UK to crack down on plant-based food and drink labels
unearthed.greenpeace.org
unearthed.greenpeace.org
A change in guidance would lead to action, and probably an appeal. The following court action would set a precedent and become the accepted meaning of the existing law. Which would spur or stymie more enforcement.
The UK speed running it's way to become the silliest little land.
Probably this will all get watered down during debate but the fact this and the recent traffic proposals are even being suggested shows the current regime is at a dead end and have nothing better to do unless they start moving to the political centre or god forbid do something popular like closing tax loopholes or legislating markets that are actually scamming consumers like supplements.
Banning under 25's from carrying passengers under 25 and banned from driving at night - https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-8588663/You...
And if they're going to introduce restrictions of young drivers then at the same time there should be an introduction of mandatory retests at 50-60 years of age to prove road worthiness and update road knowledge.
The red traffic light proposal is absolutely insane.
Also thanks for posting the articles.
Truly seems like they desperately don't want to enact any social or 'left' policies so they're willing to go balls to the walls with anything else they can think of.
What would you predict are the amount of people total who bought almond milk instead of semi-skimmed?
Likely a large amount of people about to or becoming obsessed with fitness, or vegan recipes. The problem here is that all those "milk alternatives" have absolutely nothing to do with milk whatsoever, they have different handling and nutritional value (or lack of it; to the detriment of innocent kids suffering their parents' obsession). For most people, using the word "milk" will pull all kinds of wrong associations from their minds' latent spaces, which they won't be able to evaluate and ignore.
By removing the word milk, all you have achieved is confusing the consumer as to what it can be used for. Can I put it on cereal, is it safe to cook with, can it go in coffee, etc, etc.
There isn't a consumer alive who thinks almond milk came from an animal. This is obviously nothing more than industry lobbying gone wild.
For use in coffee? It's already established you can put all kinds of whiteners in it, so no need to brand another one as "milk".
Starmer is a complete dead end though. Ever since he took over he's thoroughly destroyed the viability of the Labour party - possibly forever. The recent elections confirmed that.
So the Tories will probably still win, even though the majority will split themselves between a protest Lib dem vote, protest SNP vote or protest Labour vote.
Hopefully these plans will meet a similar end.
As a vegetarian I don't actually care for meat substitutes anyway, I call them veggie junk food since most of them contain dubious amounts of actual vegetables but I just don't see consumers being confused or hurt by calling veggie burgers, burgers.
Just pointless lobbying in a vein attempt to turn people away from switching from meat.
Describing something as vegan cheese or plant based cheese, you know exactly what it is, changing the name to something different entirely makes it much harder to know what it is.
This is really pretty stupid/crazy.
Should consumers really have to ask, "is this cheese sandwich actually cheese?"
But you don't though, do you? "Vegan cheese" isn't cheese. Instead, it's a bunch of ingredients to make it feel and taste like cheese, but it's not cheese. Often it doesn't feel or taste like it, it barely comes close, and they can be worse for your health than cheese itself might be.
For milk alternatives, it's even worse. It's just a money printing machine. Much higher profit margins compared to milk for some lies and a vastly inferior taste and less nutrition.
Don't get me wrong, I've reduced my dairy intake considerably, so I'm all for dairy alternatives, but these companies are on the border of lying, and governments need to take action against them.
Edit: What I find disingenuous with UK food labels is the proliferation of "plant-based" on products that are typically plant-based anyway e.g. tortilla chips
For most of those things that aren't milk, the answer is "no". So they aren't milk alternatives, are they?
Honestly, if someone told me that they got confused between dairy milk and plant-based milk, I'd laugh at them. It's not likely to be a recurrent problem either, as surely you'd realise when you came to use it.
“For to make blomanger. Nym rys & lese hem & washe hem clene, & do þereto god almande mylke & seþ hem tyl þey al tobrest; & þan lat hem kele.”
People have used the word milk to refer to some plant products for too long for this to confuse people now.
What exactly is the problem here? If I want to know what is in it or how it is made, I can read the label.
Seeing that it is a 'plant based cheese' I can know exactly what it is, in terms of how I would use it, sure I might not know what it is made of, but isn't that true for most things people buy unless they do research / read the label?
Calling it any other name, just makes it confusing, it's clear you don't like these products, which is fine, so long as they are labeled correctly such as 'almond milk' or 'plant based cheese' you can avoid them and get on with your life.
For others that want this product, this labeling is helpful, what is the issue, apart from being being anti-plant based products having a hissy fit?7
There is no lying going on with the products, it's helping customers decide. If I turn vegan and I want to use something to replace cheese, what would I be looking for? Plant based cheese, is easy and simple, why are we making this an issue? Products have been named this way for a significant time.
No, you don't. One example is "pizza cheese". Before the big EU dairy-product-naming crackdown, there were brands of "pizza cheese" that were actually plant fat with aromatics and binder/emulsifier. In the cheese section, without any obvious labeling that "cheese" didn't really mean "cheese".
Imagine Pepsi selling a drink called "not Coca Cola" or Google advertising "not ChatGPT" or "not Outlook". Literally the only purpose is customer confusion and piggy-backing on a successful brand to save on marketing.
In general I don't quite understand the "meat-envy" displayed by many vegans. As if there aren't tons of extremely delicious "vegan-original" foods (fried tofu, falafel, rice bowl with mushrooms & avocado, ...).
From a marketing perspective saying something is a "milk alternative" or whatever is mostly to market to non-vegans so that they know what to buy if they're looking to get into that area. [Shaky unverifiable source - I know somebody who develops these products for large companies]
If you'd allow stuff like "milk alternative", you'd quickly get "<huge>MILK</huge><tiny color=unreadable>alternative</tiny>".
Not making a judgement either way. Personally, I feel these alternatives work in the same place as milk (coffee, cereal, et cetera), but are nutritionally very different from milk so I can appreciate both sides of this argument.
Additionally, there are a lot of examples where the term milk is used to describe a non-dairy product. E.g. coconut milk.
This is nowhere nearly as clear cut as you portray it.
A better comparison would be "Not Cola", which AFAIK would be an acceptable name for a drink. See literally all smaller Cola brands which include the word "Cola" in their name.
The purpose of a “brand” is to reduce confusion. So that customers know what they’re buying.
So I don’t want to buy “an artificially manufactured food in the category of milk”, I want to buy milk.
Have you ever bought goats milk by mistake ?
In general I don't understand the desire to insert a comment of this kind into every discussion about vegetarian/vegan foods.
That people might be vegetarian but also like the taste of meat seems such an obvious reason I don't understand why it doesn't occur to people.
Because many vegans were meat eaters earlier in life. So they sometimes crave a tasty burger or sausage or salami, or a cheese-based dish for the same reason you do: they grew up eating those foods and learned to like them.
There is also no "meat envy". But you might like a dish called 'chicken tikka' and no longer eat chicken. Or you might be a meat eater unfamiliar with vegan products but want to cook for your son-in-law something similar as to what you cook for the rest of the family. Why should you not be able to buy a product called 'fake chicken' to be use as an alternative ingredient.
As long as the advertisement is not misreading (claiming in big letters 'chicken fingers' but actually in small script adding 'not made of chicken') there is literally no reason to prohibit such convenience labeling and naming schemes.
I’ve dabbled in some of the non-dairy milks, and do particularly like oat. However some of them are just sugar water and protein powder if you do a little digging.
I suppose there’s also concerns about infants being switched to dairy alternatives without consulting a doctor.
Just because in your socio-economic circles, no one is a militant enough vegan to feed a nursing baby Oatly or whatever, doesn't mean people out there don't need some guidance.
I mean there's vegans out there putting their carnivore pets like cats on vegan diets, so you can see someone thinking "hey it's just another milk replacement.. it's healthy!" feeding it to an infant is certainly not a 0.001% edge case.
And since GP said infants, if we're including (human) breast milk as 'dairy' then it probably is reasonable to ask doctor about it - IANA parent either but I think the standard powder or whatever substitutes are still (non-human) dairy products?
Why is it so different with oat milk, almond milk, soy milk or whatever? You look at it in the supermarket and you can see the ingredients. Before consuming it you can see that it has a different colour than the milk you usually bought, different consistency and most importantly, different taste. But it is called milk, because for most things you can use it in a very very similar way as (cow) milk. You can put it into your tea, use it for your cereals, for cooking, whatever. Sure it tastes different and you need to give it a try if you like it and what kind of vegan milk you like.
But for me the milk is a hint about what ways I can consider using it; even when it is called "not milk". And I think that is the issue for the diary lobby. That might lower the barrier a bit for people to try it out, leading to some people potentially abandoning (fresh) animal milk altogether.
This feels like a silly way to go about it, especially as we should be lowering our consumption of these animal products.
I do not know if these products are better for the environment, so in general I just avoid the category. Except for cheese, can't not have cheese.
One of the dairy industry lobbying arms is trying to convince us it's dangerous (e.g. with https://youtu.be/oLjEG8Qu1Qw) but it's bullshit.
On one hand, if you're vegan and want white stuff to put into coffee, the closest word to that would be "milk".
On the other hand, if i bought a "cheese and ham sandwich", I'd expect actual cheese and actual ham inside, without looking on the back side, if there is a "vegan" label or looking at ingredients list.
Would you? Really? Even if the product is genuinely indistinguishable? I would definitely be satisfied if it's indistinguishable, probably even before that.
Otherwise the manufacturers can start replacing everything with cheaper alternatives... fllet mignon? Just mechanically/chemically tenderize some cheap cut, it will be indistinguishable, and sell it at a same price. Honey? Just replace it with syrup and aromas, noone will notice. Not enough actual milk in baby formula? Just add melamine, noone will notice.
As a citizen I think there is high value in keeping the set of regulations as small and concise as possible. A state should twice weigh the benefit of regulation against the (opportunity) cost.