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> and I gave you actual "almond milk" What makes that the actual version? Almond milk as an animal milk substitute made from almonds dates back to the 1300s[0]

> and I gave you actual "almond milk" What makes that the actual version? Almond milk as an animal milk substitute made from almonds dates back to the 1300s[0]. It's not new. I hear where you're coming from, but I also question what does and doesn't count as an "authentic" name, and I suspect a lot of it comes down to people thinking that the names they used growing up or the names they ran into first are the "real" ones and everything else is a new fad. When people are arguing about confusion I'm a little bit sympathetic (although I'm doubtful consumer confusion is actually the serious problem they make it out to be). But when people start to argue about needing to use proper words, I usually check out, because usually they have a very narrow view of what word origins count as proper. They're rarely tracing the etymology of the word, they're usually just saying that everyone should adopt the same definitions that their specific parents used. So let me flip your question around on you: almond sherbet already traditionally contains milk. What would be wrong with calling almond sherbet... almond sherbet, or an almond milkshake if the balance of milk is increased. That would be helpful anyway, because you could make vegan almond sherbet using a vegan milk as a base, and then what are you going to call it under your system? My take on this is that vegan cheese/milk is substitutable in nearly every single recipe I make. Many people dislike the taste of vegan cheese, which I understand and think is completely valid, but many people also dislike the taste of brie and I don't see a general campaign to classify brie as a non-cheese. So part of why I call those products vegan milk/cheese instead of "cheeze" is because I think if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and if I can use it in all of my duck recipes often without any additional thought or research, then for all practical purposes it's a duck. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_milk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_milk

cheese_goddess 6y ago
> What makes that the actual version? That it's milk with almond. Like "chocolate milk" is milk with chocolate and "milk coffee" is coffee with milk.
- wumpus 6y ago
  So if I'm Catholic, it's OK for me to drink almond-flavored dairy-milk during Lent? Win! From medieval and Renaissance-era recipes, religious rules appears to be the main reason almond milk is used. Because it's not dairy.
  - frabbit 6y ago
    Not sure about that, but I do know that if you want to eat capybara on Fridays as your fish dish you should be fine.
- jhbadger 6y ago
  Do you have a problem with the name "peanut butter"? It isn't butter with peanuts in it. Or mincemeat pie, which isn't made out of minced meat?
  - frabbit 6y ago
    Proper mincemeat pies contain suet and have a very different taste from the vegetarian ones. So yes, in that case it is a problematic name that conflates two usefully distinct things.
tpoacher 6y ago
Almond sherbet is the sherbet itself, not the milk drink, but I take the point. And I guess almond milk wasn't the best example to focus on, but I was referring more generally to the trend of intentional misnaming that I have observed. So, e.g., given your 'quacks like a duck' theory, I could happily cook a "mushroom risotto" with mushroomy chicken instead of actual mushroom, and that would still be a perfectly fine mushroom risotto, right? Except serving that to a vegan claiming it's a "mushroom risotto" would probably make me an ass, and all linguistic subtleties of what constitutes 'mushroominess' in chicken would probably fly out the window. Note I'm not arguing about what ingredients are substitutable for others and thus comparable. I'm arguing about naming, and specifically about naming intended to produce confusion and blur the definitions for the purpose of marketing. So while I partly agree with the 'quacks like a duck' thing, I think a big part of why it's fine to have non-dairy 'cheese', but not fine to have chicken-based 'mushrooms' comes down to which direction of duck-quacking feels more 'defendable' than what constitutes acceptable substitutes in terms of flavour.
- wumpus 6y ago
  Cheese and milk products made from allergens (cashews and other nuts) are pretty careful with their labeling, because people die from nut allergies every day. Your hidden-chicken risotto would make me very ill for a day or two. I always ask before ordering risotto, just in case the restaurant is being careless. How is it intentional misnaming to use a term like "Almond Milk", which has been used in English back to the origin of the language? Care to look up how long "rice milk" in Japanese has contained the Japanese word for milk? ミルク and ライスミルク.
- danShumway 6y ago
  Honestly? Yes, if you made a mushroom risotto with chicken, and it was genuinely designed to imitate a mushroom risotto, then that's what I would call it: a mushroom risotto with chicken. What would you call it? Would you come up with an entirely new name? > Except serving that to a vegan claiming it's a "mushroom risotto" would probably make me an ass To be clear, the jerk part here would be serving non-vegan food to a vegan, not the name. If you made a mushroom risotto and slathered butter over it, it would be just as much of a jerk move. This is actually something that comes up a lot with vegan food, it's why we need to read labels. There are multiple artificial meats that are made with milk and eggs and are vegetarian friendly but not vegan friendly. It's rarely safe to assume something is vegan just because vegetables are the primary ingredient or because it's "plant-based". If you want to think of it from another perspective, I would say the same thing is true of allergens. If you made a mushroom risotto and incorporated a peanut sauce or glaze, I don't have an issue with you calling it a mushroom risotto, I don't think anything fundamental has changed about the food. But it would definitely be a jerk move (and potentially negligent homicide) to feed it to someone you knew had a peanut allergy, and you would need to make sure that if you sold it in a store that it showed peanuts prominently in the ingredients. > intended to produce confusion and blur the definitions for the purpose of marketing I don't particularly care about marketing purposes, I don't think the term "almond milk" is any more deceptive than the term "turkey pepperoni" or "black bean brownies". And I do not believe that when the meat industry lobbies to get stuff renamed to "almond juice", they're doing it out of concern for confusion, they just want to create certain connotations in the exact same way that vegan companies want to do. But if you wanted legislation that required food to clearly indicate whether or not it contained animal products, it would make my life a great deal easier, I would be able to stop reading individual ingredients to find out whether or not a loaf of bread was vegan. Right now you can indicate whether a food is vegan/vegetarian, and many products that are marketing to vegans do, especially imitation meats and plant based cheese/milk/butter which I've found to be pretty prominent. But there's no requirement to do so, and many animal products (esp less 'palatable' ingredients like shellac) are allowed to be listed in ingredient lists with no other information at all. I often have to not just read ingredients but look up new terms that I'm unfamiliar with on my phone. Some ingredients don't even have a clear answer, they might be derived from animals or they might not be, and there's no obligation for food manufacturers to indicate which version they're using. An easy way to solve this problem would be for labeling purposes to treat animal by-products and meat more like an allergen, require a line after the ingredients stating "contains ingredients derived from animals".

cheese_goddess 6y ago

> What makes that the actual version? That it's milk with almond. Like "chocolate milk" is milk with chocolate and "milk coffee" is coffee with milk.

wumpus 6y ago
So if I'm Catholic, it's OK for me to drink almond-flavored dairy-milk during Lent? Win! From medieval and Renaissance-era recipes, religious rules appears to be the main reason almond milk is used. Because it's not dairy.
- frabbit 6y ago
  Not sure about that, but I do know that if you want to eat capybara on Fridays as your fish dish you should be fine.
jhbadger 6y ago
Do you have a problem with the name "peanut butter"? It isn't butter with peanuts in it. Or mincemeat pie, which isn't made out of minced meat?
- frabbit 6y ago
  Proper mincemeat pies contain suet and have a very different taste from the vegetarian ones. So yes, in that case it is a problematic name that conflates two usefully distinct things.

tpoacher 6y ago

Almond sherbet is the sherbet itself, not the milk drink, but I take the point. And I guess almond milk wasn't the best example to focus on, but I was referring more generally to the trend of intentional misnaming that I have observed. So, e.g., given your 'quacks like a duck' theory, I could happily cook a "mushroom risotto" with mushroomy chicken instead of actual mushroom, and that would still be a perfectly fine mushroom risotto, right? Except serving that to a vegan claiming it's a "mushroom risotto" would probably make me an ass, and all linguistic subtleties of what constitutes 'mushroominess' in chicken would probably fly out the window. Note I'm not arguing about what ingredients are substitutable for others and thus comparable. I'm arguing about naming, and specifically about naming intended to produce confusion and blur the definitions for the purpose of marketing. So while I partly agree with the 'quacks like a duck' thing, I think a big part of why it's fine to have non-dairy 'cheese', but not fine to have chicken-based 'mushrooms' comes down to which direction of duck-quacking feels more 'defendable' than what constitutes acceptable substitutes in terms of flavour.

wumpus 6y ago
Cheese and milk products made from allergens (cashews and other nuts) are pretty careful with their labeling, because people die from nut allergies every day. Your hidden-chicken risotto would make me very ill for a day or two. I always ask before ordering risotto, just in case the restaurant is being careless. How is it intentional misnaming to use a term like "Almond Milk", which has been used in English back to the origin of the language? Care to look up how long "rice milk" in Japanese has contained the Japanese word for milk? ミルク and ライスミルク.
danShumway 6y ago
Honestly? Yes, if you made a mushroom risotto with chicken, and it was genuinely designed to imitate a mushroom risotto, then that's what I would call it: a mushroom risotto with chicken. What would you call it? Would you come up with an entirely new name? > Except serving that to a vegan claiming it's a "mushroom risotto" would probably make me an ass To be clear, the jerk part here would be serving non-vegan food to a vegan, not the name. If you made a mushroom risotto and slathered butter over it, it would be just as much of a jerk move. This is actually something that comes up a lot with vegan food, it's why we need to read labels. There are multiple artificial meats that are made with milk and eggs and are vegetarian friendly but not vegan friendly. It's rarely safe to assume something is vegan just because vegetables are the primary ingredient or because it's "plant-based". If you want to think of it from another perspective, I would say the same thing is true of allergens. If you made a mushroom risotto and incorporated a peanut sauce or glaze, I don't have an issue with you calling it a mushroom risotto, I don't think anything fundamental has changed about the food. But it would definitely be a jerk move (and potentially negligent homicide) to feed it to someone you knew had a peanut allergy, and you would need to make sure that if you sold it in a store that it showed peanuts prominently in the ingredients. > intended to produce confusion and blur the definitions for the purpose of marketing I don't particularly care about marketing purposes, I don't think the term "almond milk" is any more deceptive than the term "turkey pepperoni" or "black bean brownies". And I do not believe that when the meat industry lobbies to get stuff renamed to "almond juice", they're doing it out of concern for confusion, they just want to create certain connotations in the exact same way that vegan companies want to do. But if you wanted legislation that required food to clearly indicate whether or not it contained animal products, it would make my life a great deal easier, I would be able to stop reading individual ingredients to find out whether or not a loaf of bread was vegan. Right now you can indicate whether a food is vegan/vegetarian, and many products that are marketing to vegans do, especially imitation meats and plant based cheese/milk/butter which I've found to be pretty prominent. But there's no requirement to do so, and many animal products (esp less 'palatable' ingredients like shellac) are allowed to be listed in ingredient lists with no other information at all. I often have to not just read ingredients but look up new terms that I'm unfamiliar with on my phone. Some ingredients don't even have a clear answer, they might be derived from animals or they might not be, and there's no obligation for food manufacturers to indicate which version they're using. An easy way to solve this problem would be for labeling purposes to treat animal by-products and meat more like an allergen, require a line after the ingredients stating "contains ingredients derived from animals".