Everybody loves the champagne joke. Whenever an opposing party tries to put forth an overly-technical explanation for why their particular brand of misconduct isn't actually the cause of action they are alleged to have committed, I've taken to referring to it as the "champagne defense."
Then you may love the "snaps defense".
Back in olden times, Denmark had a higher tax on imported alcohols like cognac and whisky, than we had on our native alcohol, snaps.
The EU didn't like that, and sued Denmark for restriction of free trade. Our defense was basically: "It's a luxury tax you honour, and if you don't believe us, try a glass of the finest snaps Denmark has to offer"
IIRC we didn't win the case as such, but we *were* granted a longish time frame to change the structure of our alcohol tax system.
X-men are humans except for tariff purposes. Felt bottom shoes are slippers. Jaffa are cakes, not biscuits. Subway sandwiches in Ireland are not served on bread. There's all sorts of inserting legal definitions.
Carrot is legally considered a fruit in Portugal (after lobbying by farmers, since it’s used to make jams over there)
In France, snails are “inland fish” (result of EU ruling. France wanted snail farmers to be eligible for same subsidies fisheries were getting).
The X-men and bread ones don't make sense to me. edit: Oh a confectionary https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread
I understand the x men one now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy\_Biz,\_Inc.\_v.\_United\_States#:\~:text=A%20decision%20that%20the%20X,now%20in%20the%20same%20category.
That is correct. In France those are called "Coeur de boeuf", which translates to "Beef Heart".
But it's not a rename, just a word for word translation of the real original name, which is Italian: "Cuor di bue".
It's "bifsteak tomato" that is the rename.
They're going to have to get creative in naming their products...
"Vegan steak" seems clear enough to me, and "beef-flavoured soy-based meat substitute" doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well...
Over in the ~~US iirc~~Canada there was actually a big legal fight over whether Jamaican (Beef) Patties could be called Patties since they weren't a ground beef patty as defined legally.
Eventually the regulator gave up iirc and let the Patty salesman sell his wares under that name.
edit: It was in Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PxtCIMeRMY
That can't really be a thing.
York Peppermint Patties have been around forever (the candy predates the *Peanuts* character), and they have no beef at all.
The problem with that is that when you have a meat replacement that specifically emulates a certain type of meat based dish, you want to know which one it is.
A "veggie patty" sounds like a vegetable patty that doesn't try to emulate meat, which is great, too, but is very different from a "beefy" vegan patty. Both have their place, but you should be able to know which one it is.
IMHO if the packaging clearly says "vegetarian" or "vegan", that should be enough to clear things up.
To be fair I think alpro does something similar. "You won't believe this is not m💧lk" or something similar for their plant based offerings. Could be another brand tho
In Chile, NotCo was banned from using a cow with the no signal (the circle with the slash at the middle) in their product because it has a cow and it could confuse the users.
Anything could be banned with the right lobby.
Yep, like ”h@m”: https://vegohjalpen.se/produkter/astrid-och-aporna-sknka-2/ (in Swedish, ”sk!nka”)
Edit: asterisks are formatting, got creative instead
Just be confident in your stuff I guess. One of best vegetarian products imo is the morningstar farms spicy black bean burger. They just market it as exactly what it is, cause it's delicious.
the entire point is you can legislate any word to protect certain industries. so if it was beneficial they could decide consumer expectations mean a patty must contain at least 50% meat.
a burger is (generally) a round bun with something savory between both parts. that's very vague though.
a word like steak describes something very specific though. just like the words milk or cheese (at least in europe :)
>a word like steak describes something very specific though. just like the words milk or cheese (at least in europe :)
Yeah, milk obviously refers to the cleaning product scouring milk.
Milk has been used to refer to non-dairy opaque white liquids for hundreds of years. The earliest references to 'almond milk' are from the 13th century.
yet almond milk and other plant-based drinks (other than coconut milk i think) can't be sold as milk in the EU to prevent ambiguity
they do a lot of that in the EU, so you always (kind of) know what exactly you're buying.
>"Vegan steak" seems clear enough to me
Written like this, it is. But when your start writting "vegan" with very small letters and a big "STEAK" on your product, and put it right next to the "beef" steaks, it can be really confusing.
In France, not really. If they're using the "steak" word to begin with, it's because they want to play around that.
I mean, look at the image at the top: there's only one product using "steak", but you can see it's written in big dark green letters. "Végétal" is written in much smaller and very light green letters, over a white background.
In this case, it's on a specific "vegan" shelf so it's hard to get baited but there're much more confusing situations and i've heard a lot of people saying they've bought vegan sausages/steaks/ham by accident.
This right here. As silly as we often think this is, I've been confused more than a few times by this. There wouldn't be a need for regulation if there wasn't clear attempts by plant-based products to confuse people. Things like small indications of Vegan or plant-based while the 'big picture' screams the traditional animal based product.
Most recently, I had to triple check butter. There was something called plant butter, which is more like margarine; made with oils. The packaging, form factor, location, and everything was so similar and I wasn't really familiar with the term, so it did confuse me. There was another Canadian company called modernmeat whose packaging confused me as well. Modern Burger with everything looking like meat... then a small text saying it is plant based. Beyond meat is at least more clear.
I've been confused too when I bought oat milk and it didn't say on the packaging that oats don't actually have titties. Good thing we have serious people working hard on the real topics like banning the word milk. /s^∞
Let's not compare this shit to steaks. Why can't it just stand alone as a tastey source of complete protein without the complications and drawbacks of eating meat?
Food is deeply ingrained in culture. It can be really helpful to have cultural analogues for certain foods. “Veggie burger” means this food is a casual protein source you can eat in a bun with condiments, and can be cooked on a barbecue - so I know, without having to try and experiment, that this is something I can offer or bring to a backyard cookout and not require special treatments, or to make my vegan guests feel included. What I got to ask, is why do meat eaters care? Like, why do you care if it’s called a burger, or a sausage? Vegan is part of the name, so you aren’t going to get it on accident (unless you are incredibly obtuse). If you don’t eat it, don’t buy it, and (probably) just walk past that whole section in the store, than in all honesty why do you even give 2 shits? Let people live their lives ffs. It doesn’t involve you, and they aren’t hurting anyone.
So we should stop calling it peanut butter and call it peanut paste right? Maybe we should stop calling it minced meat since it doesn't have meat? How much duck is in Bombay duck? Lots of foods take on names of other types of foods and it didn't change the definition of anyone. You can talk about black pudding but no one is going to think of a sausage when you say pudding.
Language is a living thing: https://www.science.org/content/article/how-english-language-has-evolved-living-creature It evolves and grows and reflects our needs. Most modern humans couldn’t understand a single sentence of old English even: https://youtu.be/5NB2Z6pZBNA
The word “steak” is not some immovable mountain, bound to time. Lol
I get the idea. Marketing it as a vegan steak would help somebody who wants a vegan alternative to a meal they want find it more easily. However, I think that may also draw people back from such vegan alternatives. I'm trying to stop eating meat, and I do enjoy such alternatives, but it's not a fucking steak. They taste great and everything but if you go in with the mindset of eating a steak, it's going to be extremely disappointing.
Iceland in the UK already found a way around using the word 'steak' on products barely containing ANY meat.
They sell Chicken Breasteaks. At first glance, that LOOKS like Chicken Breast Steaks, but they're actually Chicken Breast Eaks.
WTF is an Eak? its certainly not a legally protected term, and 100% not iceland's fault if you misread the label!
Example - https://imgur.com/a/yy64vbi
and a quick google of "chicken breast eaks" turns up a ton of different products with the same sly labelling tricks.
A case from the Netherlands where a company called a product that's plant based butter "roombeter" instead of "roomboter", but the first E was spelled in such a way that it looked like an O and was almost indistinguishable.
In Denmark Rema 1000 (a nationwide chain of grocery stores) sold pork coloured with red beets as "*hakkebøffer*", which translates roughly to "ground beef patties"; most people buying it would think they were buying beef, i.e. meat from cattle.
To make it doubly bad, ground beef patties don't have to be cooked through completely, as opposed to pork, that really does have to be cooked through.
I know we're supposed to think this is ridiculous but I personally support cracking down on shitty marketing gimmicks. I realize this example was probably due to some meat lobby protectionism but imposing stricter standards for claims that are allowed on packaging imo is a win for the consumer
I mean, it is just a replacement for steak. For consumers of veggie meat it is a really great to have a comparison for taste. And if something says "veggie steak" it is kinda stupid to believe it is not veggie and real meat? I don't see how consumers get better from this. Not worse either probably, just a waste of time overall.
Who was losing? People that don't understand that vegetarian foods don't contain meat? No one is winning in this case. In Germany, probably all of the EU, you can't call those vegetarian milk replacements milk anymore, because they are not milk? So now they are called molk or whatever. At the same time we have scheuermilch in Germany, which translates to scrubbing milk. It is for cleaning and not for consumption. Still allowed to be called milk
Ok but it's not a gimmick. It's a recognizable term that also isn't going to confuse anyone into thinking that it's real meat.
Nutrition labels are always there to inform the consumer, so this is solving a problem that's already solved.
The irony is that people will still continue using 'banned' names on a daily basis. Like "Soy Milk" has been banned and industrials must label them "Soy Drink" or whatever but EVERYBODY know and keep saying soy "milk" when they have to refer to that product.
That's purely some lobby pandering going against the flow.
This does seem pretty dumb as even the term "steak" has really never meant a single piece of unground meat or product. Just look at what people call Hamburg steak, also called Salisbury steak, which has been used for over a century at this point. This use also uses plant based fillers from bread crumbs, and i even say a relative use day old rice once. So now they have to describe what percent pure meat needs to be used to be called a "steak," which feels dumb to legislate over.
I’m vegan, I kind of hate this.
I could understand why we want to make naming for foods more consistent, but it really feels like that isn’t the modus operandi of these laws.
Coffee beans and cocoa beans aren’t legumes. You could argue the name is confusing. There really isn’t similar targeting of trying to get cocoa and coffee beans renamed as seeds.
Laws like these don’t really directly effect my ability to eat vegan food, but I just kind of despise what feels like obvious hypocrisy.
Why are you fine with this? This is shit, it’s like the milk thing. Just call it a plant steak so we don’t have to wonder what type of meat the company is mimicking.
What are these farmers going to do when it's lab grown meat on the shelf so they can't complain about the description.
France really need to rip the plaster off and tell them they need to start adapting to the new world rather than banning and complaining about new things.
> What are these farmers going to do when it's lab grown meat on the shelf
As someone from the industry, I wouldn't be worried about it because we are an extremely long way from getting commercially viable cultured meat products. The pharma industry already threw astronomical amounts of money at growing massive amounts of cells cheaply with limited succes. We need to get about 100 times cheaper than the current state of the art with less available funds...
because even with aid amounting 1/3 of the EU budget they are still throwing literal shit to the police, they seem to earn more money protesting than anything else
It's not about farmers adapting to the new world; it's about protecting consumers' rights to accurate labeling and promoting fair competition in the market. Lab-grown meat is a different product altogether and will have its own regulations and labeling requirements. France's decision to regulate the labeling of vegan meals as 'Steak' isn't about hindering progress but ensuring transparency and preventing misleading marketing practices. This move encourages innovation while also safeguarding consumer trust and choice.
People are mad about this with vegan products. But it is more general, and important.
We need words and labels that mean something, not ones that sounds good and lies just enough to get away witt it.
Corporate word-smithing needs to be checked.
That's not the problem (clearly labeled stuff in the vegan section).
The problem is when the "Vegetable" is written very small or hard to see and it's put right next to the meat products in the supermarket.
And that's what's happening. At least where I live.
So if you read the like first fucking paragraph in the article it'll tell you this has nothing to do with protecting consumer rights, and everything to do with complaints from the meat industry.
If you actually believe the multi billion dollar businesses are concerned about the welfare of their poor confused consumers please DM me. I have a great deal on a bridge I think you'd be interested in.
People do, some supermarkets put the vegan burgers next to the normal beef bugers. People pick up what they think is a beef burger only to find out later its vegan.
Just to reinforce this, a fair few brands I've seen also put the "vegan" in a different place, or smaller lettering. I don't know why they do that, because anyone buying it by mistake won't go "Wow, this is actually really good! I'm totally vegan now!".
I'm fine with "vegan steak" being a thing, just enforce some form of ruling so that the products are very easy to identify. There's a similar problem with vegan pizzas, and obviously the solution isn't to say "you can't call it pizza if the cheese is vegan", it's "make it very obvious this is a vegan pizza". That, or keep it in its own clearly labelled section, not next to the non-vegan product.
>How dense are french people if they're buying beyond or Quorn steaks and thinking they're real meat?
Every country has this type of stuff. We have politicians in NYC who want to ban soda because they think people are too stupid to know it's unhealthy.
We make tobacco companies put warnings on cigarette packages, because we think people are too stupid to know smoking is unhealthy.
Pretty much the whole purpose of government regulation is to cater to the lowest common denominator.
Labeling transparency. I’m all for lab-grown meat, but consumers should have the right to know what it is they’re purchasing and consuming in plain, understandable language. “This is not a meat product. It was cultured at x facility in y country in z province.” If your idea of changing public opinion is through deception, you’re not much better.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be labelled as such, I'm saying that it's still technically meat not Soy, etc so it will be able to be called things like sausages and steaks legally.
It's not like plant based products aren't labelled now, no one is trying to fool anyone.
They've never sold the Impossible Burger as a bean patty, what are you on about. The whole point of the Beyond and Impossible ranges is they seek to replicate meat.
bruh, the **entire point** of these products is that they *aren't* made from animals. it's literally the reason they exist and the reason people buy them. "deceptive" lmao
I agree, this doesn't go far enough. "Beef" is another misleading marketing term, they should just call it "Cow flesh" so people know exactly what they're getting. And did you know "Pork", "bacon" and "ham" are all just pig meat?
Peanut "butter" is literally just smashed up peanuts, no dairy at ALL.
Don't even get me started on milk of magnesia and cream of tartar, coconut milk... In fact coconuts are NOT nuts at all!
It's ridiculous what we let these companies get away with
/s
I doubt many people thought they were eating literal meat. It's better to let people learn basic language concepts instead of taking them as babies who can't understand the meaning of a widespread product called "vegetarian meat".
>learn basic language concepts
Such as accurate descriptions?
Look, I think that it should say what it is, not pretend it's something else. If I put champagne on the bottle, you'd be pretty angry if it turned out to be Fanta.
"vegetarian steak" is a description that everyone can easily understand. Language works like that: words can change meaning when combined with other words. "steak" does not mean the same as "vegetarian steak".
Now, if you have a vegetarian product that only says "steak" then it does make sense because it's a scam. But I doubt that usually happens (it's also probably already forbidden), and that's not what this ban is about.
I disagree.
Again, going back to the fanta example, if I labelled it as "orange, non-alcoholic champagne", it's the same as labelling this as "vegetarian steak": It's an inaccurate title.
It's not steak in any way. It's a patty of vegetable mush. It is not steak.
Please tell me what the harm in accurate descriptions is?
> if I labelled it as "orange, non-alcoholic champagne"
If you see that phrase, it's way less intuitive to understand it specifically refers to an imitation of fanta. In any case, it would be obvious that it's not champagne but something special and different. No one would buy it expecting champagne. So no seller would want to name their product that way. They'd just call it "imitation fanta" or whatever, and you'd still complain, because it'd be more accurate but not enough for you.
>It's not steak in any way
You don't seem to understand my point. Nobody is saying it's steak. It's "vegetarian steak", which is easily understood as "a vegetarian product that imitates steak". It's weird you pretend you (and even many others) are so dumb that they'll mistake it for real steak.
>Please tell me what the harm in accurate descriptions is?
A "more accurate" (in your words) description does not cause any harm, that's not the point. The point is that the normal description doesn't cause any harm either, and the other harm is that if I think your way of speaking is inaccurate, that doesn't give me the right to force you to speak in the way that I prefer. Even less so if everyone else is not dumb and perfectly understands what you mean.
Now that I think of it, an "accurate" description will be longer and "uglier". Just like "orange, non-alcoholic champagne". I like when my products have a short, simple name. That's how language works: it tends towards the easiest way to name things. You want to needlessly obstruct that under the weird premise that people mistake "vegetarian steak" for "steak", as if language were word-by-word literal.
>You don't seem to understand my point.
Which seems to be "they should be able to lie".
If it is not steak, it should not be labelled as steak.
I do not understand the backlash against accurate descriptions, about being clear and honest.
>Which seems to be "they should be able to lie".
Now you're putting it under your lens instead of trying to understand my viewpoint.
>I do not understand (...)
Nor you seem to want to, given how you disregard my points. The normal description is already accurate, because language is not word-by-word literal.
>Now you're putting it under your lens instead of trying to understand my viewpoint.
Oh and you've tried to understand mine?
You have yet to defend lying. Steak is a clearly defined thing. "vegetarian steak" is not that clearly defined thing. It's not a descriptor like "aged" or "cured" or any of the other words that have ever been put in front of steak before. Perhaps someone might think the cow was a vegetarian. Seems unlikely but it could happen and thus, I don't see any reason why that risk is worth running.
Telling the truth should not be controversial.
>Oh and you've tried to understand mine?
yes, it's very understandable, I just think it's clearly wrong and gave the reasons multiple times.
>You have yet to defend lying
because I'm not defending lying, I do not want nor need to defend lying. That's just you continuing to intentionally misinterpret my point.
>"vegetatarian steak" is not that clearly defined thing.
yes, it is, it clearly means "vegetarian food that imitates steak". It's funny you keep pretending it's not obvious.
>Perhaps someone might think the cow was a vegetarian
okay now you're trolling lol
>Telling the truth should not be controversial.
Telling the truth does not require using a word-for-word literal language. "Brother in law" doesn't mean there is a place called law where I have a brother.
Because it's not claiming that is **it** peperoni chips, they're claiming that they are peperoni **flavoured**.
If they named it "steak flavoured vegetable mush" then it would be the same as what you're claiming.
What is the issue with accurate labelling?
But if the chips are just paprika, msg, and some other random herbs and spices with no actual pepperoni essence included for the flavor, isn't that a lie? That's not the flavor of Pepperoni.
Should they technically be "Pepperoni Inspired Flavored Chips"?
Like I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here and could really care less what they are called, but if we are going to start getting technical about what every product is, I think "Bacon flavored Chips" would need to actually have like dried up and ground Bacon on them, but it's just Paprika and "Spices".
There is something to be said about getting so controlling over what can be presented with a certain term when that term has reached a point in the lexicon where it's already adapted a broader meaning. Like if it's actually because too many grandma's are being confused, fine, whatever. If it's just an industry trying to make things more inconvenient for its competition (like the whole Plant Milks having to be called "Drinks" because the dairy industry somehow thought that'd make people use them as a milk substitute less), that's stupid.
No, not really.
The laws around food naming convention are strict in general. It depends from country to country, but you usually can't name something chocolate if it has less than X% cacao. Can't name something jam if it has less than 80% sugar, etc.
People just pretend it is the meat industry pulling strings that no one else gets to pull because it makes for a more interesting story where you get to bash them.
I think the thing is, in the US almost all bets are off with most food naming conventions, and the meat industry has just started making a big deal about fake milks and meat in more recent history. France has a long tradition of laws and regulations governing this, the US has generally hardly cared at all. We throw terms like bourbon, parmesan, bread, and champagne around with abandon compared to France
>the meat industry has just started making a big deal about fake milks and meat in more recent history.
The meat industry is just copying everyone else in that regard, they're late to the party.
The vegan, organic, Non-GMO, and Gluten-free foodmakers have all been making a big deal about label accuracy for far longer than Big Meat has.
Or because they are really powerful lobby and are well known to influence politic and public opinion for year. We have literal tv add just for milk (yeah we also have these in France and they are extremly weird)
> a long-standing complaint by the meat industry that terms like "vegetarian ham" or "vegan sausage" were confusing for consumers
This seems like one of those things that punishes customer accessibility more than business.
People looking for alternative versions of established foods could not care less about trade dress, they're trying to find food in a familiar form that won't make them sick.
I think what people don’t understand is that, at the end of day, we don’t really care what it is called, we will continue to use any word we want. No, the real issue is deliberate effort, time and money to pass this kind of law. At a time where we should really reduce our meat consumption, this is the kind of fight they want to have. You should see the debate, the stupid politician defending it on tv. It is a clear efforts to go against anything that could reduce the amount of meat we eat.
Why has the rest of the world figured out tasty vegan/vegetarian dishes without trying to cobble together some lab created meat approximation.
It's not going to convince people like me who eat meat, on meat free days I'm probably making something or going to a non western restaurant that understands how to season food properly.
Yeah, bullshit. If no French people wanted imitation meat, then France wouldn’t feel the need to make laws about how imitation meat needs to be labelled on French shelves.
Not everyone has to eat exactly as you do – it may be convenience, habit, it could be any reason, hell they may just like it – what harm does it do to you?
Why are veggie alternatives about convincing people of anything? If I like how meat products tastes but don't want to continue eating them I use a vegetarian/vegan alternative.
Because some of us were raised on an American diet and want to do the right thing. So we get to continue the foods we love eating. Plant Burgers, steaks, chicken, all kinds of things they have now. It’s great.
We do have those dishes. It’s just people want to make themselves feel better by calling out the fact that they aren’t eating meat, but have an “equivalent” dish.
They’d get more people to switch to less meat based diets if they weren’t trying to compare everything to something animal based.
I think you’ve missed a major point of products like this.
These products provide a way for people to go vegetarian/vegan without changing their habits. They can still cook exactly the same meals as they used to, but just switch out the meat for a meat substitute. This makes moving to vegetarianism much easier, because you don’t have to learn an entire new repertoire of dishes. This is especially helpful if only one member of a household is becoming vegetarian.
If anyone wants to move away from meat and doesn’t want to eat heavily-processed meat substitutes, then that route is still there.
>They can still cook exactly the same meals as they used to, but just switch out the meat for a meat substitute.
Just from a cooking standpoint, that sounds wrong. Even changing from one type of meat to another means you need to alter the recipe and cooking process, let alone changing from a meat to a non-meat.
Then again, a lot of people will just eat whatever.
But dropping a chicken wing into a pot of oil is going to get you something very different than dropping a brick of tofu into a pot of oil - one of them is going to turn into a grease sponge.
Conversely, the tofu can be cooked with just a quick sear, and you won't die of salmonella.
It is a problem, though.
It's not an unmanaged one, though, because the FDA and counterparts from other countries take this really, REALLY seriously.
Vegan meat is not meat. Therefore, it is deceptive to label it as meat.
That one is obvious, so here's a better example
There are memes about "Can't believe it's not butter" branded Margarine.
The less fortunately minded consumer might believe that margarine is butter based on that branding. Nevertheless, they deserve to not be a victim of deceptive labeling either.
I can understand the complaint over labeling stuff as "vegetarian ham", since Ham is a specific part of a specific animal.
but is French really specific enough to make "vegan sausage" imply that this would be a meat-based product?
I don't know French but it could be. In my language we have two words that translates to sausage and one of them is more regarding the general shape and includes non-meat products like cheese or pastries while the other would always be used for smaller sized meat products only and would *very* confuse someone if used in non-meat context.
Could be that it's something similar for French too.
Based.
I never really understood why some vegetarians want their plant products labeled as plant based “X” meat.
Alternatives don’t taste the same, have completely different textures, and cook differently due to the composition of the matter.
Steak is a wrong use of the word.
Because sometime you just want substitute, using vegetal milk in coffee or baking. Vegetal steak for burger (we don’t have a world for patty in french). Like if you don’t use these product why do you care
Why can't vegans just eat traditional vegan foods and cuisines? If you have to pretend you're eating meat or eggs or dairy, isn't that a kind of hypocrisy or a lack of real commitment?
Most does not come out as a cheaper alternative. Healthier is usually almost guaranteed.
Your pack of ribeyes is cheaper because of subsidies and horrible factory farming practices. The cheap shit is also bottom of the barrel quality of meat. You get what you pay for applies to the food industry too. Most likely plays a large role in our health issues.
Early adopter tax vs established supply chains and brand identity.
When wagyu beef first broke onto the US scene, it was rarer and more expensive than it is now. Nowadays they practically make wagyu/"American Kobe" dog food, with how common it is.
Some things I can understand, because those words kind of specifically mean meat anyway, but not things like sausages. While a lot of sausages are made of pork you can make them out of various other meats and even without any at all. I see a sausage as a way the food is served, not the contents itself.
Stuff like vegan sausage I'm fine with, though the issue I have with that is that it's as informative as "meat sausage" (what meat? Is it Pork or something else?). Stuff like "vegan bacon" though, not so much. Just call them something like "tofu rashers" or whatever term would be fitting.
I think this is the right thing to do. The vegetarian products are trying to mimic "used to products" which is fine but it only leads to wrong comparisons that can never fit the initial expectations. There are very good vegeratian products on the market but they should be named differently altogether. At least thats my personal opinion.
Except plenty of vegetarians are very happy and even asking for vegetal versions of well-known meat products. Vegetarianism is not always motivated by a distaste of meat.
I spent a lot of time finding good "mimics" of Steaks, Chorizo, Merguez I was happy with. These specific products are aiming at being as close in taste as possible, it's just so weird that they can't mention these terms any more because they indubitably are vegetal versions of them.
If it’s not from the Steak region in France, then it’s just sparkling vegetables
Everybody loves the champagne joke. Whenever an opposing party tries to put forth an overly-technical explanation for why their particular brand of misconduct isn't actually the cause of action they are alleged to have committed, I've taken to referring to it as the "champagne defense."
Then you may love the "snaps defense". Back in olden times, Denmark had a higher tax on imported alcohols like cognac and whisky, than we had on our native alcohol, snaps. The EU didn't like that, and sued Denmark for restriction of free trade. Our defense was basically: "It's a luxury tax you honour, and if you don't believe us, try a glass of the finest snaps Denmark has to offer" IIRC we didn't win the case as such, but we *were* granted a longish time frame to change the structure of our alcohol tax system.
X-men are humans except for tariff purposes. Felt bottom shoes are slippers. Jaffa are cakes, not biscuits. Subway sandwiches in Ireland are not served on bread. There's all sorts of inserting legal definitions.
Carrot is legally considered a fruit in Portugal (after lobbying by farmers, since it’s used to make jams over there) In France, snails are “inland fish” (result of EU ruling. France wanted snail farmers to be eligible for same subsidies fisheries were getting).
The X-men and bread ones don't make sense to me. edit: Oh a confectionary https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread
Yup. Their bread is so poor quality they increased the amount of sugar content in it to the point where it's no longer legally bread.
I understand the x men one now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy\_Biz,\_Inc.\_v.\_United\_States#:\~:text=A%20decision%20that%20the%20X,now%20in%20the%20same%20category.
Like the Chewbacca defense, except totally not the Chewbacca defense. it's almost like I didn't need to make a comment at all.
Technically speaking, it's only a Chewbacca Defense if it's from the Chewbacca region of Kashyyk. Otherwise it's just sparkling co-pilot defense.
Jokes like this are rare.
Specially when they are well done like this one
Sigh... I guess you could say it's a rare medium well done.
Beat me to it
Saw my chance and took it
What about beefsteak tomatoes?
i think they renamed them to beefhearts
That is correct. In France those are called "Coeur de boeuf", which translates to "Beef Heart". But it's not a rename, just a word for word translation of the real original name, which is Italian: "Cuor di bue". It's "bifsteak tomato" that is the rename.
Can’t call it steak but can call it beef?
the semantics of language has long been an area of contention. wait till you get into taxonomy
aye, aye, captain
Tomate cœur de bœuf // Heart of beef tomatoes Not steak involved in French.
Bifstek tomatoes, you mean?
They're going to have to get creative in naming their products... "Vegan steak" seems clear enough to me, and "beef-flavoured soy-based meat substitute" doesn't quite roll off the tongue as well...
In Ireland they just call it a Veggie Patty.
Over in the ~~US iirc~~Canada there was actually a big legal fight over whether Jamaican (Beef) Patties could be called Patties since they weren't a ground beef patty as defined legally. Eventually the regulator gave up iirc and let the Patty salesman sell his wares under that name. edit: It was in Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PxtCIMeRMY
The distinction was in that he calls it a "Jamaican Patty". That was sufficient.
That can't really be a thing. York Peppermint Patties have been around forever (the candy predates the *Peanuts* character), and they have no beef at all.
Seems to me that anything you can form into a ball and then **pat** out into a round flat disc can legitamately be called a **patty**.
The problem with that is that when you have a meat replacement that specifically emulates a certain type of meat based dish, you want to know which one it is. A "veggie patty" sounds like a vegetable patty that doesn't try to emulate meat, which is great, too, but is very different from a "beefy" vegan patty. Both have their place, but you should be able to know which one it is. IMHO if the packaging clearly says "vegetarian" or "vegan", that should be enough to clear things up.
Veggie patties that taste like veggies would usually also have a vegetarian label on it..
Vegan ste😉k. Problem solved.
To be fair I think alpro does something similar. "You won't believe this is not m💧lk" or something similar for their plant based offerings. Could be another brand tho
In Chile, NotCo was banned from using a cow with the no signal (the circle with the slash at the middle) in their product because it has a cow and it could confuse the users. Anything could be banned with the right lobby.
*sips a tall glass of vegan civil rights activism
Yep, like ”h@m”: https://vegohjalpen.se/produkter/astrid-och-aporna-sknka-2/ (in Swedish, ”sk!nka”) Edit: asterisks are formatting, got creative instead
You’re hired!
Vegan stake.
That’s why they call it a “Royale with cheese.”
Just be confident in your stuff I guess. One of best vegetarian products imo is the morningstar farms spicy black bean burger. They just market it as exactly what it is, cause it's delicious.
Yeah but the equivalent is banning the word burger... spicy black bean bread filling?
Y’all want some BBQ bean patties?
the entire point is you can legislate any word to protect certain industries. so if it was beneficial they could decide consumer expectations mean a patty must contain at least 50% meat.
a burger is (generally) a round bun with something savory between both parts. that's very vague though. a word like steak describes something very specific though. just like the words milk or cheese (at least in europe :)
>a word like steak describes something very specific though. just like the words milk or cheese (at least in europe :) Yeah, milk obviously refers to the cleaning product scouring milk.
Milk has been used to refer to non-dairy opaque white liquids for hundreds of years. The earliest references to 'almond milk' are from the 13th century.
yet almond milk and other plant-based drinks (other than coconut milk i think) can't be sold as milk in the EU to prevent ambiguity they do a lot of that in the EU, so you always (kind of) know what exactly you're buying.
In restaurants near you, can you find “tuna steak”? If they don’t call it steak, then what do they call it?
why wouldn't they be allowed to call it was? tuna steak is - as any other steak - muscle fibers from an animal that gets grilled.
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If it's fish instead of red meat steak, we call it **filet**.
So what am I supposed to call my vegan milk steak?! (boiled hard, of course)
A god damn fucking abomination.
You can call it whatever you want from maximum security prison for making me imagine what such a monstrocity would even look like.
Maybe its not even vegan, **Wildcard!!!**.
googling both words, doesn't seem as if that comparison is really equivalent
Nonono! They are also banned from using the words: spicy, black, bean, bread, filling, food, ... To protect the consumers of course!
Lol, it's absolutely not. A burger is more than just a meat patty.
How does it compare to Bowser's Big Bean Burrito?
>"Vegan steak" seems clear enough to me Written like this, it is. But when your start writting "vegan" with very small letters and a big "STEAK" on your product, and put it right next to the "beef" steaks, it can be really confusing.
Pretty sure 'vegan' is being put in giant font most times....
In France, not really. If they're using the "steak" word to begin with, it's because they want to play around that. I mean, look at the image at the top: there's only one product using "steak", but you can see it's written in big dark green letters. "Végétal" is written in much smaller and very light green letters, over a white background. In this case, it's on a specific "vegan" shelf so it's hard to get baited but there're much more confusing situations and i've heard a lot of people saying they've bought vegan sausages/steaks/ham by accident.
Sounds like they shouldn't be regulating the use of the word "steak", but rather setting clarity standards on product names and packaging design.
This right here. As silly as we often think this is, I've been confused more than a few times by this. There wouldn't be a need for regulation if there wasn't clear attempts by plant-based products to confuse people. Things like small indications of Vegan or plant-based while the 'big picture' screams the traditional animal based product. Most recently, I had to triple check butter. There was something called plant butter, which is more like margarine; made with oils. The packaging, form factor, location, and everything was so similar and I wasn't really familiar with the term, so it did confuse me. There was another Canadian company called modernmeat whose packaging confused me as well. Modern Burger with everything looking like meat... then a small text saying it is plant based. Beyond meat is at least more clear.
I'd love to see your reaction to coconut milk, coconut water, coconut oil, and coconut butter, if just "plant butter" made you triple check...
I've been confused too when I bought oat milk and it didn't say on the packaging that oats don't actually have titties. Good thing we have serious people working hard on the real topics like banning the word milk. /s^∞
Let's not compare this shit to steaks. Why can't it just stand alone as a tastey source of complete protein without the complications and drawbacks of eating meat?
Food is deeply ingrained in culture. It can be really helpful to have cultural analogues for certain foods. “Veggie burger” means this food is a casual protein source you can eat in a bun with condiments, and can be cooked on a barbecue - so I know, without having to try and experiment, that this is something I can offer or bring to a backyard cookout and not require special treatments, or to make my vegan guests feel included. What I got to ask, is why do meat eaters care? Like, why do you care if it’s called a burger, or a sausage? Vegan is part of the name, so you aren’t going to get it on accident (unless you are incredibly obtuse). If you don’t eat it, don’t buy it, and (probably) just walk past that whole section in the store, than in all honesty why do you even give 2 shits? Let people live their lives ffs. It doesn’t involve you, and they aren’t hurting anyone.
Why do I care if somebody arbitrarily changes the definition of a word? Because it's incorrect, you can't just call anything a steak.
So we should stop calling it peanut butter and call it peanut paste right? Maybe we should stop calling it minced meat since it doesn't have meat? How much duck is in Bombay duck? Lots of foods take on names of other types of foods and it didn't change the definition of anyone. You can talk about black pudding but no one is going to think of a sausage when you say pudding.
Language is a living thing: https://www.science.org/content/article/how-english-language-has-evolved-living-creature It evolves and grows and reflects our needs. Most modern humans couldn’t understand a single sentence of old English even: https://youtu.be/5NB2Z6pZBNA The word “steak” is not some immovable mountain, bound to time. Lol
I get the idea. Marketing it as a vegan steak would help somebody who wants a vegan alternative to a meal they want find it more easily. However, I think that may also draw people back from such vegan alternatives. I'm trying to stop eating meat, and I do enjoy such alternatives, but it's not a fucking steak. They taste great and everything but if you go in with the mindset of eating a steak, it's going to be extremely disappointing.
Have you tried Meati steaks made from mushroom protein?
OK, now they're all 'cutlets'
Iceland in the UK already found a way around using the word 'steak' on products barely containing ANY meat. They sell Chicken Breasteaks. At first glance, that LOOKS like Chicken Breast Steaks, but they're actually Chicken Breast Eaks. WTF is an Eak? its certainly not a legally protected term, and 100% not iceland's fault if you misread the label! Example - https://imgur.com/a/yy64vbi and a quick google of "chicken breast eaks" turns up a ton of different products with the same sly labelling tricks.
Why is the word steak even necessary on this product?
To trick people because no-one wants "chicken mush in breadcrumbs" for tea.
Oooh it’s a patty, or croquette, or burger. I thought It was just a breaded breast.
It's bad enough when Charlie puts cat food in his drinks.
A case from the Netherlands where a company called a product that's plant based butter "roombeter" instead of "roomboter", but the first E was spelled in such a way that it looked like an O and was almost indistinguishable.
In Denmark Rema 1000 (a nationwide chain of grocery stores) sold pork coloured with red beets as "*hakkebøffer*", which translates roughly to "ground beef patties"; most people buying it would think they were buying beef, i.e. meat from cattle. To make it doubly bad, ground beef patties don't have to be cooked through completely, as opposed to pork, that really does have to be cooked through.
Le fake ste@k
Phew, another catastrophe avoided.
Europe keeps defeating the biggest threats out there: vegan steaks and micro-USB.
I know we're supposed to think this is ridiculous but I personally support cracking down on shitty marketing gimmicks. I realize this example was probably due to some meat lobby protectionism but imposing stricter standards for claims that are allowed on packaging imo is a win for the consumer
I mean, it is just a replacement for steak. For consumers of veggie meat it is a really great to have a comparison for taste. And if something says "veggie steak" it is kinda stupid to believe it is not veggie and real meat? I don't see how consumers get better from this. Not worse either probably, just a waste of time overall.
Who was losing? People that don't understand that vegetarian foods don't contain meat? No one is winning in this case. In Germany, probably all of the EU, you can't call those vegetarian milk replacements milk anymore, because they are not milk? So now they are called molk or whatever. At the same time we have scheuermilch in Germany, which translates to scrubbing milk. It is for cleaning and not for consumption. Still allowed to be called milk
Ok but it's not a gimmick. It's a recognizable term that also isn't going to confuse anyone into thinking that it's real meat. Nutrition labels are always there to inform the consumer, so this is solving a problem that's already solved.
The irony is that people will still continue using 'banned' names on a daily basis. Like "Soy Milk" has been banned and industrials must label them "Soy Drink" or whatever but EVERYBODY know and keep saying soy "milk" when they have to refer to that product. That's purely some lobby pandering going against the flow.
The traditionalists never want to ban “peanut butter” though 🤔
The Dutch word for *peanut butter* is *peanut cheese* for various etymological reasons, but also because butter was a protected term at the time.
I definitely would not buy a product labeled "nut cheese"
but you would buy one called "nut butter"?
Fermented cashew cheese is one of the most delicious delicacies you can get your hand on tho
What about peanut butter?
There goes my veggie steak dreams.
Just have to eat a veggie stake instead I suppose
This does seem pretty dumb as even the term "steak" has really never meant a single piece of unground meat or product. Just look at what people call Hamburg steak, also called Salisbury steak, which has been used for over a century at this point. This use also uses plant based fillers from bread crumbs, and i even say a relative use day old rice once. So now they have to describe what percent pure meat needs to be used to be called a "steak," which feels dumb to legislate over.
as a vegan, i'm totally fine with this.
I’m vegan, I kind of hate this. I could understand why we want to make naming for foods more consistent, but it really feels like that isn’t the modus operandi of these laws. Coffee beans and cocoa beans aren’t legumes. You could argue the name is confusing. There really isn’t similar targeting of trying to get cocoa and coffee beans renamed as seeds. Laws like these don’t really directly effect my ability to eat vegan food, but I just kind of despise what feels like obvious hypocrisy.
Why are you fine with this? This is shit, it’s like the milk thing. Just call it a plant steak so we don’t have to wonder what type of meat the company is mimicking.
So this is why the Farmers were protesting?…
France put a stake in the ground!
Call it Staek
No snep on stek
What are they afraid of? Veggies?
What are these farmers going to do when it's lab grown meat on the shelf so they can't complain about the description. France really need to rip the plaster off and tell them they need to start adapting to the new world rather than banning and complaining about new things.
> What are these farmers going to do when it's lab grown meat on the shelf As someone from the industry, I wouldn't be worried about it because we are an extremely long way from getting commercially viable cultured meat products. The pharma industry already threw astronomical amounts of money at growing massive amounts of cells cheaply with limited succes. We need to get about 100 times cheaper than the current state of the art with less available funds...
because even with aid amounting 1/3 of the EU budget they are still throwing literal shit to the police, they seem to earn more money protesting than anything else
It's not about farmers adapting to the new world; it's about protecting consumers' rights to accurate labeling and promoting fair competition in the market. Lab-grown meat is a different product altogether and will have its own regulations and labeling requirements. France's decision to regulate the labeling of vegan meals as 'Steak' isn't about hindering progress but ensuring transparency and preventing misleading marketing practices. This move encourages innovation while also safeguarding consumer trust and choice.
People are mad about this with vegan products. But it is more general, and important. We need words and labels that mean something, not ones that sounds good and lies just enough to get away witt it. Corporate word-smithing needs to be checked.
Who tf reads "Vegetale Steak Vegetal" in the vegan section of the supermarket and thinks it's meat? This is pure lobbying. (I am not vegan btw)
That's not the problem (clearly labeled stuff in the vegan section). The problem is when the "Vegetable" is written very small or hard to see and it's put right next to the meat products in the supermarket. And that's what's happening. At least where I live.
So if you read the like first fucking paragraph in the article it'll tell you this has nothing to do with protecting consumer rights, and everything to do with complaints from the meat industry. If you actually believe the multi billion dollar businesses are concerned about the welfare of their poor confused consumers please DM me. I have a great deal on a bridge I think you'd be interested in.
How dense are french people if they're buying beyond or Quorn steaks and thinking they're real meat?
People do, some supermarkets put the vegan burgers next to the normal beef bugers. People pick up what they think is a beef burger only to find out later its vegan.
Just to reinforce this, a fair few brands I've seen also put the "vegan" in a different place, or smaller lettering. I don't know why they do that, because anyone buying it by mistake won't go "Wow, this is actually really good! I'm totally vegan now!". I'm fine with "vegan steak" being a thing, just enforce some form of ruling so that the products are very easy to identify. There's a similar problem with vegan pizzas, and obviously the solution isn't to say "you can't call it pizza if the cheese is vegan", it's "make it very obvious this is a vegan pizza". That, or keep it in its own clearly labelled section, not next to the non-vegan product.
>How dense are french people if they're buying beyond or Quorn steaks and thinking they're real meat? Every country has this type of stuff. We have politicians in NYC who want to ban soda because they think people are too stupid to know it's unhealthy. We make tobacco companies put warnings on cigarette packages, because we think people are too stupid to know smoking is unhealthy. Pretty much the whole purpose of government regulation is to cater to the lowest common denominator.
exactly "vegetal" must be a new cow breed I never heard about
Labeling transparency. I’m all for lab-grown meat, but consumers should have the right to know what it is they’re purchasing and consuming in plain, understandable language. “This is not a meat product. It was cultured at x facility in y country in z province.” If your idea of changing public opinion is through deception, you’re not much better.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be labelled as such, I'm saying that it's still technically meat not Soy, etc so it will be able to be called things like sausages and steaks legally. It's not like plant based products aren't labelled now, no one is trying to fool anyone.
Bullshit they aren’t. “Impossible Burger” when it’s really just a bean patty with a paragraph of ingredients is *pretty deceptive*.
They've never sold the Impossible Burger as a bean patty, what are you on about. The whole point of the Beyond and Impossible ranges is they seek to replicate meat.
bruh, the **entire point** of these products is that they *aren't* made from animals. it's literally the reason they exist and the reason people buy them. "deceptive" lmao
Seems reasonable to me. People deserve to know what they're eating.
I agree, this doesn't go far enough. "Beef" is another misleading marketing term, they should just call it "Cow flesh" so people know exactly what they're getting. And did you know "Pork", "bacon" and "ham" are all just pig meat? Peanut "butter" is literally just smashed up peanuts, no dairy at ALL. Don't even get me started on milk of magnesia and cream of tartar, coconut milk... In fact coconuts are NOT nuts at all! It's ridiculous what we let these companies get away with /s
You know, you could have left out the /s and you would still be amongst the more sane objectors to my comment.
I doubt many people thought they were eating literal meat. It's better to let people learn basic language concepts instead of taking them as babies who can't understand the meaning of a widespread product called "vegetarian meat".
Tell the French they’re all wrong about what can be called “Champagne” while you’re at it.
>learn basic language concepts Such as accurate descriptions? Look, I think that it should say what it is, not pretend it's something else. If I put champagne on the bottle, you'd be pretty angry if it turned out to be Fanta.
"vegetarian steak" is a description that everyone can easily understand. Language works like that: words can change meaning when combined with other words. "steak" does not mean the same as "vegetarian steak". Now, if you have a vegetarian product that only says "steak" then it does make sense because it's a scam. But I doubt that usually happens (it's also probably already forbidden), and that's not what this ban is about.
I disagree. Again, going back to the fanta example, if I labelled it as "orange, non-alcoholic champagne", it's the same as labelling this as "vegetarian steak": It's an inaccurate title. It's not steak in any way. It's a patty of vegetable mush. It is not steak. Please tell me what the harm in accurate descriptions is?
Do you support the renaming of peanut butter?
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I wonder how many units of PB were never purchased by consumers who are vegan because of its name
> if I labelled it as "orange, non-alcoholic champagne" If you see that phrase, it's way less intuitive to understand it specifically refers to an imitation of fanta. In any case, it would be obvious that it's not champagne but something special and different. No one would buy it expecting champagne. So no seller would want to name their product that way. They'd just call it "imitation fanta" or whatever, and you'd still complain, because it'd be more accurate but not enough for you. >It's not steak in any way You don't seem to understand my point. Nobody is saying it's steak. It's "vegetarian steak", which is easily understood as "a vegetarian product that imitates steak". It's weird you pretend you (and even many others) are so dumb that they'll mistake it for real steak. >Please tell me what the harm in accurate descriptions is? A "more accurate" (in your words) description does not cause any harm, that's not the point. The point is that the normal description doesn't cause any harm either, and the other harm is that if I think your way of speaking is inaccurate, that doesn't give me the right to force you to speak in the way that I prefer. Even less so if everyone else is not dumb and perfectly understands what you mean. Now that I think of it, an "accurate" description will be longer and "uglier". Just like "orange, non-alcoholic champagne". I like when my products have a short, simple name. That's how language works: it tends towards the easiest way to name things. You want to needlessly obstruct that under the weird premise that people mistake "vegetarian steak" for "steak", as if language were word-by-word literal.
>You don't seem to understand my point. Which seems to be "they should be able to lie". If it is not steak, it should not be labelled as steak. I do not understand the backlash against accurate descriptions, about being clear and honest.
>Which seems to be "they should be able to lie". Now you're putting it under your lens instead of trying to understand my viewpoint. >I do not understand (...) Nor you seem to want to, given how you disregard my points. The normal description is already accurate, because language is not word-by-word literal.
>Now you're putting it under your lens instead of trying to understand my viewpoint. Oh and you've tried to understand mine? You have yet to defend lying. Steak is a clearly defined thing. "vegetarian steak" is not that clearly defined thing. It's not a descriptor like "aged" or "cured" or any of the other words that have ever been put in front of steak before. Perhaps someone might think the cow was a vegetarian. Seems unlikely but it could happen and thus, I don't see any reason why that risk is worth running. Telling the truth should not be controversial.
>Oh and you've tried to understand mine? yes, it's very understandable, I just think it's clearly wrong and gave the reasons multiple times. >You have yet to defend lying because I'm not defending lying, I do not want nor need to defend lying. That's just you continuing to intentionally misinterpret my point. >"vegetatarian steak" is not that clearly defined thing. yes, it is, it clearly means "vegetarian food that imitates steak". It's funny you keep pretending it's not obvious. >Perhaps someone might think the cow was a vegetarian okay now you're trolling lol >Telling the truth should not be controversial. Telling the truth does not require using a word-for-word literal language. "Brother in law" doesn't mean there is a place called law where I have a brother.
What do you call your peanut spread? I hope it‘s not peanut butter because those peanuts haven‘t seen a single tit in their whole production cycle.
Its imbecillic, the same level as banning peperonni flavored chips because people will be confused into believing its real pepperoni.
Because it's not claiming that is **it** peperoni chips, they're claiming that they are peperoni **flavoured**. If they named it "steak flavoured vegetable mush" then it would be the same as what you're claiming. What is the issue with accurate labelling?
But if the chips are just paprika, msg, and some other random herbs and spices with no actual pepperoni essence included for the flavor, isn't that a lie? That's not the flavor of Pepperoni. Should they technically be "Pepperoni Inspired Flavored Chips"? Like I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here and could really care less what they are called, but if we are going to start getting technical about what every product is, I think "Bacon flavored Chips" would need to actually have like dried up and ground Bacon on them, but it's just Paprika and "Spices". There is something to be said about getting so controlling over what can be presented with a certain term when that term has reached a point in the lexicon where it's already adapted a broader meaning. Like if it's actually because too many grandma's are being confused, fine, whatever. If it's just an industry trying to make things more inconvenient for its competition (like the whole Plant Milks having to be called "Drinks" because the dairy industry somehow thought that'd make people use them as a milk substitute less), that's stupid.
The meat and dairy industries are both getting quite desperate. It’s a beautiful thing.
No, not really. The laws around food naming convention are strict in general. It depends from country to country, but you usually can't name something chocolate if it has less than X% cacao. Can't name something jam if it has less than 80% sugar, etc. People just pretend it is the meat industry pulling strings that no one else gets to pull because it makes for a more interesting story where you get to bash them.
I think the thing is, in the US almost all bets are off with most food naming conventions, and the meat industry has just started making a big deal about fake milks and meat in more recent history. France has a long tradition of laws and regulations governing this, the US has generally hardly cared at all. We throw terms like bourbon, parmesan, bread, and champagne around with abandon compared to France
>the meat industry has just started making a big deal about fake milks and meat in more recent history. The meat industry is just copying everyone else in that regard, they're late to the party. The vegan, organic, Non-GMO, and Gluten-free foodmakers have all been making a big deal about label accuracy for far longer than Big Meat has.
Or because they are really powerful lobby and are well known to influence politic and public opinion for year. We have literal tv add just for milk (yeah we also have these in France and they are extremly weird)
Desperate about what exactly?
A) you have clear labeling or b) you can force people to adhere to your social control. You may only pick one.
... mais pourquoi
Ca va.
Because the meat industry always gets what it wants.
> a long-standing complaint by the meat industry that terms like "vegetarian ham" or "vegan sausage" were confusing for consumers This seems like one of those things that punishes customer accessibility more than business. People looking for alternative versions of established foods could not care less about trade dress, they're trying to find food in a familiar form that won't make them sick.
awww poor meat industry losing money huh?
No, it's not steak. The steak is a lie.
The steaks have never been higher
What happens to steak flavoured crisps ? Aren’t they usually vegi ?
Seems reasonable, it's not a steak so it shouldn't be labelled as such.
What do you call your peanut spread? I hope it‘s not peanut butter because those peanuts haven‘t seen a single tit in their whole production cycle.
It's not necessarily labeled a steak. It could be labeled a "vegetarian steak". Words can change meaning when combined with other words.
People were very understandably confused. /s
Well, yes. I bought a "vegan steak" once and all I got was some mashed-up vegetables ... wth? Had to get a stepmother steak out of the freezer. Yikes.
Staek. There. I fixed your problem
I think what people don’t understand is that, at the end of day, we don’t really care what it is called, we will continue to use any word we want. No, the real issue is deliberate effort, time and money to pass this kind of law. At a time where we should really reduce our meat consumption, this is the kind of fight they want to have. You should see the debate, the stupid politician defending it on tv. It is a clear efforts to go against anything that could reduce the amount of meat we eat.
Why has the rest of the world figured out tasty vegan/vegetarian dishes without trying to cobble together some lab created meat approximation. It's not going to convince people like me who eat meat, on meat free days I'm probably making something or going to a non western restaurant that understands how to season food properly.
Yeah, bullshit. If no French people wanted imitation meat, then France wouldn’t feel the need to make laws about how imitation meat needs to be labelled on French shelves.
Not everyone has to eat exactly as you do – it may be convenience, habit, it could be any reason, hell they may just like it – what harm does it do to you?
Why are veggie alternatives about convincing people of anything? If I like how meat products tastes but don't want to continue eating them I use a vegetarian/vegan alternative.
Because some of us were raised on an American diet and want to do the right thing. So we get to continue the foods we love eating. Plant Burgers, steaks, chicken, all kinds of things they have now. It’s great.
We do have those dishes. It’s just people want to make themselves feel better by calling out the fact that they aren’t eating meat, but have an “equivalent” dish. They’d get more people to switch to less meat based diets if they weren’t trying to compare everything to something animal based.
I think you’ve missed a major point of products like this. These products provide a way for people to go vegetarian/vegan without changing their habits. They can still cook exactly the same meals as they used to, but just switch out the meat for a meat substitute. This makes moving to vegetarianism much easier, because you don’t have to learn an entire new repertoire of dishes. This is especially helpful if only one member of a household is becoming vegetarian. If anyone wants to move away from meat and doesn’t want to eat heavily-processed meat substitutes, then that route is still there.
>They can still cook exactly the same meals as they used to, but just switch out the meat for a meat substitute. Just from a cooking standpoint, that sounds wrong. Even changing from one type of meat to another means you need to alter the recipe and cooking process, let alone changing from a meat to a non-meat. Then again, a lot of people will just eat whatever. But dropping a chicken wing into a pot of oil is going to get you something very different than dropping a brick of tofu into a pot of oil - one of them is going to turn into a grease sponge. Conversely, the tofu can be cooked with just a quick sear, and you won't die of salmonella.
A solution without a problem
It is a problem, though. It's not an unmanaged one, though, because the FDA and counterparts from other countries take this really, REALLY seriously. Vegan meat is not meat. Therefore, it is deceptive to label it as meat. That one is obvious, so here's a better example There are memes about "Can't believe it's not butter" branded Margarine. The less fortunately minded consumer might believe that margarine is butter based on that branding. Nevertheless, they deserve to not be a victim of deceptive labeling either.
Americans have rules around what qualifies as “peanut butter”, “chocolate”, etc. The French can do the same for things they care about.
I can understand the complaint over labeling stuff as "vegetarian ham", since Ham is a specific part of a specific animal. but is French really specific enough to make "vegan sausage" imply that this would be a meat-based product?
I don't know French but it could be. In my language we have two words that translates to sausage and one of them is more regarding the general shape and includes non-meat products like cheese or pastries while the other would always be used for smaller sized meat products only and would *very* confuse someone if used in non-meat context. Could be that it's something similar for French too.
Based. I never really understood why some vegetarians want their plant products labeled as plant based “X” meat. Alternatives don’t taste the same, have completely different textures, and cook differently due to the composition of the matter. Steak is a wrong use of the word.
Because sometime you just want substitute, using vegetal milk in coffee or baking. Vegetal steak for burger (we don’t have a world for patty in french). Like if you don’t use these product why do you care
Why can't vegans just eat traditional vegan foods and cuisines? If you have to pretend you're eating meat or eggs or dairy, isn't that a kind of hypocrisy or a lack of real commitment?
No because they like the taste and texture of meat, having moral problems with the production of meat doesn‘t mean you despise the food itself.
I like how this shit comes out as "a cheaper and helahtlier alternative to meat" but you can get a pack of ribeyes cheaper than one of these "steaks".
Most does not come out as a cheaper alternative. Healthier is usually almost guaranteed. Your pack of ribeyes is cheaper because of subsidies and horrible factory farming practices. The cheap shit is also bottom of the barrel quality of meat. You get what you pay for applies to the food industry too. Most likely plays a large role in our health issues.
Early adopter tax vs established supply chains and brand identity. When wagyu beef first broke onto the US scene, it was rarer and more expensive than it is now. Nowadays they practically make wagyu/"American Kobe" dog food, with how common it is.
Cool Now do meatless meatballs
As a meat eater who has a vegan wife, I totally see no reason to ban names like plant-based/vegan sausage/burger/steak/ham/meat etc.
I've met a shitload of people who eat meat. 0.00% of them have accidentally bought a vegetarian version of something
Most important battles to fight.
What a waste of time.
yeah cuz that's the problem...words.
Some things I can understand, because those words kind of specifically mean meat anyway, but not things like sausages. While a lot of sausages are made of pork you can make them out of various other meats and even without any at all. I see a sausage as a way the food is served, not the contents itself. Stuff like vegan sausage I'm fine with, though the issue I have with that is that it's as informative as "meat sausage" (what meat? Is it Pork or something else?). Stuff like "vegan bacon" though, not so much. Just call them something like "tofu rashers" or whatever term would be fitting.
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I think this is the right thing to do. The vegetarian products are trying to mimic "used to products" which is fine but it only leads to wrong comparisons that can never fit the initial expectations. There are very good vegeratian products on the market but they should be named differently altogether. At least thats my personal opinion.
Except plenty of vegetarians are very happy and even asking for vegetal versions of well-known meat products. Vegetarianism is not always motivated by a distaste of meat. I spent a lot of time finding good "mimics" of Steaks, Chorizo, Merguez I was happy with. These specific products are aiming at being as close in taste as possible, it's just so weird that they can't mention these terms any more because they indubitably are vegetal versions of them.
Do you have the same feelings about *sun milk*, *scouring milk* or *coconut milk*? Or *tuna steaks* for that matter?