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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: 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.