And Now a Word from Our Lawyers

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Every now and then, I share a recipe on this or my other blog. For the most part, these are not entirely my own original recipes. I don't have a test kitchen and time to experiment with different combinations and approaches to particular dishes. However, except in very rare cases, I have tweaked and adapted the recipes to my own (and my family's) tastes. In most cases I've changed them quite a bit, but I started with someone else's basics. Many of my recipes started out over fifty years ago as Betty Crocker recipes. I also learned a lot from my mother and from a copy of The Joy of Cooking I received as a gift over forty years ago.

If I do no more than change a proportion here and there, I try to credit the original source. I don't want to take credit for someone else's work, but I don't want to blame them for my mistakes, either.

But here's what's bothering me: all of the recipes I see online at various blogs and web sites include nutritional information like what is printed of food packaging and many restaurant menus. Am I breaking some law by failing to list the fat, sodium, calories, etc. when I share a recipe? I have no way of producing this information. Certainly it would be prohibitively expensive to have a lab do testing. I could possibly fake it, by lifting from other web sites' nutritional information, but that would be inaccurate and misleading.

After giving all this a little bit of thought, I've decided not to worry about it until they slap on the handcuffs. I enjoy cooking and I enjoy experimenting with a recipe until it works for me, even if sharing my results is a federal offense.

Maybe I can get a job in the prison kitchen.

Stephen P.

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