I decided to have a healthy lunch today (I need to do this more often), so I went for the salad bar.  I also got me a packet of french dressing to put on it.

That’s when I noticed something.  They only had packets of Hellman’s "French-Style Dressing". 

Now, they had "Russian Dressing" (no "style" there).  They had "Ranch Dressing" (no "style" there either).  And plopped right there among them, clearly embarrassed by its name — "French Style Dressing".

What’s that all about?  Is there some government regulation that requires certain ingredients to be present in order for something to be called "French Dressing" (and no similar requirements for, say Italian Dressing or Russian Dressing)?

Turns out, the answer is yes.  To be bonafide "french dressing", you have to go through all kinds of leaps and hurdles, something my pathetic little packet of salad dressing failed to do.  (I’m guessing it was the percentage of vegetable oil content, but I can’t be sure — I make it habit not to look too closely at the ingredients of things I eat).

Lucky italian and russian dressing apparently don’t have to undertake such an onerous burden.

Doesn’t seem fair somehow, and I hope the next president will bring change to this unjust and prejudicial system.