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Can we please stop calling these juices with additives "milk". Milk is produced by mammals. Whatever you add to oak juice doesn't make it "milk".
by m0skit0 8y ago
Can we please stop calling these juices with additives "milk". Milk is produced by mammals. Whatever you add to oak juice doesn't make it "milk".
- fredley 8y agoUsage defines language, not the other way around.
- shlant 8y agoexactly, and "milk" is a good descriptor for consumers: a pale liquid with some viscosity and a mild taste that can be used in the same ways cows milk is used. Usually the only people who complain about calling it "milk" are people who sell dairy products (not saying OP is one of them).
- LaGrange 8y ago...also, non-dairy milk products have a _very_ long history.
- natch 8y agoYep. Just checked some corpus data and taking soy milk as an example, "soy milk" is used 76.5% of the time by real people not subject to legal shenanigans imposed by the dairy industry, compared to "soymilk" only 23.5% of the time, in the slice of data I looked at. Not the best data (skewed to a certain US locale home to high tech, cable cars, and some large bridges) but pretty overwhelming. And these are people who are being influenced by commercial labels forced by lawsuits to use "soymilk", yet they still separate the words. Usage ftw.
- stillbourne 8y agoUh, no. The defining characteristic of mammals is the ability to produce milk. The word itself is derived from the latin word breast. There is a definition for the word milk as a verb in the mechanical sense as in to extract a substance from an object mechanically but the product from that extraction is not, in any sense, milk, as in the noun. The only other known animals to provide milk are a specific species of jumping spiders. But, as this is specifically a single species, or perhaps even a small genus of interrelated jumping spiders, it is not a defining characteristic of its entire class from an evolutionary stand point. Milk is an important substance and the definition of which should be more regulated to prevent distortion or misinterpretation of its function by marketing. The only manufactured food substance that approximates milk is baby formula. It is time to stop calling all of these mechanical extractions that are marketed as substitutions something other than milk. This is important because there is a lot of misinformation and general quackery that is related to these mechanical extractions that endanger the lives of infants such as the parents that killed their 7 month old infant by substituting quinoa milk with actual milk or formula because it was "natural."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- natch 8y agoLooks like the dairy industry is here on HN.
- nailer 8y agoI wonder if the cow breast milk industry will also embrace correctness.
- grawprog 8y agoIf we're going for correctness, we should call it the bovine mammary lactation industry. Though there is something horribly unappealing about that.
- justtopost 8y agoKinda like tomato and vinegar syrup?
- m0skit0 8y agoExcept it is not always bovine.
- badhombres 8y agoAdditives? Just oats and water to make oat milk and some sugar if you want it sweet.
- akskos 8y agoAn opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young. I'm thinking does this definition apply to also the liquid from cows that is produced for humans since we're not their "young"
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe usage of it dates back to medieval times when almond milk was a bit of an indulgence in that it was allowed during lent by nobility. The livestock have left the barn there so long ago they have completely dedomesticated.
- m0skit0 8y agoAnd? Old means correct? They probably used "milk" to confuse people and make them buy it, whereas its nutritional value is way below "actual" milk.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe point is that the meaning is well established. Milk has long meant "edible white liquid" - see coconut milk, as well and milk of magnesia and poppy milk. The later two are essentially drugs but still fit with that definition! Unless it is believed that the non-animal milk producers are time travelers claiming it is some new deception to be corrected for when everyone has known that for centuries. They aren't changing the meaning - advocates for restricting it are.
- black-tea 8y agoMilk as a general term for a white liquid made from nuts and grains goes back hundreds of years. Nobody is calling it "milk", they are calling it "oat milk". Calling it "juice" as you have is far more wrong.
- limyt 8y agoIn french, the word milk (lait) has been used in the expression almond milk since at least the XIIIrd century. source: http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/lait http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/lait
- m0skit0 8y agoAnd? I'm calling to stop using that word :) It is confusing and these beverages are nothing like milk except in the looks.
- hypeibole 8y agoIIRC they can't be sold as "milk" inside the EU, they're usually called some variation of "beverage" or "drink". The only product that can be labelled as "milk" has to be produced, as you said, by mammals.
- jdavis703 8y agoShould the milkweed plant also be renamed to ”juiceweed?” What happens when someone synthesizes petri-dish dairy milk?
- sithadmin 8y agohttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/milk?src=search-dict-box https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/milk?src=search-d... "Milk: ... 2 : a liquid resembling milk in appearance: such as a : the latex of a plant b : the contents of an unripe kernel of grain"
- benj111 8y agoTo further muddy the milk/not milk waters. Oatly[1] appears to be grain, soaked in water, with enzymes added to break down starches into simple sugars. Any brewer should know this is a wort, basically unfermented beer (without hops). So there you go, you should really be asking for wort in your coffee. [1] https://www.oatly.com/int/our-process https://www.oatly.com/int/our-process
- natch 8y agoOak juice lol. Juice comes from fruits and oak is not a fruit (and nor are oats) so you might want to check your hipocrisy there calling it juice.