Labeling of Plant-Based Milk Alternatives | Hacker News Reader

Labeling of Plant-Based Milk Alternatives

fda.gov

27 pointsJimmc41455 comments

The title of this post is misleading and should probably be changed.

The guidelines are not that oat milk can be called “milk”, but rather that it is ok to use the word “milk” preceded by “oat” to label oat beverage.

Yes. We've reverted the title now.

Submitters: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Why isn’t HN allowing me to submit links? I’m getting the your posting too fast nonsense. I am not.

If we had honest labeling there would be a lot less milk and broth/stock on the grocery. I’m also suspicious that nearly all cereals aren’t cereals but some kind of corn byproduct

What do you mean? Milk is so cheap (relatively speaking) that it makes little sense to me that it would be "substituted" with something else. But maybe I'm out of the loop here

I'm curious what the true cost of dairy/soy/oat milk would be without gov subsidies.

> true cost of dairy milk

$6/gal

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-subsidies-lead-to-pover...

https://www.realagriculture.com/2018/02/u-s-dairy-subsidies-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17997055

(The US spends about $22 billion on dairy subsidies each year)

I imagine the true costs (and climate impact) of soy and oat milk are lesser than dairy because animal husbandry isn't involved.

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46654042

There is no milk in soy or oats. It’s exhausting shopping for groceries with so much false advertising requiring having to read the fine print on every package for purchase.

At the rate dairies are going under, it won't be a problem forever (~5-10% shutter each year). Milk is just a word, the definition will likely shift over time as consumption continues to trend down.

https://www.fb.org/market-intel/usda-report-u-s-dairy-farm-n...

https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/news/there-are...

https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2022/june/fluid-milk-co...

https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2019posts/cows-milk-human-heal...

Food is just a word, also.

“Is it oat milk or cow’s milk?” hardly requires reading the fine print. The oat milk says oat milk on it, usually prominently.

It’s false advertising pretending to be a trademark

Milk is a generic term that has long referred to non-dairy milk. cf milkweed, other milky plant saps are also called milks.

Also milk of magnesia and similar substances.

https://www.fda.gov/media/165420/download

Is there any actual logic in this document that supports why producers of fortified almond juice can call their product Milk other than "some people call it milk already?"

Seeing as that's the same reason that people call mammary extract "milk", yes. Words are what people call things, neither more nor less.

If they were just labeling it "Milk" or mixing it into cow milk without letting anyone know, then I would be skeptical. But it's always labeled as just "Almond Milk." I don't think anyone will be confused there. We've always just called it that.

I can't think of any other logic necessary really. I mean, why do we call anything what we do? Other than, that's what everyone calls it. For instance, why can Milk producers call it just "Milk" and not "Cow Milk" as well? Because that's what everyone calls it!

People don't have an issue with peanut butter having "butter" in it even though it has no butter in it.

Why would producers be unable to call a product by its commonly used named absent evidence of any real confusion or significant harm?

Why wouldn't they be able to? A milk is just a consumable suspension. Look to milk of magnesia, milk of the poppy, etc. It has a long history of being used in a general sense.

Not quite, title is misleading. This is not a regulation, nor a proposal for a regulation, it is only FDA guidance for labeling. Specifically a draft seeking comment.

Not for implementation. Contains non-binding recommendations.

This guidance is being distributed for comment purposes only.

Putting semantics and science aside, this is only a small fragment of the regulatory process and it could be a decade before anything is officially decided.

Next on the FDA agenda is to designate the following as Orange Juice:

* Orange Crush

* Orange Fanta

* Sunkist Orange Soda

Seems only right given how great they're doing with the American diet and obesity.

Milk from grains has been around since the 1200's. It's not a new thing.

I mean drinking juice isn't going to have a significant calorie difference from soda. Juice or soda should never be a replacement for water.

People do NOT realize the caloric content of various juices, they can EASILY beat soda for calories per ounce.

But I guess it's "good" calories or something.

I have had pediatricians on both US coasts advise against regularly giving kids juice of any kind, as well as the periodic pamphlets the state sends out about childcare.

Should be very common knowledge by now.

Even with pulp?

I can confirm that among parents in our local area, juice is considered MUCH MUCH healthier than soda, magically so. With pulp, Orange Juice becomes perfection itself.

Oh, I was making a joke on parent's username.

In my local area flavored seltzer, e.g., Polar, has become the new soda. I can't speak of juice, though.

These are 'draft guidelines'.

Isn't it a more reasonable outcome to start labelling "milk" as "cow's milk"?

Let me look that up on my rotary phone.

According to Wikipedia milk is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk

Unless there is another definition somewhere it would seem to me it should have it's own label sh it's clear to people a is different from b.

According to Wikipedia, "milk" is an ambiguous word referring to over a dozen different "drinkable fluids". Also a drag queen and a Dragon Ball character.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_(disambiguation)

The same is true for butter, yet nobody has any qualms about "peanut butter" not being made of dairy products. The term "oat milk" is clear. It is made of oats and resembles milk.

Absolutely, as long as they say oat milk then that's fine. I don't think they should be allowed to just say milk.

That's exactly what's being proposed. The document specifically says that the word milk should be proceeded by the plant used to make it.

Except peanut butter is not trying to be a substitute for butter.

A good example of how that doesn't matter is apple butter, which replaces neither peanut butter, or regular butter, and doesn't really resemble either, and which I've never seen anyone complain about the naming and the FDA will not go after any producer who makes it and labels it apple butter.

However I daresay you'd get in a bit of trouble if you took margarine and added a tiny bit of peanuts OR apple and then called it (very small "peanut" very large BUTTER).

Oh, you can't call it peanut butter in the Netherlands on account of that. It's peanut cheese (pindakaas).

This is hilarious to me, as its even less like a cheese than a butter.

That's the Netherlands for you!

This makes absolutely zero sense as cheese is also a product that the peanut puree most certainly is not, what am I missing?

A non-dairy product may not be advertised as butter. This is to prevent the margarine companies from mislabeling their products as butter. Because of this, peanut butter cannot be labeled butter.

So why cheese? We don't really know.

Some theories:

- possible "germanization" of a Surinamese dish/product "Pinda-Käse"

- A product called pindadokun which literally was a block of pounded peanut that could be sliced, like with cheese

- When Calve marketed their peanut butter (Rising in popularity due to WW2), they were barred from marketing it as pindaboter, and instead used pindakaas.

They already label it oat milk. Am I missing something? I just don't want to buy plain "milk," or something advertised to contain it, that turns out to be some substitute.

Folks have been making milk from grains and nuts for nearly a thousand years, and calling it milk.

I think wikipedia should be updated to reflect what people are doing, instead of some narrow definition?

Yeah, I was digging through the history on the Wikipedia article. I kept wondering why there were no links to milk substitutes. But I don't see any edit wars or anything. It was just never there in the past couple years. Wikipedia is an okay source of information, but it tends to be incomplete.

The tragic consequence will be people drinking this oat and almond juice, thinking it is similar to milk in how healthful it is, and even giving it to children.

I'm a vegan and I'm disappointed this is being down voted. This is a real concern and is even addressed by the FDA in the proposal. Plant based milks are not identical in vitamin content and can cause nutritional deficiencies if directly substituted. I'm in favor of this proposal, but this will happen to some extent. Some people will think it's nutritionally similar and will directly substituted it because of the name.

Most regular milk contains abnormally high quantities of endocrine disruptors/bioactive hormones. It probably is not very good to give to children.

It's tragic for how little those people think or know in the first place. Do they think Dairy Queen is a drag show?

Makes sense. Otherwise, we'd need to rename "skin cream" and never talk about "nut meats" again.

Isn't soy milk really just bean juice?

Hence the joke that a vanilla soy latte is really a three-bean soup.

Well all I want is to know if I buy Milk it is 100% Dairy Milk. I think Oat and Soy "Milk" taste real bad. Right now seems that is the case.

Also, I wonder if there are people allergic to Soy and Oats ? Will law suites fly over this if labeling is confusing ?

This is being downvoted but I don't understand why. Obviously cow milk is the reference, it's the only one without adjectives. Even "goat" gets an adjective. If this is a concern for dairies, they can add "Real Cow" to the label.

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