What a strange thing to be pedantic about
Meat industry lobbyists + corruption = stupid shit
Oh we're good at this. In the whole EU it's not allowed to print 'milk' or 'cheese' on something that doesn't contain actual animal's milk. Want to sell soy milk? Ok but don't call it that way...
Except for coconut milk, because reasons.
Yea there are some exceptions for traditional products https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec/2010/791/oj
It's weird, since "milk" in English has included plant milk longer than the taxonomic definition of a "mammal" has existed.
We're not allowed to call part of the night sky, the Milky Way any more.
It actually is allowed for German "Scheuermilch" ("scouring cream", which is a cleaning detergent, literal translation: "scrubbing milk").
The law only addresses agricultural products but yeah there are exceptions for products that were traditional before the law was passed
Oh hell. I've been drinking Scheuermilch! I thought it was a bit crunchy
At least, your teeth or what's left of them is pretty white.
Germany has a whole line of not milks, almost chicken, like chicken, thun visch and i can almost be certain i saw mjolk and moloko somehwere. I always chuckle a bit when i see it.
I can tell you a little about how Germany does this and I think the rest of the EU & France should be similar. There is a government body defining what specific foods are and if your food doesn't match that, you can't name it like the food in question. And that does make sense - butter has to be made from milk and not some palm oil mixed together by shady businesses and milk has to come from an animal and can't be water & white paint.
This does make sense and really protects the consumer. It does - however - really run into problems when dealing with those vegetarian meat replacements. It would make sense to sell a "vegetarian ham", but ham has an exact, legal definition and part of that definition is that ham has to contain meat.
So cocoa butter, peanut butter, and other nut butters are out.
It's dumb. It's not about protecting consumers, it's about protecting corporate interests.
I find it helpful to have the thing being imitated as part of the name, but not the full name. It makes for an easy way to know what the taste and texture should be and how it can be used in cooking. My kid developed a dairy allergy recently and vegan butter in particular is so easy to substitute in old favorite recipes without changing the flavor much or cooking method. As for meat imitations, a “vegetarian steak” (or ham) label conveys a lot about the texture, moisture, saltiness, and cooking techniques you can expect to use while a generic name such as “plant protein block” leaves you much more clueless as to what the texture and cooking method is meant to be for that item. I don’t think it should be legal to sell plant substitutes as only “steak “ or “butter”, but calling it “plant steak” or “plant butter” is way more straightforward and easy to fit on a label than a lengthy description of “plant patty with a fibrous, chewy texture and savory flavor resembling steak.”
A milk is what I mix with my cereal, pour in my coffee, use in a pancake mixture and so on. I can't see any logic behind limiting this to animal products other than a political agenda.
It's almost as if words should mean something. Now do milk vs juice.
It's even dumber than you think:
Producers elsewhere in the European Union can continue to sell vegetarian food with meat names in France.
It's so incredibly dumb it's honestly amazing.
Wtf. Had to reread the article like 3 times to figure out the mental gymnastics
So if consumers don't understand the labels, then how is banning only French producers from using them in France going to help? They still have to read the labels from other areas in Europe...do they think the French companies will make more money if consumers aren't confused? So they're trying to stifle imported goods? That's the only thing I can think of lol i can't make it make sense
There's no "thinking" happening. Only the convergence of two opposite things:
Now the politicians got their headlines so they're happy, and in practice almost nothing changes for the consumer so they're mostly happy. Ah and the veggie producers get fucked in the process, but the politicians don't care and the consumers don't know or care.
It's basically the dumb version of the current agricultural protests (the French farmers are pissed, among other things, that their products have to compete with "common EU market" products which were made using lots of cheap pesticides that would be illegal to use in France. Now to be fair it's not a 1-to-1 comparison because pesticide usage has profound health effects on local populations but you get the idea).
Either way to avoid unfair treatment of local producers, the government has to either deregulate the industry to match the lowest common EU denominator, or to successfully lobby the EU to raise the requirements everywhere. Or I guess just treat producers unfairly and hope they'll be able to compete anyway.
This is so stupid and a collosal waste of time. Do they really feel people are just so stupid they can't figure their stuff out for themselves?
Also, and I cant stress this enough, they are just wrong.
No beefsteak tomatoes for you!
The politicians are trying to take away our steak!!1!
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