery spread" 1

[lynnejanet]

IIRC, yellow margarine was still banned in Quebec until the early 80s. I remember buying huge rectangular plastic tubs of Quebec margarine, that was a very pale off-white colour, when I was a kid. What I don't remember is why we bought it, although my parents were members of a food co-op at the time.

[RealityChuck]

That particular law was pretty common in the US (and in many other countries); most states repealed it years ago, but evidently Missouri forgot.

The original law was in some ways a good idea. When margarine was first developed (IIRC, under Napoleon III in France), it was a bit dicey -- you never knew what went into it. Oleomargarine was better and cheap. But the dairy industry didn't like the competition and, in part, using the reason that people might sell margarine as butter if it were yellow (undoubtedly true), worked to make the sales of dyed margarine illegal. Most states had laws to this effect by the 1900s.

You used to buy it with a separate dye packet that you worked into it; otherwise it was an unappetizing white and looked like lard.

As time went by, the laws were repealed or left unenforced. Most US restrictions ended after WWII.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

You used to buy it with a separate dye packet that you worked into it; otherwise it was an unappetizing white and looked like lard.

That was one of my mom's chores when she was growing up.

[Christie]

Originally Posted by lynnejanet

IIRC, yellow margarine was still banned in Quebec until the early 80s. I remember buying huge rectangular plastic tubs of Quebec margarine, that was a very pale off-white colour, when I was a kid.

Heh. That's true. I grew up in Montreal and I remember coming to Ontario and thinking the margarine was a funny colour .

[Hero_Mike]

In Quebec, the whole deal with the ban on yellow margarine had to do with a very strong lobby from the dairy marketing board, which did this to protect its industry. The only place (aside from a consumer making the mistake themselves) where I imagine this makes a difference is when you have visible "butter" - served separately from your bread or toast. It certainly wouldn't stop people from using it in recipes.

I imagine the marketing board lobby would be strong in states with a significant dairy industry.