EU Lawmakers Push To Ban Plant-Based Food Terms (theguardian.com) 193
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: MEPs voted on Wednesday by 355 in favor to 247 against to reserve names such as "steak", "burger" and "sausage" exclusively for products derived from meat, a longstanding demand of farm unions. In order to come into effect, the idea would have to be approved by a majority of the EU's 27 member states, which is far from certain. The vote is a victory for the French centre-right MEP Celine Imart, who drafted the amendment to legislation intended to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain.
Imart, who is also a cereals farmer in north-west France, said: "A steak, an escalope or a sausage are products from our livestock, not laboratory art nor plant products. There is a need for transparency and clarity for the consumer and recognition for the work of our farmers." She argues the proposal is in line with EU rules that already ban the use of terms such as "milk" and "yoghurt" for non-dairy products.
The European parliament rejected a ban on meaty names for plant-based products in 2020, but the 2024 elections shifted the parliament to the right, bringing in more lawmakers who seek close ties with farmers. Opposition was led by Green MEPs, who decried what they saw as a populist move to rename plant-based foods. "Veggie burgers, seitan schnitzel and tofu sausage do not confuse consumers, only rightwing politicians," Thomas Waitz, an Austrian Green MEP, said after the vote. "This tactic is a diversion and a pathetic smokescreen. No farmer will earn more money or secure their future with this ban."
Imart, who is also a cereals farmer in north-west France, said: "A steak, an escalope or a sausage are products from our livestock, not laboratory art nor plant products. There is a need for transparency and clarity for the consumer and recognition for the work of our farmers." She argues the proposal is in line with EU rules that already ban the use of terms such as "milk" and "yoghurt" for non-dairy products.
The European parliament rejected a ban on meaty names for plant-based products in 2020, but the 2024 elections shifted the parliament to the right, bringing in more lawmakers who seek close ties with farmers. Opposition was led by Green MEPs, who decried what they saw as a populist move to rename plant-based foods. "Veggie burgers, seitan schnitzel and tofu sausage do not confuse consumers, only rightwing politicians," Thomas Waitz, an Austrian Green MEP, said after the vote. "This tactic is a diversion and a pathetic smokescreen. No farmer will earn more money or secure their future with this ban."
steak, burger, and sausage are formats (Score:5, Interesting)
Not feeling this one especially for steak, burger, and sausage. Those already have different ingredients and it's more about the shape, feel, and how you consume it than what exactly it's made of. Especially sausage.
In english i guess you can call a steak a "slab" or "block" ... and a burger you can go with patty.
But what the heck do you call ground stuff stuffed in a thin casing other than a sausage ? i guess they call them "links" sometimes for breakfast sausage.
I do get confused by non-dairy cheese products that use use a cheese name. Like idk...vegan mozzarella or something. On those i WOULD prefer "non-dairy pizza topping" or "fermented almond block" or something... though i can see how that would be bad for marketing.
Re: steak, burger, and sausage are formats (Score:3)
Re: steak, burger, and sausage are formats (Score:2)
I should add that the vegetarian versions can also taste just as good, perhaps because they are also processed as much....notably Cauldron Lincolnshire and Cumberland. There was also a plant based burger in China that was very delicious, though they've stopped making that now ðY
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It shouldn't be hard to make something taste like Cumberland sausage: MSG and black pepper should suffice. So as long as you can make the texture appetising that would be one of the easiest meat products to substitute.
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It shouldn't be hard to make something taste like Cumberland sausage: MSG and black pepper should suffice. So as long as you can make the texture appetising that would be one of the easiest meat products to substitute.
Where are you getting yours? The specifications should be pretty strict [service.gov.uk] and the meat content is meant to be at least 80% so you should be able to tell the difference.
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I should add that the vegetarian versions can also taste just as good, perhaps because they are also processed as much....notably Cauldron Lincolnshire and Cumberland. There was also a plant based burger in China that was very delicious, though they've stopped making that now.
Of course they can taste good. The processing meme is a strange thing to me. If I grind may own sausage, that's processing. If I mash potatoes, that's processing. Bloody hell, if I cook something, I'm processing it. So buying processed foods is only unhealthy if they have unhealthy ingredients in them.
Side note. There is a trend of "uncured bacon" out there. That's a lie. it is cured. Checking there ingredients, it usually has celery juice in it, which is quite high in nitrates. Which in a world where ni
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Which in a world where nitrates are claimed as evil
Here's an advil to help with your hurt butt: O
Nitrates aren't "claimed as evil". Nitrates combined with amines (i.e. from protein), and especially at high heat form nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic. Fried cured meat (e.g. bacon) will create quite a lot of nitrosamines. Eating a bunch of raw veggies especially without much protein won't. None of these thing is up for debate, certainly from you[*].
Using foolish loaded language does not change the facts or
Re: steak, burger, and sausage are formats (Score:5, Interesting)
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I mean a beyond meat burger sure, but an old fashioned spicy bean burger? Those are not only pretty good, bit also just normal food. I'm also kind of annoyed that the good veggie burgers have gone out of fashion. I like meat burgers and iv like veggie burgers, but I've gone off the beyond meat types.
This aggressively stupid legislation would stop spicy bean burgers being called as such, despite decades of precedent.
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I personally don't eat red meats very much anymore due to the unhealthy factor. But the funny thing is that the vegetarian/vegan versions are probably just as processed (or even more processed) and just as unhealthy as the meat versions, and I wouldn't eat those either...
Are you concerned about phytoestrogen overload? Overconsumption of those has them functioning as an endocrine disrupter. It upsets hormone balance in males, and in women, their natural estrogen production can shut down.
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> Are you concerned about phytoestrogen overload?
Overload ? Like what plants for example ? I've read that foods like tofu aren't a risk and are thought to be associated with lowering breast cancer risk.
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> Are you concerned about phytoestrogen overload?
Overload ? Like what plants for example ? I've read that foods like tofu aren't a risk and are thought to be associated with lowering breast cancer risk.
They can be beneficial for menopausal women, who have stopped producing natural estrogen.
The issue is not that a man has a problem if he eats a veggie burger made from peas or soy. Phytoestrogen is with no doubt an endocrine disruptor, which puts it in a class with endocrine disruptors like bisphenol A, and some insecticides and herbicides. The problem is not that we should stop eating soy and other plants with phytoestrogens, but should be concerned about the prevalence of exposure.
So there are peopl
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Are you concerned about phytoestrogen overload?
No.
Overconsumption of those has them functioning as an endocrine disrupter. It upsets hormone balance in males, and in women, their natural estrogen production can shut down.
No they have not shown to do that. There have been studies that show that it might be a factor under certain conditions. For example some specific compounds like 8-prenynaringenin are present in low enough concentrations in most foods not to have negative effects. The population at highest risk for these compounds is heavy beer drinkers that favor hoppy beers. The key word being "might" not "is". Other compounds have no consensus about how much is detrimental with the emphasis that as of 2023, there are
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Yes. We also saw that South Park episode.
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But what the heck do you call ground stuff stuffed in a thin casing other than a sausage ?
Tube steak
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Me, I would probably call it a stuffilactic.
Re: steak, burger, and sausage are formats (Score:2)
Exactly, you name it after whatever product it is replacing. This is a service to the user. That is also why "the establish" wants to force you to use other words, so that you have to go out of your way to educate the public.
Don't let the incumbents gate keep. That is never to the benefit of the people.
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Don't let the incumbents gate keep. That is never to the benefit of the people.
This really really depends. When "the incumbents" are a large number of small companies with a bunch of competition and they actually produce a decent product, it might be a real benefit that the people actually know what they are buying.
When the "incumbent" is some huge company using rules about every place of production having to have it's own laboratory to stop small companies coming in, that's a disaster.
A good example is the "Cumberland sausage" that was mentioned above, where, if you get an actual Bri
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But what the heck do you call ground stuff stuffed in a thin casing other than a sausage ? i guess they call them "links" sometimes for breakfast sausage.
The sausage thing is pretty interesting. There are so many types of sausage, including total vegetarian sausage, which BTW, can be very tasty. The home made type is preferred, at least by me.
I find it amusing though, how so many people get all spun up about these things. I eat meat burgers, I eat veggie burgers. Sausage of all types, from beef to pork to vegetable. All yummy. The only thing I do is I do restrict the veggie burgers with soy or pea ingredients to every "once in a while" to avoid phytoestro
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You are now thinking in English. Stake is for example pihvi in Finnish, which originates from Swedish biff, which originates from English beef, which originates from old French word buef, which originates from Latin bs, which means ox, which is also known as an animal. So the words they want to ban, quite often really do mean meat products. But this is just word play. We have "mother boards" that are not real mothers either. That is normal language evolution.
The real reason behind this change is that peopl
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The real question is, why would politicians support this idea, considering that majority of citizens are fine with the new names.
I don't know about Europe but agriculture is big money politically in the US. Money talks.
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The renaming of margarine as "plant butter" was totally unnecessary. Wonder what marketing "genius" came up with that brain fart.
Re: steak, burger, and sausage are formats (Score:2)
Sausage come in patties and in links. You're talking nonsense. Patty is the name of the shape. Burger is meat.
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1. Many meat sausages do not use animal-based casings. Here in the UK, Heck chicken sausages use an alginate-based casing, for example
2. What the fuck do you mean, non-meat eaters "should" lose the "taste and texture [of meat]"? Are you suggesting it's somehow immoral for non-meat eaters to want to eat products with the taste and texture of animal products, but without actual animal products? That sounds completely and utterly absurd to me, and flies in the face of thousands of years of culinary tradition a
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Without getting into any ethics, heal, virtue, type questions, I will just say this in defense of the parent.
I have had several friends who wanted to stop eating meat but struggled to convert to their ethical target of Pescetarian/Vegitarian/Vegan-ism
All of them really wanted meat and would try to satisfy their cravings with fauxmeat products. All this was in the era before 'beyond meat' so maybe it is different now, but they all pretty much reported that eating something like a Boca burger; generally left
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Sure, but I have anecdotes to match your anecdotes: my son is veggie and has been since 13, and has enjoyed eating meat substitute products all that time. I’m not veggie but also enjoy eating meat substitute products and use that to reduce my meat consumption. Different strokes for different folks and all that
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1. Many meat sausages do not use animal-based casings. Here in the UK, Heck chicken sausages use an alginate-based casing, for example 2. What the fuck do you mean, non-meat eaters "should" lose the "taste and texture [of meat]"? Are you suggesting it's somehow immoral for non-meat eaters to want to eat products with the taste and texture of animal products, but without actual animal products? That sounds completely and utterly absurd to me, and flies in the face of thousands of years of culinary tradition around the world, such as Chinese vegan cookery (mock meat dishes have been being made in China for more than 2500 years)
Here's a better idea: how about you and people like you give less of a fuck about what products other people choose to consume, and leave your bizarre misogynistic fantasies about who uses mock meat in the dustbin, where they belong.
I agree with you - just not so intensely.
Meat does not own the rounded flat shape. Calling a falafel burger a burger doesn't infringe on anything, nor does a veggie burger or veggie sausage.
Bloody hell, is it infringing on the poor meat uber allies crowd if a person makes sausage with any non meat products? Some sausages have bread, potatoes, and rice in them, peppers, and all other manner of forbidden vegetables.
I'm not vegetarian or vegan, but I do like my veggies, and if they are in a forbidden f
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Veggie burgers and sausages predate "trying to make vegetables look and taste like meat" by decades. They exist for the same reason that meat is made into burgers and sausages: it's a convenient form factor for cooking and eating.
Re: steak, burger, and sausage are formats (Score:2)
In my experience, vegetable patties are called exactly that. Calling them "burgers" is intentionally meant to create market confusion.
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Here's a better idea, how about stop trying to make vegetables look and taste like meat? If people seek the taste and texture of meat then they should eat meat. If eating meat somehow upsets them then they should understand that losing that taste and texture comes with it.
Why are so many people insulted at the existence of such things? No one is making you eat the food you don't like. Grow up.
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Here's a better idea, how about stop trying to make vegetables look and taste like meat? If people seek the taste and texture of meat then they should eat meat. If eating meat somehow upsets them then they should understand that losing that taste and texture comes with it.
Why are you against choice? If people want their vegetables to look like meat, that is their choice. From the standpoint of someone who cooks a lot, form factor plays a role in the ease of cooking. Have you had friends over to watch a game? Some of them are vegetarians. They get veggie burgers. Others get beef burgers. One person cannot handle red meat but isn’t vegetarian. Chicken burger for them. The main difference in my preparation of the meal is which patty they get. Nothing else changes. But acc
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How dare you enjoy food that they find unappealing, there oughta be a law!
Re: steak, burger, and sausage are formats (Score:2)
What I see in San Diego is about $20/lb. I don't know where the hell you're shopping that steaks are $40/lb.
Language changes (Score:3)
Re:Language changes (Score:5, Funny)
The word should only be "hamburger", and this should be reserved for food produced in Hamburg.
And if it's not produced in Hamburg then you have to call it Sparkling Cow Meat! [wikipedia.org]
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Yeah, PDO rules protecting eg Champagne or parmesan make sense to me, although I think they can end up being overly restrictive and arbitrary in what tech and other innovations are and aren't allowed. But "steak" etc aren't geographically bound names, and it's stupid to treat them in this way, in my view. Noone mistakenly picks up a veggie burger thinking it's a meat burger, and even if they somehow did, it's not self-negating behaviour for them to eat it, the way it's self-negating behaviour for a veggie t
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Re: Language changes (Score:2)
Parmesan doesn't deserve protection. Parmigiano-Reggiano and Grana Padano yes.
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Yes, I didn't speak with enough precision
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The products aren't identical, though. They're the same style, but they are far from identical. I mean, two champagnes aren't identical, even from the same maker. One of the glories of food is that it is so variable. I've drunk a lot of English sparkling wine, lots made using methode champenoise, and it definitely doesn't taste the same as French champagne. My view is that on average it's not as good, but sometimes can be better, but I think there's value in the distinction. Same goes for other PDO products
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If you think all champagnes and sparkling wines are identical, then obviously you’re going to think champagne is overrated. You don’t notice or enjoy the differences between wine styles. The same way a non-climber wouldn’t care about the difference between a full crimp and a half crimp. But just as a non-climber who said the two were identical would be wrong, so you are wrong here, especially because you talk in terms of absolutes: “champagne is overrated” vs “I consider
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There’s plenty of extremely expensive wine made in both Australia and New Zealand, eg Penfolds Grange or Destiny Bay. On value, there’s plenty of incredibly value French, Australian and New Zealand wine, and plenty of terrible value wine from all three countries and beyond. This is true at both the value and premium ends of the market. You sound like someone who’s very new to wine, or missed the last five decades of what’s happened in the wine world.
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And there isn't even a clear cut difference between the two, and especially in German, where many food items have different names depending on the region (don't you ever trust a dictionary, because for many food items, there is no Standard German word), a vote like the one the European Parlament just did does not work. The famous "B
Re:Language changes (Score:4, Interesting)
Even in Hamburg, you can today easily find a "HÃnschenburger" (chicken) or a "Putenburger" (turkey) on a menu.
A "Hamburg steak" / "Hamburger steak", which is the origin of the dish with a meat patty in-between two buns as we know it today is not 100% beef either, as the recipe typically contains eggs, breadcrumbs and sometimes chopped onions.
BTW. In Sweden, "Hamburger meat" is smoked horse meat, because it used to be imported from Hamburg.
I'm all for clarity in food labelling, but this proposal just seams like it was weaponised by the anti-woke lobby to strike at those pesky progressive vegetarians.
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Arjen Lubach's take... (Score:3)
If you speak Dutch, you'll enjoy Arjen Lubach's very funny take [youtube.com] on this. Even if you don't speak Dutch, the auto-translated subtitles are not too bad.
Can I sell lard-based tofu? + dairy issues (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to do plant-based whatever...fine...I don't think agree with your lifestyle choices, but it's none of my business....but if the companies want to say YOGURT when it's smashed cashews...that's a huge fucking issue. It's not fucking yogurt. Tofu is not beef.
How would you feel if I sold lard-based tofu in the tofu section? Can I take a bunch of high fructose corn syrup, mix it with jello, put it in an apple mold and say it's an apple? You'd probably tell me to stop!!!
Also, what fucknut needs cashew yogurt? Let's take something very healthy, high in protein and low in fat and make it really fucking unhealthy and calorie and fat dense with barely any protein?...taste worse...cost more...makes you mega fat, mega fast.
That's the problem with plant-based anything. The plant-based versions are almost always more unhealthy. If you have a specific allergy, you have my sympathies. However, smashed almonds with a ton of sugar is not healthier than cow's milk...neither is oatmeal water with sugar. Tofu is ABSOLUTELY no substitute for meat, nutrition wise. I actually like tofu. It tastes great in Asian cooking...I can make it taste good...it's just far inferior to animal protein and I feel like absolute shit after eating it...and the amino acid ratios are GARBAGE. Tofu is the protein equivalent of high fructose corn syrup...mostly empty calories. But hey, if it works for you and you want to ignore the science?...god speed...just leave the rest of us out of it....clearly label your unhealthy plant based forgeries and let the market decide...or better yet, stop false advertising.
No one would allow Fanta to sell soda as synthetic orange juice. No one would support me selling cheese pressed in molds as cow-based mushrooms....so I don't think it's unreasonable for the EU to say "stop calling things milk that aren't milk."
Re: Can I sell lard-based tofu? + dairy issues (Score:2)
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And probably because I rarely eat it I did not even know non-dairy yoghurt was a thing.
My wife has various issues with most dairy (except for some cheeses) - so she only eats non-dairy fake yogurt and uses oat "milk" on her cereal. She prefers the coconut-based yogurt substitutes though, as opposed to cashew, almond, or soy based versions.
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Exactly this, prominent and accurate labelling is extremely important. Deceptive labelling is designed to trick unsuspecting buyers and is immoral if not dangerous.
There are lots of people with allergies, intolerances, or just a desire to avoid certain things. People need to know what they're buying so they can make their own informed choices.
And most of this marketing "plant based" or other things like artificial sweeteners as somehow "healthy" is gross. Most of these heavily processed products are much wo
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I did some quick googling and couldn't find anything like you described (Yogurt in big letters, cashew in small) but if such a thing does exist- it should absolutely be crushed by regulatory agencies for being patently unsafe.
I mean frankly, it doesn't even make sense for such a thing to exist. Those who buy cashew yogurt alternative (as I've only ever seen it labeled) are looking specifically FOR that.
I c
Re: Can I sell lard-based tofu? + dairy issues (Score:2)
Instead of playing around with limits on product naming, I would rather that any processed or prepared food had a simple label on it listing ingredients, common allergens, and nutrtional information.
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We could go even simpler rather than trying to read that 'simple' label containing 3 subsections with multiple pieces of information in each, and just give it a meaningful name, on the front, in big print.
I'm sorry for your daughter (Score:2)
I think the bigger issue isn't the whole plant-based thing but that we let companies get away with fine print that's easy to miss. And when we make the print bigger so that we can accommodate folks like your daughter a whole bunch of goons come out of the woodwork to complain
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That sucks that happened to your kid but I'm not impressed by your claims of victimhood here, nor by your outrage that people are daring to make food that you don't approve of.
If your kid has significant food allergies you shouldn't just be assuming things are fine for them without reading the ingredients or you will just end up with more of what you got.
Coconut milk? (Score:5, Informative)
She argues the proposal is in line with EU rules that already ban the use of terms such as "milk" and "yoghurt" for non-dairy products.
What the heck do they call coconut milk in Europe, then? I mean, that term has only been part of the English language since 1698 [merriam-webster.com].
Re: Coconut milk? (Score:4, Informative)
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Ice cream contains cream. If not, it's ice milk or something worse,
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What would you call my recipes which use coconut cream?
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Sorry, carnivore here who still make his own ice cream a couple times a year.
You make your icecream out of meat? Or are you actually an omnivore?
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Like many people in Australia, I grew up calling peanut butter "peanut paste".
It was illegal to call non-dairy spreads "butter".
But I'm all in favour of correct food labelling. I cannot be the only one who has accidentally bought fake meat when in a hurry.
Some of the mycoprotein food like Quorn is good, but the vegetable-based (e.g. soy protein) is no substitute.
Re:Coconut milk? (Score:5, Interesting)
I cannot be the only one who has accidentally bought fake meat when in a hurry.
Almost certainly not. That said, I think most of the problems could be fixed with three rules:
Eliminating the use of words that describe what products are intended to emulate makes it very hard to adequately describe these products, which is just shy of an outright ban on the products themselves, and seems like an overly heavy-handed approach.
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Or you can prepend the word "Artificial" infront of what it's pretending to be, and then include a detailed ingredients list as well as the processes involved to get that list of ingredients to vaguely resemble what they're trying to emulate.
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And describing the living conditions of the people growing and making the veggie products would likely even the score.
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Or maybe call things what they are. Almond juice, soy juice, coconut juice (which is different from coconut water).
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I vote that we rename "milk" to "glandular secretion"
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Almost certainly not. That said, I think most of the problems could be fixed with three rules:...snip...snip...snip...
Here's the thing though. I don't think nut milk producers are trying to fake people out. A huge part of their value proposition is that their milk doesn't come from animals, just like goat milk suppliers aren't going to want you to miss that the milk comes from goats, not cows. Same for veggie meats and sausages. If their labeling doesn't make this clear, they will fire their marketing departments in an eye blink.
This leads me to conclude this has nothing at all to do with making sure consumers are adequate
butter me up (Score:2)
My grandma's apple butter recipe contains no apples.
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Like many Australians, I grew up never ever hearing of "peanut paste", nor about how calling it butter was "illegal". Got a source?
Skeptical? Let me google that for you.
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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Both. WA until the 1970s. Don't know when QLD and SA changed.
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Re:Coconut milk? (Score:5, Informative)
The list of terms allowed in food ingredient nomenclature, with exceptions, see regulation 2010/791/EU: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/lega... [europa.eu]
The document lists the exceptions in each EU Member State, in their official language. It seems "Coconut milk" is accepted in a number of EU Member State e.g. Denmak (Kokosmælk). Germany (Kokosmilch), Slovakia (Kokosové mlieko) etc. but it is NOT listed as an exception in Spain, Poland, Slovenia.
When an exception is not listed, they use a generic term such as "beverage" (the word for that in the local language).
There are always a number of historical exceptions similar to that, in each culture. For example France grows a variety of bean that is yellow is is called "haricot de beurre" ("butter beam"). This name has only be requested as an exception by France. Other countries either never had this bean variety, or just call it a yellow bean.
Though the case of "burger" is mostly political, the rationale is correct that this is similar to regulation of dietary products, and others.
For example, in food nomenclature, "MILK" is the product of the COW, that's how it is defined. The product of animal cannot be called "MILK", it must be labelled "SHEEP MILK" or "GOAT MILK" but not "MILK" alone.
Another example is Yoghurt, which must be fermented by Lactobacillus bulgaricus OR Streptococcus thermophilus. If the product was fermented by another bacteria, for example Bifidobacterium, then it can't be called Yoghurt. There's a famous one marketed by Danone and they use brand name "Activia", and the word "Yoghurt" is not present at all on the package (though it's most likely placed in supermarkets together with yoghurts). Previously, Danone marketeed this product "Bio from Danone" ("Bio" for whatever reason), 1987-2005. They renamed the product Activia in July 2005 after the EU Commission ended the exception allowing them to prefix "Bio-", leaving this word exclusively as an identified for what you would call "Organic Farming" (which is called something like "Biological agriculture" in Europe).
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That's odd: coconut milk is called "milk of coconut" in Spain. Link to Spanish supermarket product listing [mercadona.es] might work: I'm not sure whether it will want you to give a postcode.
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It will be great-great-great-great grandfathered in.
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We've already been through this (Score:5, Informative)
Read the book, "The Poison Squad", by Deborah Blum. It tells of the thirty year battle against food adulteration & misleading labeling fought by Dr. Harvey Wiley at the end of the nineteenth century. Bottles of whiskey on store shelves which contained no whiskey at all, milk laced with formaldehyde, even some packages of spices like black pepper had ground, toasted coconut shells added.
Anyway, proper, truthful food labeling is a fight that goes back further than most folks realize.
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Bottles of whiskey on store shelves which contained no whiskey at all, ...
THIS SHALL NOT STAND!
ROFL (Score:2, Informative)
Woke people in shambles because they cannot name things like they wish.
mmmm, the salty tears
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Woke people in shambles because they cannot name things like they wish.
mmmm, the salty tears
Yea, like those woke pundits and politicians who got all upset the AP stuck with "Gulf of Mexico." Sweet salty tears, indeed.
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Woke people in shambles because they cannot name things like they wish.
So the woke are for free speech and you (anti-woke) are against it. Thanks for finally admitting that!
Accurate labels are important (Score:4, Funny)
There is no reason why vegetarian burgers should not be possible. This can be a perfectly accurate label. Beefburgers are made from beef, hamburgers from ham, so vegetarian burgers are made from ...
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Advanced Meat Substitute would be entirely satisfactory as a warning.
Sounds like a good idea (Score:2)
"Populist" (Score:2)
"Opposition was led by Green MEPs, who decried what they saw as a populist move..."
Doesn't "populist" mean this is what the PEOPLE want?
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Typically it means what the populace can be emotionally manipulated into supporting, regardless of whether it will actually address the problem it is claimed to and regardless of whether it's beneficial to most of them.
It's a VERY effective approach though, if you're OK with the duplicity.
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Yes.
Remember: The people wanted the nazis.
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Whereas the elite wanted the Bolsheviks.
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Wtf are you talking about? (Score:2)
Government isn't a zero sum game wrt enviromental concerns. Legislation on other things can and must happen as well, and any government thats just a one trick pony will soon find itself out on its ear.
Ironic. (Score:2)
Government [shouldn't have] a zero sum game wrt enviromental concerns
I agree because zero sum game is precisely how the economic issue of plant versus animal-based foods has been approached. Instead of promoting incentives to farmers to transition toward crop-based farming, they have instead declared that a plant-based approach will be economically harmful and thus animal-farming MUST be protected. Ecologically, animal-based foods are unsustainable. This isn't a even a hypothesis, it's a fact. As such, it's only rational that a responsible government would promote plant-base
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The EU can do more than one thing at a time.
I'm sure they would argue that they are protecting the jobs of people working in the meat industry.
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call us Americans stupid. All this push from EU to limit food naming. So dumb.
Well, you do have Texas and its food disparagement statute; [rcfp.org] and then some Texans decided to take on Oprah.
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Yes, elected EU officials are indeed listening to members of the electorate - is that the only point you were making or did you have more?