On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the US government agency that regulates food and drug products, published a proposed federal regulation that admits the possibility of calling plant-based beverages used as alternatives to cow’s milk “milk”: those that we are commonly accustomed to calling “soy milk”, rice, almond, coconut, etc.
It has been a long-debated issue in various countries around the world, with producers of cow’s milk asking for the denomination “milk” to be banned for plant-based drinks, because they would illegally compete with milk of animal origin without having the same characteristics. In the European Union and in Italy, the use of the name “milk” for these products has already been banned for some time, but in the United States they talk about it again and again because there is no federal standard in this regard, and it is probable that if he will talk a lot about it in the next few months: the FDA will accept comments on the new regulation proposal until April 23rd and then decide whether to definitively approve it.
The draft regulation of the FDA proposes to clearly indicate on the labels the vegetable origin of the beverages that will eventually be called “milk”, and therefore to specify whether it is “soy milk”, “cashew milk” or other. The FDA commented on the proposal explaining that the plant-based products do not “pretend” to be milk and do not mislead US consumers, who would know the difference between cow’s milk and plant-based milk and would therefore not be confused by the similar name.
The new regulation would also include additional nutrition labeling to indicate when plant-based milk has lower levels of nutrients than milk, such as calcium, magnesium and vitamin D. when the nutritional values are higher than milk of animal origin, and those would continue to be allowed.
For the moment, the proposed regulation seems to have displeased everyone a bit: the producers of cow’s milk have rejected the FDA’s idea that plant-based products can be called “milk” as a “common or usual name”, also if they were satisfied with the possibility of requiring the inclusion of additional information on nutritional values; but also the Good Food Institute, a lobby group that supports plant-based products, has in turn contested the proposal, precisely because of the introduction of those supplementary labels. The new guidelines will not apply to other dairy products, such as yoghurts, in any case.
– Read also: The many vegetable drinks that replace milk