At our last blog team meeting we were looking for possible events about which to write and we noticed that today, January 22nd, is known as National Hot Sauce Day. Being of the legal persuasion we wondered if there were federal regulations which defined the composition of hot sauce or mandated warning labels for the unwary! To answer this question, we looked at the Code of Federal Regulations for information. Food and Drug regulations are published in Title 21 of the CFR which comprises nine softbound volumes:
While there are no specific regulations governing the composition of hot sauce, sections 113 and 114 apply to the commercial preparation of hot sauce as well as hot peppers. Section 113 includes a number of drawings of the types of valves and retorts which may be used in preparing hermetically sealed food.
Talking about hot sauce also made us curious about the regulation of spices. Title 21, section 182 provides information about commonly recognized spices.
