Comment on UK | Oatly banned from using word ‘milk’ to label vegan drinks
CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 13 hours agoBecause for many people, an alt milk is a new product — even if a product has existed for hundreds of years, you may be one of today’s lucky 10,000. It doesn’t much matter how long dolmas, or samosas, or arepas, or lumpia have existed, if you’ve never encountered it. What you and I, who are familiar with the production of alt milks, call them informally amongst ourselves is not what is at issue. I just don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the word “milk” has a formal, legal definition, and that alt milks don’t fulfill it. I would take objection to courts saying that latex isn’t milk, for instance, because to my mind, the product of p somniferum is produced using a milking process, while an almond milk is an emulsion.
kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Hmm. I’m afraid this is where we’re going to disagree. I don’t agree milk needs a legal definition. I don’t agree that consumers need protection from the word ‘milk’ being attached to other products, especially plant based milks that are generally clearly labeled and have hundreds or more years of context in our language.
Hell. There’s ‘human milk’, ‘goat milk’, ‘yak milk’, etc.
If something needs to change, it should be that we need to now call it ‘cow milk’ and truly protect the consumer from confusion.
CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
If I were a judge and you brought a suit against a dairy claiming they have to label their products cow’s milk and cited this case as precedent, I would find in your favor.