Deep-pocketed dairy industry continues war on plant-based milk as FDA hears comments on new draft guidance
OpenSecrets.org
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2023/08/deep-pocketed-dairy-industry-continues-war-on-plant-based-milk-as-fda-hears-comments-on-new-draft-guidanceOpen linkView original on lemmy.world283
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The dairy industry receives tens of billions in federal subsidies each year, and then dumps $100 million back on congress to solidify their position and earn even more favorable treatment from Congress. Really nasty system we have.
The system must be pasteurized…
That joke's so old it's in a Benny Hill song.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_(The_Fastest_Milkman_in_the_West)
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It's modern capitalism 101. Can't beat them on the market? Start filing frivolous lawsuits until your competition collapses under the weight of legal fees even if they win every case.
But if they can kick down at it, slow it down, and force all the brands to rebrand and rename their products, they might scare some people away from it for good and just make others ignore it due to confusing or unfamiliar naming.
I don't think you're giving people much credit. The fact they accepted these drinks as it is to begin with speaks a lot for habit
I'm sorry, I don't understand.
Which drinks?
I'll just make my own damn oat milk! What is it Oats, water, a blender and cheese cloth?
Don't know about you, but I'm not going to start buying liquid milked from a cow, and stop buying liquid that was milked from a bunch of almonds, just because cow-milkers won't let almond-milkers say "milk". The non-dairy producers will just get creative and name their stuff something else, like Malk
Or melk which is milk when pronounced with a couple of us accents
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My wife does that. I find it mildly irritating.
Same, and pellow instead of pillow. I pronounce things weird too which she calls me on so it's all in good fun.
I pronounce it 'millik' just for fun.
I did ever since an old Caddicarus video. Millik, it's just fun to say.
Oh dang, I kind of want to buy Malk just because it's fun to say. It's like how every time I buy those frozen fake beef tips (Gardein? idk), we pronounce be'f as beff (rhymes with Jeff) and it makes me laugh. Gonna have some beff and malk for dinner. Advertisers have such an easy job with me, stg. Just make something good and call it something stupid and I'm in.
Milque. Or Milq if there's a "How do you do, fellow kids?" type on the naming committee.
You're welcome to buy anything you want, but calling everything milk just because it's a white liquid still seems silly to me.
That's because language is silly, it's called milk because it's the act not the end product. Hence MILKING the cow. Except animals aren't the only things that can have a milking process applies to them.
Okay, go to a bottle shop and ask for a bottle of grape milk.
Lol what even is this attempt?
Dairy industry can fuck right off!
Big dairy's collusion with the US government is a much deeper issue than anyone suspects.
Here's a good read on it, I wish everyone knew about this:
https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/doctors-denounce-government-partnership-pizza-hut-push-cheese
tl;dr The US government is partnering with food manufacturers (and Pizza Hut) to increase the amount of cheese in products in order to prop up the dairy industry.
When it comes down to "can oat milk be called milk?" I think the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
FWIW - I consider myself "lactose ambivalent". I'm not intolerant. :) It just doesn't occur to me to buy dairy most of the time.
I do enjoy Oat Milk, I wish it didn't have as much sugar in it as it does. :( It really doesn't like me though!
The US FDA is a captured organization. The familiar food pyramid was hogwash designed to support the grains industry and led to the obesity epidemic.
When I was a kid it was the 4-4-3-2 plan...
4 servings of fruits or vegetables.
4 servings of breads or grains.
3 servings of milk.
2 servings of meat or protein.
https://i0.wp.com/the-avocado.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Scan10230a.jpg?resize=720%2C988&ssl=1
Something I think gets glossed over by most folks is inflation figures effect on food. Things in the inflation index consumer basket, always subsidized. If the government didn't manipulate the price on these items they'd have to pay out more in pensions and social security payments.
Everything that effects inflation figures is subsidized. Corn gets to double dip. It's in so many good products and they make gas with it. Our corn is so subsidized that other countries don't allow it to be imported.
it obviously doesn't confuse consumers: no one thinks you can milk an almond. It's just another way for a big business interest to try to push an agenda
looks through this thread
Apparently many seem to think just that
No way, the dumbass who didn’t read the package (that says non-dairy cheese right on it) is not a reason to let the government prop up a big agribusiness. Should the vegan cheeses not be allowed to put a picture of their product on the package either for when people decide not to read the package?
I get it. There's the old Lewis Black rant that you need a tit for "milk" and no one wants to drink something called "soy juice." But I think that letting plant-based alternatives label themselves as "milk" allows them to compete in an arena where they are a tiny fraction of sales.
Plant-based milk often uses much less water than animal milk.
TLDR: Oat milk is fukken awesome and also like the one thing my kid isn't allergic to.
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Good bot.
Hard to milk those little oat teats though.
Just call it a milk substitute and be done with it.
Finally an excuse to use one of my favorite memes!
A convo between an angel and God about milk
This is a hilarious thread, congrats gang
Just call em like a see um
I'm a fairly big fan of coconut fluid in particular but it's not milk. it's just not. milk comes from a titty. you can sell milk substitutes. I even prefer them, but it simply is not milk and I'm fine with food needing to be labelled what it is.
It's been called coconut milk for 300 years now. No-one is getting confused about it.
It only took one time for me ruining a pizza with congealed palm oil deliberately masquerading as "mozzarella cheese" to be 100% on big dairy's side here.
If it's not an animal product, it shouldn't be labeled "milk" or "cheese"
The term "milk" is an old chemistry term referring to a "heterogeneous mixture of insoluble compounds". "Colloid" is the modern term. Think "milk of magnesia", which is used as an antacid. It is called a milk because the Mg(OH)2 doesn't dissolve and just forms a suspension. Almond milk is a suspension of ground up almond particles. Cow milk is a suspension of fat particles that won't dissolve. This is why milk is homogenized: because it wants to form a floating fat layer and water layer. That's unappealing so they fake making it look the same throughout. It is not a homogeneous solution. So anything you can mix up in water that doesn't dissolve and it stays suspended is "milk".
I mean, it's two definitions for the same word. And it looks like mammary secretions is the older version, I think. Additionally, personally that is what I think of when I think of milk. I think of almond milk as an emulsion of almonds that approximates milk and I think most people agree with me.
That said, I am not going to confuse almond milk for milk unless they just straight up call it milk.
Bare minimum research: https://www.etymonline.com/word/milk
Not to consumers, which is ultimately the only thing that should matter when making decisions on how food should and should not be labeled.
Read the package next time dummy
I once had to waste 5 minutes and way too many clicks to find that a hamburger was not meat, no idea what it was actually made of because they won't tell you. I wanted to find out why it was cheap. You can't pretend that they aren't being misleading and trying to hide things and the fact that you are really doesn't help your cause.
I don’t have a cause besides keeping the government from favoring big businesses, why should the dairy industry get to say I can’t put “m’lk” on my package because they don’t like it
So you're the reason why we need warning labels on everything.
Warning labels aren't helpful when they're intentionally misleading. That's kinda the entire point.
Can't we just call it creamy nut juice and move on?
As someone who knows a couple of (small time) dairy farmers personally, "Deep-pocketed dairy industry" is a term I didn't' think I'd ever see.
It's the people they sell their cow juice to that are deep pocketed.
We should make them call it Bovine Mammary Secretion.
My neighbor up the road shot all his dairy cows 20 years ago. He couldn’t afford to keep them. There basically aren’t any ‘small dairy farms’ left, other than vanity or artisanal operations. But sure we should base policy around myths rather than reality.
maybe not where you are, but there are still small dairies where i am.
No such thing as “small time dairy” anymore. It’s all big agribusiness even if you think it looks like small time, just like the Tyson chicken people operating every “small time” chicken farm
maybe not where you are, but there are still small dairies where i am.
The dairy industry can contest that too. They just need to start milking bulls...
The other kind of nut juice.
They already do https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroejaculation
They are deep-pocketed, and they may be participating in a war, but certain words have technical definitions that are important to maintain when it comes to substances we ingest. Labeling anything as "milk" that did not come from the mammary glands of a mammal is technically wrong. Labeling anything as "mayonnaise" that isn't produced using poultry eggs is technically wrong. Labeling anything as "cheese" that isn't made from milk (see milk definition earlier) is technically wrong. Regardless of how evil you think these corporations are...they're not wrong in this case.
People have been referring to white plant excretions as "milks" for hundreds of years. Coconut milk, milk of magnesia, etc. Hell, almond milk was a popular ingredient in the Middle Ages.
But you'll also notice that language has changed a lot since the Middle Ages. This is a natural process, and no amount of prescriptivism or pedantry will stop it. Calling things that are not dairy — but that we use in all of the exact same ways as dairy milk — "milks" is not a problem.
Yeah, just the other day I bought some chocolate eggs and when I went to fry them up for breakfast it turned out they were chocolate (wtf) this mis-labeling of things is just too confusing.
The use of the word "milk" to refer to plant-based milks is older than the country in which this argument is occurring.
How is it important to maintain the technical definition of the word?
Well, you don't want language evolving do you??
Some people actually read the packaging on their food and expect labels to be technically correct. You know, for informed decision making.
Every alternative "milk" that I see at the store is clearly labeled "soy milk," "oat milk," etc. This is confusing to some people?
I agree that Kraft slices and whatever the fuck velveeta is should be banned from advertising themselves as cheese.
I'm on your side here but I also want to make platypus mayonnaise now just out of a sense of spite
This piqued my curiosity but I couldn't find any video. I'm now wondering if this is even possible and how weird it might look/taste.
Shhhh you'll upset the vegans with your taste pleasure.
Dunking on vegans on the internet is equivalent to wearing a t shirt that says "I'm boring"
Nice meaty asshole is my favorite flavor.