Milk: It's the "Real" Thing?

They’ve gotten away with calling their products “milks” for decades, but the makers of soy milk, rice milk and other plant-based dairy-beverage substitutes may no longer be permitted to, well, milk their lactose-related terms of en-dairy-ment.

The dairy industry wants the milk moniker all to itself. Only milk is milk, the dairy interests say – and everything else is just, well, vegetable juice.

The National Milk Producers Federation has written to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration asking that the term “milk” be reserved for cow’s milk, although it would also permit the word to describe goat, sheep or other “mammalian lacteal secretions.”

The group wants the FDA to require that plant-based beverages be labeled something else, such as “drinks,” “beverages” or (spit take!) “imitation milk.” That's cold.Continue reading...