Talk:tomato juice

If we are going to have the legal definitions, why not have the full wording so as to leave nothing unclear:

§ 156.145 Tomato juice. (a) Identity— (1) Definition. Tomato juice is the food intended for direct consumption, obtained from the unfermented liquid extracted from mature tomatoes of the red or reddish varieties of Lycopersicum esculentum P. Mill, with or without scalding followed by draining. In the extraction of such liquid, heat may be applied by any method which does not add water thereto. Such juice is strained free from peel, seeds, and other coarse or hard substances, but contains finely divided insoluble solids from the flesh of the tomato in accordance with current good manufacturing practice. Such juice may be homogenized, may be seasoned with salt, and may be acidified with any safe and suitable organic acid. The juice may have been concentrated and later reconstituted with water and/or tomato juice to a tomato soluble solids content of not less than 5.0 percent by weight as determined by the method prescribed in § 156.3(b). The food is preserved by heat sterilization (canning), refrigeration, or freezing. When sealed in a container to be held at ambient temperatures, it is so processed by heat, before or after sealing, as to prevent spoilage.

--Hekaheka (talk) 07:06, 30 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Because that leaves everything unclear, except to the well-educated and those used to reading such legal gibberish. &#x200b;—msh210℠ 17:46, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

tomato juice
rfd sense: the second, which is merely a very lengthy restatement of the first using the verbatim language of a standard from US federal regulations. This was discussed in the Tea Room, but the discussion got sidetracked to explaining a typo rather than the real problems with the entry. It's better discussed here, anyway. (forgot to sign this earlier) Chuck Entz (talk) 14:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete, though Category:en:Standards of identity has 25 members, I'm not sure why we'd want any of these. But sticking to this one, delete it. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:36, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The reason is it's an over-specific legalese form of #1, and I don't think it would pass an rfv anyway, because any citation would better fit #1 and than #2. I'm also thinking it's not really a 'definition' either in the dictionary sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:40, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * A principal rationale for inclusion of the term and other similar terms is the existence of a definition of legal force that does not coincide with the popular (SoP?) sense. We have gone through the matter in some discussion I can't find. The regulatory definition has particular allowances and requirements that do not coincide with popular understanding as reflected in popular usage. Our focus is supposed to be on language usage not on some Platonic ideal. The regulatory definition is used in specialized contexts. It shapes the world in which the popular sense of "tomato juice" occurs.
 * Having the legal definition exposed for inspection is useful. A corresponding English-language EU definition might be useful too. Should such definitions should be presented under ? DCDuring TALK 11:48, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Having read that, I think my point stands; could this be cited anyway? Also you say "a definition of legal force that does not coincide with the popular (SoP?) sense" isn't that actually an argument for deleting this? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see your rationale for deletion. I didn't think "overspecificity" is a reason for deletion that has an support in CFI. The rationale for including a number of food nouns which we seemed to want to include is that they have a legal definition. A legal definition is one indication of idiomaticity according to the esteemed Pawley criteria. It seems particularly silly to me to include terms based on the rationale of a legal definition and yet exclude the definition that provides the rationale.
 * With the relaxed citation standards we have for encyclopedic definitions, there should be no problem citing this. If we insist on citations that support each element of the definition, that would have implications. I would not be averse to excluding "legal definition" as a sufficient reason for inclusion, but that would have implications. If we exclude this, but ignore its relevance as a precedent, that, too, would have implications. DCDuring TALK 12:57, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Citing this will actually be abundantly easy. Find any product sold in the United States for which the label states that it either is or contains "tomato juice", and it is this meaning specifically that must be applied; otherwise, the seller is engaged in false labeling and can face some rather severe legal consequences. Although standards of identity are definitions created by the government, they are the real standards that describe the actual content of food products on the market and in the ingredient labels. bd2412 T 13:52, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not a matter of whether the information is relevant or merits inclusion, but whether it merits a definition line separate from the other one as a different sense. It strikes me as a cite or a reference supporting the first sense. To put another way: when is the second definition true, but not the first? Chuck Entz (talk) 14:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Standards of Identity seem like useful information to have, but it's odd to have them as a line in the main definition (especially since it's not immediately clear that it only refers to the USA). I think a usage note "In some jurisdictions, tomato juice has a stricter legal definition based on its ingredients or production method. For further information, see Appendix:Standards of Identity [and equivalents for other jurisdictions]" and then putting all the standards of identity in a single appendix might be a better solution. That way the information is still there (and fairly easy to find) if people need it, but we don't fill our entries with mostly irrelevant senses that go into things in encyclopedic detail. We wouldn't have a separate sense of murder, giving it's precise legal definition in each country, and we shouldn't define tomato juice in such detail either. Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:02, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * That is definitely a reasonable solution. I am not personally familiar with equivalent standards in other countries, but others certainly must exist. I would caution that there are a few cases (although this is not one of them) where the legal standard deviates pretty far from what people think of when they hear the name of a food. bd2412 T 15:15, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Strong keep, though this is a good use for  subsenses. This is well attested, in that it's the sense used by any manufacturer in the States in any literature about its tomato sauce. It's different from the first sense, in that there are tomato sauces (first sense) that don't match the nominated senses' definition. Our old discussion on this was, q.v.: it was pretty much decided that we do want these, and how they should be formatted. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 17:52, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * But as Chuck Entz asks, are there any tomato juices that fit the second definition, but not the first? Otherwise we've got a similar problem to the recent debate about "enemy combatant", where because the US government defined the phrase as "Member of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban" in one document, someone wanted that to become another definition of enemy combatant. I'll repeat here what I said there: this just one particular tight legal definition of a broader phrase, not a separate sense. Just because one company writes in its contracts that "The term "The Company" shall mean Litho Circuits Limited and its trading divisions, successors and assigns or any person acting on behalf of with the authority of Litho Circuits Limited", doesn't mean that Litho Circuits is a separate sense of "company". Smurrayinchester (talk) 18:57, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Is it not also true that the former first, now second sense, is included in the new first SoP "definition"?
 * I could accept that the Standards of Identity sense is a subsense, ie, a way of presenting a sense for which an "especially" would not suffice. If what Australian, NZ, UK, India, HK, South African, or Singapore institutions call tomato juice is not the same as what the US FDA and its client firms call tomato juice, is this not exactly the kind of thing that a capacious international dictionary should record? That the non-English translations might not usually be interesting need not concern us. DCDuring TALK 20:56, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * What he said. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 01:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, Smurray, that the fact that "one company writes in its contracts that 'The term "The Company" shall mean Litho Circuits Limited...' doesn't mean that Litho Circuits is a separate sense of 'company'". The difference here is one of attestation. It's not just the Code of Federal Regulations that uses tomato juice in the sense it does: every single can of tomato juice sold in the United States uses tomato juice to mean that. As to your point that every tomato juice (legal sense) is also a tomato juice (usual sense), I don't see why that's relevant. Every cat ("prostitute") is also a cat ("person"); every paste ("[soft mixture] of pounded foods") is a paste ("soft mixture"). This is what  subsenses are good for, but we do keep the sense somehow (i.e., either as a subsense or as a primary sense). &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 01:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep, and while we're at it, these governmental standards are way more useful than the SOP food items that we're proposing to subsense them to. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:19, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Now wait a minute. How else would you even have known of the existence of comminute: (not found in COCA or BNC)? DCDuring TALK 03:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

If we are going to have legalese, why cite only half the definition? The full wording is this:
 * § 156.145
 * Tomato juice.
 * (a) Identity— (1) Definition. Tomato juice is the food intended for direct consumption, obtained from the unfermented liquid extracted from mature tomatoes of the red or reddish varieties of Lycopersicum esculentum P. Mill, with or without scalding followed by draining. In the extraction of such liquid, heat may be applied by any method which does not add water thereto. Such juice is strained free from peel, seeds, and other coarse or hard substances, but contains finely divided insoluble solids from the flesh of the tomato in accordance with current good manufacturing practice. Such juice may be homogenized, may be seasoned with salt, and may be acidified with any safe and suitable organic acid. The juice may have been concentrated and later reconstituted with water and/or tomato juice to a tomato soluble solids content of not less than 5.0 percent by weight as determined by the method prescribed in § 156.3(b). The food is preserved by heat sterilization (canning), refrigeration, or freezing. When sealed in a container to be held at ambient temperatures, it is so processed by heat, before or after sealing, as to prevent spoilage.

--Hekaheka (talk) 14:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, choosing the verb "cook" in the definition is perhaps not the best thinkable in the light of the official definition. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:20, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think we had conluded in the general discussion of these definitions that we can summarize and paraphrase, so long as we capture th points that make the government definition distinct. I therefore propose that we keep the short form in the entry itself and generate an appendix of all the long forms, with a link thereto from the short form. bd2412 T 17:20, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The etymology section of the entry can link directly to the CFR (or USC) rather than to an appendix here. In other words, the appendix is unnecessary if its sole purpose is to provide a place for entry-readers to see the original official standard; it's useful only to provide a list of such standards in one place. Is the latter a worthwhile objective? (I suppose so, but what do others think?) &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 18:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I think an appendix here would be useful because the CFR provisions are scattered and the FDA does not have a particularly user-friendly presentation of these materials. It would be nice if somewhere in the world there was a single directory containing all of these definitions. bd2412 T 19:05, 4 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Kept. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:56, 16 August 2012 (UTC)