[the_gastropod]

> All of these plant based milks are overly processed, expensive, and fortified with a bunch of nutrient junk that is lacking.

You can make your own very easily. Oat milk, for example, requires you to:

1. Put rolled oats into a blender

2. Put water in blender

3. Blend

4. Pour through a strainer into a container

5. Drink up

It’s dirt cheap, easy as can be, tastes great, and has no “nutrient junk”. And if you’re so inclined, you can usually buy rolled oats in the bulk bins in most grocery stores, so you can cut out unnecessary packaging too!

ETA: Putting a pitted date in for every ~2 cups of water also adds just enough sweetness to mimic the big manufacturers like Oatly and whatnot. Adding coconut flakes and/or cashews can also bump up the fattiness a bit, which is handy for a frothable “barista” style.

[p1necone]

> Putting a pitted date in for every ~2 cups of water also adds just enough sweetness

Saw this and had to moan, sorry but this particular trend is a pet peeve of mine. You know dates are sweet because they have sugar in them right? Getting an equivalent amount of sweetness from regular table sugar instead wouldn't be any less healthy, and would be much cheaper and less perishable.

I guess you get a bit of dietary fiber and trace amounts of nutrients from a date too, but that doesn't seem relevant when using them as an ingredient with other things.

[strainer]

The only well studied and clinically developed diet for people with serious irritable bowel diseases, known as FODMAP[1] focuses exclusively on minimizing specific types of sugar and carbohydrates. For a severely compromised digestive system, table sugar is likely recommended over dates as a sweetener because they are likely to contain 'free fructose' which may be fine or even better for normal digestive systems since it has lower glycemic index than glucose, but it is found to be complicating for people with serious digestion problems. This goes to show dietary sugar is not metabolically simple or equivalent as commonly thought.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5952847/

[aaronbrethorst]

As long as we’re talking FODMAP diets, be sure those rolled oats are certified gluten free. Oats are often cross contaminated with gluten. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/gluten-in-oats#contamin...

[jjeaff]

A low FODMAP diet generally permits gluten. Especially trace amounts like what you would find in oats.

Pretty much everyone should be fine with trace amounts as long as they aren't Celiacs.

[ghostly_s]

dates, like other fruit, contain sugar in proportion to dietary fiber which helps moderate intake by making you full. Yes, that effect is probably quite negligible in this application but it's certainly not a harmful rule of thumb to use whole fruits instead of refined sugar where sensible.

[dajohnson89]

Maybe OP wanted the flavor from dates, as well as the sugar.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

I'm not saying this is the case, but some fruits and vegetables have fiber that is sweet. And potentially date could act as a better emulsifier than sugar. I know people use honey and syrup over sugar in some cases -- not for the sweetness, but for the properties.

I like to blend dates in my protein shake. I think -- just like if you added blue berries or strawberries -- it gives a distinct flavor to the drink.

I'm not sure if that's desired for the oat milk or not. I'd think people would want their milk to be somewhat plain.

[criley2]

This is actually pretty bad disinformation considering the overwhelming scientific evidence indicating that eating fruit is great for your diet.

A major point is that most fruit isn't sweet enough to dramatically sweeten a product. Most people would over-sweeten their food significantly compared to using fruit. It is in fact difficult to over consume fruit from a sugar perspective, while it is comparatively trivial to over consume sugar from added refined sources.

Another benefit to fruit is that instead of being pure sugar like sugar, there are a wide variety of other more complex carbohydrates

I'll point out that fruit consumption is inversely correlated with obesity [0] while sugar consumption is positively correlated with it [1]

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5084020/

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23594708

Fruit and vegetable intake is also positively correlated with basically reduction in all cause mortality but specifically heart disease and cancer https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/46/3/1029/3039477

There is more to fruit than an overly reductive idea of "sugar + fiber" and there are a lot of compounds in there from vitamins and minerals to other things. The science is clearly showing us that fruit is much more healthy for us than refined sugar, because of a variety of things including how much less sugar there is in most fruit compared to foods with added refined sugars.

[p1necone]

The studies you're linking and the conclusion you're reaching are based on the general idea of eating fruit. Dates have a much higher sugar content by volume/weight than fresh fruit (and are higher than a lot of other dried fruits too I believe).

> "A major point is that most fruit isn't sweet enough to dramatically sweeten a product."

Yes, dried dates are not like "most" fruit. They are sweet enough to "dramatically sweeten a product", that would be the reason they are used for that exact purpose.

Edit: I googled it; dates are anywhere from 40-80% sugar, depending on the variety (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sugar-content-of-fresh-a...). Even undried dates are at least 40% sugar, which surprised me.

[glofish]

I will mention though that food is always a lot more than a collection of sugars/fats etc.

Putting a date into your blended oat milk is, nutritionally speaking, very likely immensely different (and very likely more beneficial) than putting the equivalent amount of refined sugar. Then we havent even touched on the many other benefits - like behaviorally you are less likely to overindulge with dates than adding another teaspoon of sugar etc.

[criley2]

You sound like the kind of person who thinks that a spoonful of sugar and a multivitamin is functionally identical to a fruit and that is sad because the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly against your reductive approach to food.

No, the studies I linked cannot be handwaved off as you attempted, and no, they do not support your reductive approach. I urge you to read them again if gaining a greater understanding of why whole food is healthier than refined constituents is actually a goal of yours.

[iscrewyou]

Dates are great in moderation. Everything is. You can say the same thing about bananas or water melons or any melon.

Dates have potassium, fiber, and make anything taste great. But dates aren’t the end all fruit for all your nutrient needs. Nutrition facts and moderation is the key.

[bluedino]

That's also...not milk.

[Tagbert]

“Milk” is used for many kinds of suspension liquids. Milk of Magnesia did not come from a magnesium cow.

[metaphor]

In the US, the legal description of "milk"[1] is not only regulated but well specified.

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=165f903bfaa729843a...

[everfree]

A counterexample to that is that you can walk into any chain supermarket and see "almond milk", "oat milk", and "soy milk" advertised on the shelves.

They all use the word "milk", yet none of the manufacturers get in trouble with the FDA. It must be because the code you linked only tells part of the story.

I'm guessing that only the word "milk" in isolation is legally required to be from a cow, and that "[blank] milk" (almond, soy, oat, goat, camel) is regulated by different statutes.

[aaronbrethorst]

Not in the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_milk#Labeling_and_termin...

[snakeboy]

If you look closely, these alternatives are all labeled "almondmilk", "oatmilk" and "soymilk" for specifically this regulatory hurdle.

[jfk13]

Interesting... do these regulations apply only to labels on the actual packaging of the foodstuffs, and not to advertizing, etc?

If I look at, for example, https://www.amazon.com/Almond-Breeze-Original-Milk-32/dp/B07... the picture shows that on the product carton, it's run together as "Almondmilk", but the Amazon listing calls it "Almond Breeze Original Almond Milk".

[t0ddbonzalez]

Or "almond drink" as I saw in a store last week.

[kevin_thibedeau]

The dairy industry has been agitating to get the FDA to put an end to the unwanted competition. I can't entirely blame them since tofu juice is in no way a milk.

[metaphor]

> A counterexample...

Attention to detail: "([a-z]+) milk" != "\1milk"

> It must be because the code you linked only tells part of the story. I'm guessing...

The entirety of CFR is public domain, readily accessible, regularly maintained, and conveniently searchable at great expense to taxpayers. Care to explain why your speculative assertion isn't supported by proper citation?

[kmm]

Attention to detail would be noticing that that is exactly what they state in their last paragraph.

What's the point of linking to the FDA definition anyway? Apart from it obviously being a result of lobbying, it's completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not plant milks are, well, milk. It is overly specific as is, for starters, nobody would deny that mammals other than cows give milk.

The only result following from the regulation you linked is that people selling milk can legally only drop the specifier "cow's", but not "donkey" nor "almond", before the word "milk". Plant milks will keep being milks, as they have been in the English language since at least the 13th century.

[SantalBlush]

This is not evidence against the above point.

[lostlogin]

But it has got a weird system to it. As far as I can tell, a fake “milk” is generally white (or white ish) and it has to be used in situations where milk would usually be used.

You don’t get grape milk and or orange milk for example.

[beatgammit]

You probably could if you ground up the seeds and added water, though I'm sure it's not economically practical.

[Spivak]

It’s as much milk as turkey bacon is bacon.

Food is labeled based on its culinary classification. Something can be culinarily milk without coming out of a teat.

[naniwaduni]

They're not even remotely substitutable. Different plant milks aren't even culinarily substitutable for each other. It's like substituting vinegar for cooking wine: broadly speaking, it'll usually work, but they're really not the same thing.

"milk" is more of a visual descriptor than a culinary classification.

[Retric]

People substituting almond milk for cow milk in cereal is it’s number one use. That’s cooking by the preparing food for consumption definition, even if you don’t use heat that’s hardly required.

[rootw0rm]

I don't know what kind of cooking you do, but in my kitchen substituting vinegar for wine would be considered food-crime.

[naniwaduni]

Oh, absolutely; I'm saying it's not any better to substitute, say, almond milk for cow milk. Worse, even; substituting vinegar for wine won't usually make the whole recipe fall apart altogether the way not enough fat will.

[faemir]

Hyperbole much? If they weren't remotely substitutable then why do coffee shops freely offer them as a... substitute. And interchangeably between different plant-based ones at that.

[jfim]

They probably don't work interchangeably in scenarios where the physical characteristics of the milk is a linchpin of the recipe. Baking in general requires precise temperature control and ingredient control (eg. cake, pastry, and bread flour types), whereas adding milk is more of a flavoring that doesn't impact the resulting drink at much (your coffee won't be a chewy inedible mess if you put a different kind of milk).

[metaphor]

> Food is labeled based on its culinary classification. Something can be culinarily milk without coming out of a teat.

The FDA[1] would certainly love to hear all about it.

[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=165f903bfaa729843a...

[jraph]

What harm is done by saying plant-based milk? Everybody knows what we are talking about. It is crystal clear (yet white).

Milk is still understood by default as cow milk. It will change when and if cow milk is not as widespread as today, and then the word milk will keep reflecting the reality, as today.

The FDA, as in many parts of the world (in EU too, for instance), forbids calling such plant-based drinks milk because they are bribed and receive aggressive lobbying from the dairy industry [1].

How are we supposed to call them? Plant-based drinks that are white and look like milk? They are not always used as drinks since they can be used to cook, and are not the only plant based drinks. Yes, this makes it difficult to speak about them. Yes, this is possibly the point, along with avoiding that people think them as alternatives to cow milk.

When you are telling people that "this is not milk", you are spreading this lobbying. What is your point? People saying milk for plant based drinks will not be convinced by this prescriptive approach anyway.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/10/the-s...

[arcticfox]

"Plant-based milk" is actually more deceptive to me as a phrase, given the huge efforts the modern "plant-based meats" go to imitate meat.

"Oat milk", "almond milk" etc aren't really making any effort to imitate anything as far as I know, they are what they are.

[metaphor]

> When you are telling people that "this is not milk", you are spreading this lobbying.

I neither object to your fallacious assertion, nor find personal shame in supporting its cause if the objective hammer countinues to drop hard on the class of uncritical marketing wank that you've just demonstrated.

[AlotOfReading]

Plant milks have been called milks for centuries at this point. It's probably okay.

[metaphor]

As nasty and convoluted as they often seem, your remark is a prime example of why I respect the regulations of my country.

[gm3dmo]

Milk of the Poppy I learned from Game of Thrones.

[markdown]

The use of "milk" for these plant juices has been driven by the marketing arms of huge corporations, not historical use.

[the_gastropod]

Source? Afaik, coconut milk and soy milk have not only been made for centuries, but also called something like “milk” where they were consumed (e.g. India, China, Thailand, etc.)

ETA: The Mahābhārata, a book dating back to 400BCE, refers to making rice milk. So...

https://books.google.com/books?id=ivQ6CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT14&lpg=P...

[jtuente]

Is that a translation preference or is the word for milk used specifically?

That excerpt is talking about deceiving someone with dilute pounded rice served as milk.

[markdown]

I don't know about soy milk, but that's not true at all for coconut where it was consumed.

[swiley]

Human breast milk is also called milk but it’s definitely a different thing.

[gambiting]

Different how? It's definitely no less "milk" than cow's or sheep's or goat's milk. As a substance it's definitely as much "milk" as it can possibly be.

[t0ddbonzalez]

Are you serious?

You do know why animals (including humans) produce milk, don't you?

[swiley]

Yes, my point is it tastes very different, I’m not sure I’d want it in my breakfast cereal.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

I'll stick to regular milk that humans have been consuming for millennia. I'm a mammal.

[jackbrookes]

Why would you assume drinking milk from a different order of mammal is good for you? And why would you assume that because we have been consuming an item for millennia that it is good for you?

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

That's literally how you could assume it's good for you but there are also plenty of studies that support the assumption. Plenty show that low-fat or non-fat yogurt and milk are "good" for you.

Humans have been milking everything they can get their hands on since prehistoric times. There are a number of reasons to not eat/drink those things (taste, vegan, intolerance, etc) but that doesn't suddenly make yogurt, milk, and cheese "bad" for you.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/food-features/y...

[triceratops]

> because we have been consuming an item for millennia that it is good for you?

This gives me confidence that it's most probably not fatally bad. Which is good enough for something so delicious as dairy.

[rapunkill]

Of all mammals, only humans drink milk into adolescence/adulthood. And only a few of them actually do it regularly.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. Of all mammals, only humans ride bicycles. We should stop riding bicycles.