If you’re interested, and not opposed to watching a 20 minute video, Food Theory did a video comparing various plant milks. Frothing, nutrition, baking, and taste were the points of comparison. Almond, oat, soy, pea, rice, coconut and cashew are the milks looked at. Go to the 11:35 time stamp to get the break down if you don’t want to watch the entire video. Link to video
ETA: Y’know, this isn’t the first time I’ve posted this on the Dope.
I have it on good authority that the Milk Warriors have deemed these substances “melks”.
They do that in the US, too, at various carnivals. Along with butter, and ice cream, and Snickers, and heaven only knows what other demented things.
No one thinks Chocolate Milks comes from Chocolate or Strawberry Milk comes from Strawberries. Those are flavorings. It is then not stupid to think that Almond milk is almond flavored milk.
Since it is not milk it is misleading.
Right.
Because Peanut Butter and Apple butter and so forth were common long before the FDA , especially for Apple Butter. But Almond milk is a very recent product. (Okay, not very long for Peanut butter, but still).
Yeah, maybe about 2000 years more, which is why it entered “common usage” before the FDA. Also the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations does define Coconut Milk.
Forget about it, Dude- it’s the Examiner.
So all the older products that had entered common usage a LONG time ago were of course grandfathered in.
I just recently cut lactose out of my diet, and I’m a coffee-and cereal-addict. So mouthfeel is really important to me, and Oat Milk wins the “almost like a cow” competition by a wide margin.
BUT, check the carbs. Oat Milk has a lot more than Almond or Soy, sometimes 20g/cup! Oddly enough, Trader Joe’s version has a lot more carbohydrates in the smaller 32 oz shelf-stable package than in the 64 oz box in the cooler.
By the bye, both are called “Oat Beverage”… and I don’t see anyone asking “If it doesn’t say ‘Milk’, can I still pour it on my Cap’n Crunch?”
As many others have pointed out, this is just a matter of food labeling, which the FDA handles all the time. They have set guidelines for what terms may be used for thousands of food products. One might quibble with where they draw the lines, but the activity itself is a perfectly reasonable exercise of regulatory authority for the purpose of preventing consumer deception.
I for one don’t understand why those who use or produce non-dairy milk substitutes get all up in arms whenever this comes up. Clearly people looking to use beverages produced from nuts and grains are better off with more precise labeling. And in the long run this should benefit manufacturers also.
Right. And soy milk is soybean flavored milk.
Oatmilch with Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries, to be sure, but I suggest soymilch with Cap’n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch.
It’s not stupid, but given the existence of both chocolate/strawberry milk and coconut/soy milk, there are two obvious possibilities. If someone is uncertain, it’s not difficult to find out. And if they do mistakenly think it is almond-flavored cow’s milk, what harm is done? Potential harm from food allergy would occur only if a product deceptively contained more things that someone might expect.
And that would be the petitio principii fallacy, assuming the conclusion.
People only think that because they’ve encountered those milk labels before. But those same people will have encountered these other milks, all of which make it plain as day on their packaging that they are non-dairy. Plus most of these milks are just ordinary words that you would have learned their meaning in elementary school.
It’s not like the word milk only means animal milk. It’s a word that has meant “white liquid” for centuries. In fact, in times past, when most people didn’t have access to animal milks, the term “milk” actually implied almond milk.
And that tells us that old terms are not being grandfathered in, as you claim. Even you seem to think almond milk is this new concept.
My primary requirement for a “milk” is protein content. Almond and coconut milks have very little, unlike dairy and soy.
I don’t have a handy cite, but both “almond milk” and “coconut milk” have been used in English since the 1300s.
Think of how all those poor monarch caterpillars have been deceived!
Because this isn’t about “more accurate labeling” or consumers being confused. It’s an industry using its ties with the government in order to promote itself over other industries.
It’s not like this started from some independent study or organization who discovered consumer confusion. It’s the dairy industry’s response to seeing a downturn in sales of (their) milk. And the goal of this is to try and reduce the amount of plant milks that get bought in favor of more bovine milk being purchased.
Even if there actually is some small number of customers who are confused (even though all plant milks have very prominent “non-dairy” or “dairy free” labels) what about everyone else? What happens when these product that have been known by these names for decades or even centuries get renamed? Surely there would be more confusing about not being able to find “almond milk” for your recipe.
And what words are more accurate? Almond drink? That implies a drink with almonds in it, not milk made by the standard milk process. Almond beverage? Almond milk is an ingredient, too. Almond water? That implies something clear. (And don’t get me started with the fact that coconut water and coconut milk are different, because one contains fat and the other doesn’t.)
Why not use the word that has been used for centuries? Hell, the default used to be almond milk, because most people didn’t own animals.
And I’m not even someone who looks down on cow milk. I’m no vegan who wants cows to stop being used or who is lobbying against animal cruelty. I don’t believe that cow milk is bad for you, like many people. If you throw in those people, then of course they don’t want the government bending over backwards to help an industry they don’t support.
I just don’t think that an industry should be able to compel the government to help them like this, especially under misleading pretenses. I don’t see this as much different than being for net neutrality.
And I find it odd that people actually buy the machinations of the dairy industry to make their actions seem altruistic.
(emphasis added).
The use of “milk” to refer to plant liquids is about 800 years old in English, and “soy milk” as a term appears to date back 125 years, to a USDA manual.
It may not be stupid to get confused, but it’s ignorant; and banning this nomenclature flies in the face both of our language and of the USDA’s own linguistic history.
It’s pretty clearly a power play by the dairy industry to use the government to harm their competitors.
I love milk. Cow milk. Whole cow milk…
And i don’t like most of the vegetable milks. Rice milk is nasty. Almond milk was hugely disappointing. Soy milk is nasty. Oat milk tastes fine in oatmeal, but it has a weird oat flavor that i found disturbing in coffee. And none of them have the lush richness of dairy milk.
And i care a lot about truth in labeling, and clearly labeling stuff we eat.
But i think this proposed law is stupid. What about milk of magnesia? Milk weed? People have been calling white opaque liquids “milk” forever. If kids are malnourished because their parents are giving them oat milk instead of cow milk, the USDA is doing a crappy job with its nutrition information. Maybe they shouldn’t emphasize milk so much to begin with.
Wait! What about the Milk of the Poppy? The Milk of Human Kindness? (rare but not mythical)
In the book by Virginia Cornell about early 20th century Doctor Susan “Doc Susie” Anderson, the episode is related of a one-year old girl dying of scurvy because her poor immigrant parents fed her canned “milk” that was basically water, oil and sugar with no vitamins at all.
Cow’s milk contains very little Vitamin C, because cows (unlike humans) can synthesize it. So cow’s milk would not prevent scurvy. Is the idea that this was supposed to be baby formula, did that come in a can in that era? Did baby formula exist at all in that era?
ETA: baby formula did exist, although no mention here of cans rather than powder, and no mention of Vitamin C, so I’m not sure whether early versions contained Vitamin C.
Don’t forget the Milky Way. If the dairy industry gets it’s way, they’re gonna have to change that to the Melky Way, so people dont get confused.