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Soon, your soy milk may not be called 'milk'
Soy and almond drinks that bill themselves as "milk" may need to consider alternative language after a top regulator suggested the agency may start cracking down on use of the term.
The Food and Drug Administration signaled plans to start enforcing a federal standard that defines "milk" as coming from the "milking of one or more healthy cows." That would be a change for the agency, which has not aggressively gone after the proliferation of plant-based drinks labeled as "milk."
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb talked about the plans this week, noting there are hundreds of federal "standards of identity" spelling out how foods with various names need to be manufactured.
"The question becomes, have we been enforcing our own standard of identity," Gottlieb said about "milk" at the Politico event Tuesday. "The answer is probably not."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kazzie on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:16PM (37 children)
What about the sheep and goats?
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:31PM (6 children)
Maybe they'll define all large mammals as cows.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:34PM
In that case, I am already ahead of them in this classification. I also classify sufficiently large mammals as whales.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:52PM
...and they are also spherical...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @09:38PM
I don't think what will go over well with human females.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:07PM (1 child)
66 REDEFINE LARGE-MAMMAL AS COW
I wish I could have posted that as a punch-card.
We can take it as 100% safe bet that the top regulator expert is (cough) sponsored by the Dairy Industry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:25PM
Ah, you can go play at http://www.masswerk.at/keypunch/ [masswerk.at]
(Score: 1) by noneof_theabove on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:19PM
I already have.
Live in a county in Tejas with the highest insurance rates for autos, highest teen birth rate, highest rate of diabetes and
the most overweight [cows].
The are 11 year old boys running around that back in the 60's when I grew would have had to wear a bra.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by choose another one on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:06PM (12 children)
> What about the sheep and goats?
And the people. Doesn't anyone think of the children any more?
Actually I think baby feeds are not allowed to be called "baby milk" unless they are actually made of milk - why they are called "baby formula" instead, and I think that applies in USA too.
I really don't understand the vegan milk/cheese/bacon/sausage/burger brigade - I get why you might want to not eat animal products, but not why you would then want to eat food that is named the same as animal products. Seems a bit like claiming you are anti-car and then insisting your bicycle is actually a car, or saying you are anti-gun and then carrying a replica everywhere and insisting it's actually an AR15.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:16PM (2 children)
Goat milk is extracted from goats, and soy milk is extracted from soy, so baby milk is...?
This kind of thing was a problem for Gerber's baby food in Africa. Cans of food sold in Africa normally have pictures of the food. (picture of corn on a can of corn, picture of green beans on a can of green beans, etc.) Gerber baby food had pictures of babies.
Admittedly, "baby formula" isn't much better. It sounds like something used to create babies. Eeeeeew. I'm not feeding THAT to my baby.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:17PM (1 child)
But, it has everything a growing baby needs... :0
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Monday July 23 2018, @07:43AM
Electrolytes?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by acid andy on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:33PM (5 children)
Vegan here. But I share your point of view, more or less. The thought of so called "mock meats" make me want to gag. I am OK with non-dairy drinks being presented as "milks" though. It's probably down to the fact that I was veggie for quite some time before I went the whole, err, cob! I do have a convenient rationalization for this behavior developed afterwards though: as a mammal it's perfectly natural to enjoy drinking milks (and yeah trolls, I'm already perfectly aware there's a similar argument about it being natural as an omnivore to eat meat!). I'd consider drinking human milk if it was fully consensual and pasteurized. Why don't they sell human milk in stores to feed babies?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Informative) by schad on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:10PM
Well, you have to pay humans, whereas you don't have to pay cows. Thus human milk would be considerably more expensive.
With that said, it is possible to buy human milk, and some people do. I mean, nursemaids were a thing: women who breastfed children that weren't their own. Nowadays, with the advent of breast pumps, freezers, and next-day shipping, they're more likely to bottle and sell their milk instead. There's not a huge market for it, but the market that exists is willing to pay a lot for the real deal.
The things you learn when you don't want to feed your kid soy-based formula!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)
FTFY
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday July 21 2018, @06:33PM
Oh, that old chestnut! They're more like fruit actually. Big, round, bouncy chest fruit.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:27AM (1 child)
But directly, not in stores
Women who express too much sell it to women who don't express enough
If a lady keeps using a breast pump she cab lactate for quite a lot longer time
A friend of mine did so while her daughter awaited a kidney transplant
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:17AM
Correct, and it is also donated [some places at least]. Milk banks collect from donors and distribute, just as blood banks do for blood.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:08PM (2 children)
Because many people are vegans/vegetarians for ethical reasons. Fake meat and so on do not pose an issue for them.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:49PM
Actually, there's something I forgot to add, and it was more or less the opposite of what you just said.
It was that I suspect that most of the vegans that want to eat imitation meats just adopted it as a fad diet, where they still desire meat to eat but attempt to avoid it with the aim of losing weight or improving their health.
Good job this isn't Hacker News -- that place seems to be full of fad dieters for some reason!
I'm not saying that ditching or reducing your consumption of animal products can't be a healthier option, just that there are a lot of dieters that blindly follow trends without really understanding any of the science behind a diet.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:53PM
But why can't they call it what it is then? Soy-milk or Quorn-meat (or whatever that mushroom thing is called/spelled again). Fake products should note and acknowledge their "fakeness" so it isn't confused or mixed up with the real product.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by exaeta on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:39PM
11th Circuit already ruled that truthful advertising can't be regulated by government per Reed v. Gilbert.
On these grounds, I don't think they can stop you from selling "goat milk" and it's questionable if they cab regulate "soymilk" this late given that it has been used so frequently.
"Soy Milk" has already been accepted into the dictionary:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soy%20milk [merriam-webster.com]
They can maybe stop you from just calling it "milk" without specifying though, but at this point it's unclear.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:52PM
The last time I read about this, the submission didn't say anything about cows, though it did say "milking".
FWIW, having looked at the protein levels of the various things called "almond milk", "soy milk", etc. I think that they *should* be renamed to prevent consumer fraud. Some of them have quite low levels of protein. Some seem to be sugar beverages disguised as something nutritional.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:49PM (13 children)
While that is true how often do you see sheep and goats milk in the store? Or if you like why don't they sell human milk? I give you that the definition is somewhat less then ideal but on the other hand it really does fill a very narrow market.
I must say all this talk about soy- or wheat- or whatever the fuckgrain it is that they claim to be milk is somewhat annoying. How do you milk wheat? If you can't milk it how can the product be called "milk"? Mixing something with water isn't milking.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday July 21 2018, @10:29PM
Goat milk is pretty common actually. (I think it's become less common in recent years due to the rise of alternative "milks"; goat milk used to be a common option for lactose intolerant, because it contains less lactose and a significant number of lactose intolerant people found it a better option.)
Sheep milk is rarely sold at retail, but it (as well as goat) is commonly used for cheese making and occasionally for other products.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday July 22 2018, @09:41AM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:30AM (5 children)
In Greece, too, where you can find goat's milk at the super market. It's quite expensive (about double the price of cow's milk), but I'm told it is much better for children, as it is closer to mother's milk than cow's milk. And yes, you can also find ass's milk, which is even closer, but at outrageous prices (about 12€ for a 100 ml jar).
I buy my cheese at the store of a local dairy, and I think that all their cheeses are made from a mixture of goat's and sheep's milk or goat's milk alone. As these milks are more fatty than cow's milk (especially sheep's milk), cheese made from them is much richer than cheese made from cow's milk, so a small amount will go a long way.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:51AM (4 children)
As noted they don't sell that milk up here in the north, Sweden. We do get all the cheese tho, feta would be one that comes to mind (both real and fake once) and as far as I can recall that is goat/sheep or some combo. Donkey milk, that sounds kind of interesting.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:53PM (3 children)
If it's the real thing, feta cheese must be made using a mixture of sheep and goat's milk. It must also be made in Greece, so the fake version cannot be called feta, even if it is better. (I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised: I prefer Danablu to Roquefort, e.g. I also wouldn't be surprised if all white rennet cheese is called feta outside Greece, EU regulations be damned: whenever I ask for Danablu at the supermarket, I have to explain that I want "Danish Roquefort".)
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:59PM (2 children)
That is true as far as I know. Before Greece got all up in arms about it and made Feta a protected name/product (or whatever the correct terminology for it is) there was others. They, the "fake-feta", are still available but they are now, here, called "salad cheese" instead. They are as far as I know made from cow-milk but they look about the same. They have a milder less salty taste compared to the real thing and are softer in texture. It's as the name suggests fairly commonly here used in salads and kebabs and such things. Overall tho I eat mostly hard cheeses so I'm really doubling down on the cow-milk all around I guess.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday July 22 2018, @03:30PM (1 child)
The following popular cheese are all made from non-bovine milk if they are genuine:
I am sure that there are many others, but non-bovine milk and cheese is nowhere near as rare as many people think it is.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Monday July 23 2018, @07:55AM
Not to mention Venezuelan beaver cheese [wikipedia.org]...
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday July 22 2018, @11:47AM
That sounds like a southern Europe thing, up here in the northern part (Sweden) we are more or less cow milk only. Goat/Sheep etc are as noted previously more seen as cheese milks. I'm sure some little specialty store might carry it but the big chains doesn't. They do have all the fake milks (wheat, soy, almond ...) but not the milk from other mammals.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:46PM (2 children)
Goats' milk is now commonly sold in most UK supermarkets, and also some convenience stores. There are two main suppliers, and they both offer it the UK's three standard fat-content varieties (skimmed, (0.1%), semi-skimmed (2%), and whole (3%).
Rewind two or three decades, and you could only buy it from the sort of specialist food shops you'd find in larger towns/cities (whole milk only, in bulk, frozen).
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday July 22 2018, @03:50PM (1 child)
So what explains the, somewhat, fairly rapid increase from a specialist item to a "common" item? It can't all be milk hipsters.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:58PM
I'm not sure I can tell you the cause of the rise, but I can tell you that my wife (who has an intolerance to cow's milk' but is fine with goat's) is glad of its availability. Her mother didn't enjoy pushing a pram-load of milk across the city for her when she was a baby/toddler.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday July 23 2018, @03:14AM
There's no problem getting goat milk at my local corner store. It is sole by the litre.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:14AM
Or people....