62 cases of Jam vs. United States
Basically, it went like this - 62 cases of clearly labelled Imitation Jam were seized by the government under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938.
The jam was labelled Imitation because it contained more sugar than fruit.
The government seized these 62 cases of jam because people were treating it like real jam. Hotels were buying it and serving it to customers as real jam. The legal questions were esoteric and revolved around the definition of 'imitation' and Congress' desire to protect the public.
The lower court found in favor of the jam. The appeals court found in favor of the United States. The Supreme Court found in favor of the jam - in a 7-2 decision they found that 'imitation' means 'imitation'.
This was in 1949.
In a hugely ironic twist, today, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, jam is defined as having at least 65% sugar.** Practically speaking, the FDA has made sugar the star of the show. They use the label ‘jam’ for fruit flavored sugar. If the product has less sugar, then the FDA would label it as ‘fruit spread’.
**Update: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=150.160 revised on April 1, 2012 says that there should be 55% sugar.
Feel free to weigh in on this.
