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posted by mrpg on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the moo dept.

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."


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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:33AM (3 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:33AM (#710666) Journal

    Let's just be clear about one thing: the primary reason soy, almond, oat, etc. "milk" producers call their products "milk" is to convince consumers to buy their product, believing it to be like another product.

    The primary reason the dairy industry wants to limit the use of the term is because they want to emphasize the difference in the products.

    Both sides here are motivated by business at the expense of the other. And there's no objective logical standard to appeal to other than changing English usage.

    My point is that you're obviously convinced you are correct. I actually don't care that much about this case aside from its relationship to larger trends in food labeling that I do think are seriously problematic.

    But at heart both sides here are less concerned about linguistic purity than about making money by advertising at the expense of their rivals. The alternative "milk" industry doesn't have purer motives than the dairy industry or the FDA.

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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:59PM (2 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Sunday July 22 2018, @04:59PM (#710809) Journal

    No, it's called milk because you can use it in your coffee, on your cereal or for cooking like you can cow's milk. Since it is popular among vegans and people who are lactose intolerant, I doubt very much that there is any desire to confuse consumers as to it's origin (since that would kill their market). It causes zero confusion.

    This is all about trying to use regulation to accomplish what marketing has failed at.

    • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday July 23 2018, @03:56AM (1 child)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday July 23 2018, @03:56AM (#711051) Journal

      I'll try yet again to say that I never implied the confusion was about its origin. The confusion is that some random white liquids are equivalent to "milk."

      And yes, you can use these various products in some similar fashion to how you use actual milk, just like you can use artificial sweeteners in some applications similar to sugar. That's the point: the products have been engineered (often with added sugars and flavors, sometimes thickening agents or other additives to change properties) to be similar enough to confuse people about whether they are equivalent to milk (not again, not the same in origin as milk, but equivalent in properties).

      Unfortunately, just as artificial sweeteners have some surface similarities to sugar, so the similarities are only "surface level" to "milk."

      Sweeteners are not sugar, though they can sometimes be used in place of it.

      Note again that I have absolutely nothing against almond or soy or whatever juices being used by whomever (I sometimes enjoy these products myself), and some may have good nutrition or reasons to be used. However, they are not "milk," as generally understood... And that term was again only appropriated by those who engineered these substances to play off the similarities to milk.

      Also, if vegans don't care and don't want there to be confusion, why the heck would they argue to appropriate an animal-based term?? It's only for advertising purposes.

      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 23 2018, @02:52PM

        by sjames (2882) on Monday July 23 2018, @02:52PM (#711255) Journal

        So nobody is getting deceived or confused in any way, why again do we have the FDA throwing it's weight around and demanding an expensive redesign of all those cartons and associated re-branding campaigns? (ultimately paid for by consumers)

        Next up, "Lucky Charms" haven't been shown to have an effect on probability and Cheerios haven't been evaluated for their value as an anti-depressant?