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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

I’d like to add “milk” to that list. Some ground nuts or seeds emulsified in some liquid should not be called milk. Milk, in a food context, should refer to the substance produced by females of various mammalian species only.

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There's a long history of calling nondairy plant substances milk. Milkweed. Milk of magnesia. Coconut milk. Milking it for what it's worth.

So no thanks to that idea. Neither you nor the dairy industry are the boss of how people use language.

> There's a long history of calling nondairy plant substances milk.

Don't forget mushrooms! Stuff in the Lactarius genus are commonly called milky caps.

It's actually a tradition to mess with mushroom beginners by asking them to put the sap from Lactarius piperatus on their tongues, because it's super spicy and burns a ton. But it's also the easiest way that you ID the mushroom and tell it apart from a couple look alikes.

That goes for "meat" too - it was once a generic term for food, and is still used in the sense of "the edible part of something as distinguished from its covering". For example, "nut meat" is the edible center of nuts.

Dictionary already disagrees with you.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/milk

2 : a liquid resembling milk in appearance: such as a : the latex of a plant b : the contents of an unripe kernel of grain

PS: This is a fairly old definition as milkweed for example comes from it's milk like sap.

I thInk milkweed is different. Its named after it’s appearance, and not in an effort to usurp meaning and coopt.

An effort to usurp meaning? How about an effort to use evocative language to describe important characteristics of a product?

Seriously, why do you think the government should enforce a monopoly on a word which does a great job of describing "milky" substances? I think that's utterly foolish.

How can one know the intention of a plant?

The other non-dairy milks at the grocery store are also named after their appearance. No one is trying to trick someone into drinking almond milk, the almond part is clearly labeled. But it's a white liquid used for many of the same things as dairy milk, it's not confusing to call it a milk.

I also purchase almond flour and I have never been confused that it wasn't actually wheat.

Why? I’m perfectly happy with the marketing of almond milk, cashew milk, and coconut milk as is. I’d rather people associate these things with something they’re familiar with so they’re comfortable trying them. The more we can stop relying on animal abuse for our food the better.

And almond milk has a long history in European cuisine. Partly because it could be consumed during lent, and partly because prior to pasteurization it was a milk that could be fresh without proximity to a dairy.

I'm happy with it as well, but imagine being a lactose intolerant seven year old with English as a second language trying to pick a milky beverage from:

Almond, Banana, Coconut, Chocolate, Goat, Malt, Oat, Organic, 2%, Soy, Strawberry and Quinoa milk.

This is why I don't think it's stupid to put the standard wording "May contain traces of milk" on a cartoon of milk.

In your example, does the "milk" in "may contain traces of milk" include all the dictionary definition kinds of "milk"?

arguing that "milk" is confusing so we should clarify it by saying the same word again, seems unhelpful to 7 year old ESL Lactose Timmy.

Sorry for not being more clear. The argument is that even though it's easy for me to tell what's milk, I realize that it actually requires quite a bit of nutritional and cultural context, and that we should therefore consider not doing it.

I also realize that it seems silly to put "may contain traces of milk" on a carton of milk, but we should still consider doing it for the same reason. Reserving "milk" for dairy products is not in itself sufficient because many dairy products don't use it ("cream", "kefir", "half&half").

The end goal is that Timmy should be able to look for a specific phrase on the nutritional info, rather than spending all day on the toilet because a bunch of nutritionally savvy and well educated native English speaking felt that it should be obvious.

As a bonus, it makes NLP easier.

I'm guessing you work in the dairy industry? Get over it - nobody is actually confusing dairy milk with almond milk, they're just buying different products over time.

Deal. In return, meat products can also not not be misrepresented through labels like "ethically raised" or "humane".

Done! I have no issue with truth in advertising so long as it’s neutral in does not seek to politicize something.

Don't forget the numerous meat products already injected with red dyes to look fresher, "enhanced" with soy products, and all other kinds of shenanigans. This is clearly just the meat industry seeing vegetarianism become more mainstream and cutting into their profits and they don't like it.

It's like this in the EU. You cannot sell 'soya milk'.

Source (PDF): https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/p1_370368/fr/

Interesting - what do they call it there? I was in the EU a long while ago and I found only natural food stores usually contained soy/almond/etc milks but I don't remember what they were called or how they were marketed.

Compare that to where I live in the Bay area and it seems to me that vegan products are actually crowding out other products in supermarkets. Esp when it comes to cookies/baked goods.

It's gotten much more common in normal supermarkets in the last few years, and is typically called -drink (yes, English, so Sojadrink, Mandeldrink, ...) or only a brand name and then labelled somewhere small as "milk replacement based on $plant"

Calling it milk also encourages people to give these products to infants in the mistaken belief they are an acceptable substitute for real milk. Of course they aren't, as real milk is nutrient-dense and nut "milks" are essentially water unless they are fortified.

Also, almond farming is remarkably water-hungry. 10% of California's water use is tied up in growing almonds.

Won't someone please think of the children!!! Do you have any evidence of infant mortality or under nourishment because a parent mistook almond milk or other for formula or regular milk?

There have been vegan couples keeping their children on a vegan diet. But I also think banning milk in the labeling of plant-milks is ridiculous.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/11/08/child.starved/

Amazingly there have been non vegan couples that malnourished their children because they are stupid too. It's only a big deal because people like to hate on vegans. Stupid parents are stupid parents.

You also shouldn't be hanging out in the dairy aisle if you're looking to feed an infant...

While people have fed their children plant-milks in an attempt to keep them vegetarian and the results on the kids are tragic, removing Milk from the names of plant-milks isn't going to save kids. If the parents can't research enough to know their children will not thrive on the nutrients in plant-milks(I would also advise against using regular milk as a comprehensive source of nutrients too) then those children will befall other tragedies because of their parent's; not because for a few years we were crazy enough to allow almond latex to be sold as almond milk.

I wonder though it the effect of the hormones they give to cows to produce more milk has a healthy affect on children.

While we're on the topic, it's criminal that other holdovers continue to be allowed. E.g., horsepower, film, glove box, "dialing" a number. The future is a very misleading place.

I do actually store gloves in my car’s glovebox though.

Every word has a rich history which, if traced back far enough, will lead you to a source that is likely only figuratively related to what people currently understand it to mean.

So we’re already in that future and we seem to cope alright.

If that were the definition then almost nothing on the shelf (inc. cow) would be considered "milk."

Many people seem to be under the mistaken impression that in the US cow milk is simply squeezed out and bottled. Whereas in reality cow milk is pasteurized, homogenized, separated, and processed, then re-assembled.

Meaning that cow milk in the US is completely artificial. If you've ever tried milk in the EU or straight from a cow you'd know they taste vastly differently to what is sold as "milk" on a US shelf.

Don't forget about the added sucralose!

I object to the implication these labels give that the nut or seed in the title is actually responsible for the taste and texture of the beverage. With the exception of soymilk, nearly all of these products are sweetened xanthan gum milk with a tiny amount of [almonds/flaxseeds/macadamias/...] for flavor. A glass of "almond milk" contains, if you're lucky, about six to ten almonds.

I have no qualms about the "milk" part, though.

Yeah this is a little disturbing. If I make almond milk at home I probably use a cup of almonds to make a quart of almond milk, the commercial stuff is probably less than a quarter of that.

It’s a good example of where the numbers don’t make sense. If you look at the price of the product and the price of almonds something just doesn’t add up

How are almonds processed for milk, how are they processed for consumption. If the latter requires a lot more handling then you may be wrong on the cost. Tho I Believe you things are not always obvious in industrial processes

Yeah, it’s hard to know what the bulk price of almonds is on the industrial scale, and given that “raw” almonds in the US have to have been pasteurized, they’ve already had some processing.

Another analysis is to compare with soy milk.

At a local wholefoods:

    32oz Soy milk.      $1.99
    1lb Soy beans.      $1.99
    32oz Almond milk.   $1.99
    1lb Raw Almonds.    $6.99

That doesn’t tell us where the problem is, any of these prices could be being artificially inflated, but it’s pretty damning.

In order to make almond milk, almonds are ball-milled until the particle size reaches an average diameter of about 30 micrometers, which is fine enough to prevent a "grainy" feeling on the human tongue. If these ultrafine almond particles were to be suspended in water at a high enough concentration to mimic the thickness of milk, the resulting almond flavor would be overwhelming. This is described in the following patent:

https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2476317A1/en

Instead, a small amount of ultrafine almond is suspended in water along with a tasteless long-chain polysaccharide, usually xanthan gum but occasionally other PS such as guar gum, psyllium mucilage or carob bean gum. Xanthan gum is the highest quality in any case.

Source: I once considered trying to start a business around a tabletop ball mill for producing homemade nut milk, and similar assorted accessories. However, after some consideration, this is probably not viable.

Fun fact: Hempseeds are extremely soft, and can be ground to an acceptable fineness by an ordinary blender. However, the resulting hemp milk has a strong flavor resembling undercooked eggplant. It may be suitable as a substitute for coconut in curries (not yet trialled).

> produced by females of various mammalian species only.

Like coconuts

The word "mylk" was invented for this purpose.

Or in the words of Lewis Black: “There’s no such thing as soy milk. Why? Because there’s no soy tit.”

Not all mammals have tits or nipples

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