U.S. Court of Appeals Says Almond Milk Is Milk

Almond milk producers are allowed to call their product milk, says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The court agreed with another court dismissal of a class action lawsuit filed against Blue Diamond Growers, makers of the best selling almond milk in the United States. The lawsuit alleged that the company was misleading consumers and subsequently advocated for labeling plant-based milk as “imitation milk” due to their inferior nutritional content. This is not the first time nut milk has found itself fighting to use the term milk, as the dairy industry is using all avenues available to them to deal with a culturally, ethically, and environmentally shifting world.

Ongoing Saga

The initial lawsuit against Blue Diamond Growers was filed in January 2017. the almond thing has been in court since at least 2017. The case was dismissed with prejudice in 2017, and the case was then appealed by the plaintiff in 2018. After the second dismissal due to the lack of proof that consumers would be misled by almond milk’s nutritional claims and information, it seems unlikely that almond milk manufacturers will need to change their labeling practices based this lawsuit. They will, however, need to reconcile this issue with the Food and Drug Administration sooner rather than later.

In a statement released in September 2018, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb expressed sentiments remarkably similar to those in the case against Blue Diamond Growers.

The wide variety of plant-based foods that are being positioned in the marketplace as substitutes for standardized dairy products has been the subject of much discussion in our initial work on the Nutrition Innovation Strategy. The rising demand for plant-based products, like soy-based alternatives to cheese and nut-based alternatives to milk, has created a growing number of new food choices in supermarket aisles. However, these products are not foods that have been standardized under names like “milk” and “cheese.” The FDA has concerns that the labeling of some plant-based products may lead consumers to believe that those products have the same key nutritional attributes as dairy products, even though these products can vary widely in their nutritional content. It is important that we better understand consumers’ expectations of these plant-based products compared to dairy products.”

It’s comforting to hear that the FDA is paying attention to and invested in the changing nutritional needs of the public. Still, recent studies have found that milk doesn’t provide nearly the health benefits either, especially if you’re unable to easily digest it. Yet the FDA references the nutritional superiority of dairy with the phrase “key nutritional attributes.” Why is the government agency acknowledging new attitudes without making room for the possibility that we might not need milk like previous generations thought we did?

Related: Homemade Vegan Nut Milk Recipes

Dairy Farmers in Crises

The growing interest in relabeling milk alternatives has a direct correlation with the fortunes of the dairy industry. The dairy industry is in a particularly rough spot and has been for decades now. Dairy consumption has dropped by 40 percent since the 1970s, and that shows no sign of stopping. The dairy industry has received two separate bailouts within the last three years, including a billion dollar allotment in a budget agreement signed by the Senate in 2018 and a USDA purchase of 11 million dollars of surplus cheese in 2016. Previous efforts at combating the downward trend include the popular got milk campaign, but the current business strategy of blaming alternative milk for declining milk sales isn’t likely to fix the issues with the dairy industry.

Nut milk appeals to the lactose intolerant, the health conscious, the environmentally conscious, and vegans. The public is also paying more attention to how their food is produced, and several dairy industry practices make consumers less likely to support the dairy industry. These practices include but are not limited to separating mothers and babies less than a week after birth, dehorning cows, and keeping cows constantly pregnant.

In addition to shifting public perceptions, the dairy industry is also dealing with a problem of their own making. While the demand for milk and other dairy products has declined, dairy producers have continued to build their surplus. In 2017, the reported milk surplus was more than four times the amount of the actual consumer demand for milk. This imbalance also negatively effects dairy farmers, who are forced to sell milk for lower prices. Many farmers are subsequently going out of business.

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Milking Nuts

All of this is good news for nut milk producers like Blue Diamond Growers, the defendant in this case. The dairy industry is losing its mojo, and this lawsuit and other stalling tactics are only increasing the whiff of desperation. The dairy industry may not like the competition from nut milk and other non-dairy alternatives, but that won’t change the fact that those products are here to stay.

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Meat and Dairy Industry On Course To Contribute More Global pollution Than OIL Companies

Within the next few decades, Big Meat and Big Dairy will surpass Big Oil for climate pollution, according to a new study by the non-profits GRAIN and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The jointly published study quantified emissions from 35 of the world’s largest meat and dairy companies.

The non-profit researches analyzed 35 of the meat and dairy industry’s biggest companies. The researchers warned that meat and dairy companies will overtake oil firms as the world’s biggest polluters. The authors of the study say that factory meat and dairy farms are ‘majorly overlooked climate culprits.

Related: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

According to the report, the five largest meat and dairy corporations—JBS, Tyson, Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America, and Fonterra—are already responsible for more annual greenhouse gas emissions than ExxonMobil, Shell, or BP.

They also found that businesses did a poor job reporting their emissions and targets, and many failed to report emissions entirely or excluded supply chain figures, which amount to 80 to 90 percent of total emissions.

Watch the video below to see how the meat industry could actually help reduce climate change.

Related: Stop Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

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America’s Largest Organic Dairy Brand Is Not Organic, Study Suggests

Do you really know what’s in your organic milk? According to recent reports, the big organic dairies in the United States may be lying to you. An investigation by the Washington Post into High Plains Dairy in Colorado, owned by Aurora Organic Dairy, found that the farm isn’t complying with organic regulations.

Located in Greeley, Colorado, High Plains Dairy is home to over 15,000 cows, which dwarfs most organic dairy operations by a hundredfold. This dairy behemoth is a major organic milk supplier to national brands like Costco and Walmart, and millions of customers pay twice the price of conventional milk for their dairy products.

A closer look at the dairy farm’s practices has revealed that farm is not organic.

The Issue of Grazing

When it comes to organic milk certification, a key detail is pasture-based grazing. Rather than subsisting on feedlot corn like their conventional cousins, organic dairy cows are required to graze on pasture throughout the growing season. Not only is this more natural for the ruminant stomachs in cows, it changes the chemical composition of their milk to increase the Omega-3 fat content in ways that are more nutritious for humans.

The actual amount of grazing required, however, seems to be subjective. Last year, reporters from the Washington Post visited the High Plains dairy complex eight times and found little evidence of pasture-based grazing. Though the dairy claimed that their cows were constantly on pasture, reporters never saw more than a few hundred cows (less than 10 percent of the total herd) on pasture at any given time. In contrast, the majority of animals appeared to be in feedlots. In response to these observations, the dairy staff reported that their cows were likely elsewhere at the time of the visits, possibly being milked.

As further evidence against their grazing practices, testing done on milk samples by Virginia Tech found that the fat content in Aurora milk was a better match for conventionally-raised animals than organic ones.

Related: Stay Away From This Brand of Organic Dairy

The Costs for Consumers

When it comes to mislabeled milk, consumers are the ones that wind up paying the price. Organic milk usually costs at least double what conventional varieties go for, and skyrocketing sales have turned organics into a $40 billion industry in the United States. However, customers only pay this price because they believe they are getting a superior product in return, so unscrupulous labeling practices only work to discredit the entire organic industry.

The Problem with Big Organic

This kind of controversy for Aurora Organic Dairy is hardly new. The Cornucopia Institute, a strong campaigner for better organic practices, has created lawsuits against the company for close to a decade. In 2011, Aurora committed to improving its organic practices, though the evidence is scarce that many changes were made.

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Aurora Organic Farms is already the leading organic dairy in America, and it’s only continuing to expand. The refusal of mega farms to fully comply with organic standards also has damaging effects on small organic farms that follow the rules. Because organically grazing dairy cattle costs more, small farms get pinched out of their market share when their competition doesn’t follow the rules. This means that the growth of mega-dairies that cut corners to produce cheaper “organic” milk is crushing smaller dairies and forcing them out of business.

The Takeaway for Consumers: Keeping Farms Accountable

If drinking organic milk is a priority for you, do the industry a favor and seek out the farms that truly follow the rules. As half of the organic milk sold in the United States comes from large factory farms, it’s more important than ever to seek out statistics about each farm to ensure they are living up to organic principles.

It’s time to demand greater regulation and better accountability from our farmers so that we can truly trust what we see on our food labels.

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Plant-Based Milk Draws “Misleading Label” Claims From Dairy Industry

The answer to an age-old question in advertising used to be simple. Got milk? Yes, America answered. But that is not our new reality. The question remains the same. The answer now? What kind of milk?

Milk is no longer something your local milkman drops off in a crate on your front porch. Milk comes in many different varieties. There are dairy versions like cow, goat, sheep, or buffalo (though the last two milks usually end up as cheeses). If you’re vegan or lactose-intolerant, there are options like almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, rice milk, hemp milk, oat milk, pea milk…yeast milk? At this point, it’s safe to say milk is a both a universal and incredibly niche item. Cow milk is everywhere, but if you know where to look, the options magically open up.

Why on earth does this box of milk have almonds on it? This is sooooo confusing!

Protecting the People from Reading Labels

More than thirty congressional members have signed a letter to the Food and Drug Administration to ask that the FDA take “appropriate action” in regards to milk labels. While their idea of appropriate action is not specified in the letter, it’s clear that the dairy industry considers plant-based milk products a threat. Unfortunately for the current food establishment, this is not the first or last time customer demand will force them to adapt or die.

Americans are eating less meat. They’re more environmentally conscious. Allergies are also on the rise, and more people are beginning to see the correlation between what they eat and their overall health. Half of Americans consume non-dairy milk, and over one-third of them are open to plant-based eating in general. This is naturally going to open up the food market for healthy competition from alternatives to traditional meat and dairy. The “appropriate reactions” from big food companies so far have been to run to the FDA, claiming a product label like almond milk has the potential to fool customers into thinking they are buying dairy milk. Another example is Hellman’s Mayonnaise claiming consumers needed to be protected from vegan mayonnaise because it isn’t “real” mayonnaise.

Is This the System We Want?

Large corporations often handicap their competition while pretending to play the part of the consumer’s champion. Pay no attention to the fact that the vegan mayo behind the curtain is serving a growing population looking for healthier and more environmentally friendly options while egg costs have never been higher. You, the consumer, have been wronged by their confusing label. The language in the letter to the FDA from dairy state congressmen seems altruistic…until you realize they have claimed the consumer is not capable of reading a label. Why on earth does this box of milk have almonds on it? This is sooooo confusing!

Consumers have more access to information than ever before, and they’ve changed. Questioning the status quo is now the thing to do. Tactics like letters released and lawsuits filed over “misleading labels” are a system that believes people aren’t able to see the bias, and it’s also one of the reasons these industries are floundering right now. Consumers want healthier options and product accountability. Hellmann’s may have figured something out… their new vegan mayo line launched in 2016, 2 years after they tried to shut down Just Mayo.

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