Misleading Marketing Is an Important Issue Worth Discussing
我很高兴有机会与丹妮尔·尼尔伯格（Danielle Nierenberg）最近的评论相反。Dear FDA: Stop Worrying About Milk vs. “Milk” And Focus on Actual Food Issues.
When some of the big dairy interests started complaining about plant-based beverages being described as “milk,” my take on it was similar to Ms. Nierenberg’s—that their bellyaching was parochial and designed to protect their market turf. But since then, as I’ve drilled down on the products themselves, I’ve come to a different conclusion: These products are nutritionally inferior and some of them might be downright dangerous to human health—and the marketing of these products is intentionally misleading. By labeling them “milk,” some parents and other shoppers are going to come to the mistaken conclusion that they are equivalent.
Here are my concerns:
1. The attrition of dairy farmers. When I started doing political work on behalf of farmers in the mid-1980s, there were 45,000 family dairy businesses in Wisconsin alone. Today there are about 6000 and there aren’t even 45,000 in the entire United States. I wish organic was the antidote. We have more organic farmers in Wisconsin than any other state. But here’s an example of what’s really happening (and I wish I was making this up): There are just eight organic dairies in the state of Texas. Eight. And they produce multiple times more milk than the 450 family farmers here in Wisconsin combined. Eight CAFOs. And make no mistake about it, these milk alternatives are much more of a market threat to organic dairy farmers and processors than to conventional.
2. One of the reasons people have quit drinking fluid milk, other than maybe on their breakfast cereal, is that much of it tastes awful. As the medical profession became fat phobic—pushing people to margarine and lowfat and skim milk (something that looks like dirty dishwater and doesn’t taste much better)—consumption, not surprisingly, fell off. The mostly sweetened and flavored plant-based beverages are a lot more palatable in comparison. But they are nutritionally inferior. Whole milk from cows that graze tastes goodandhas a vastly superior nutritional profile.
3. Most of the options, with the exception of soy (which has its own problems), contain demonstrably lower levels of protein (or none at all). And much of the rest of the nutrition comes from fortification with synthetic compounds that are likely not as bioavailable (little testing in that regard has been done).
4. A serving of whole cow’s milk contains 8g of protein. Almond milk has 1g, rice milk 0.7g, oat and coconut milk 0.5g. Soy comes closest at 6g of protein.
5. Most plant-based beverages are sold flavored and sweetened. Some of these products are sweeter than soda pop. The New York Times wrote, in 2021, that there were varieties of these beverages that had 2.5 times more added sugars than glazed doughnuts at Krispy Kreme.
6. Added ancillary ingredients. There are materials to make the drinks white and “milk-like.” There are materials to give them better “mouth feel” and keep the numerous ingredients in suspension (like carrageenan, which NIH funded research indicates is a carcinogen). And that’s not to mention the myriad of sweeteners and, in conventional products, hexane-extracted seed oils (further skewing the balance in the American diet to omega six fatty acids)
7.关于大豆牛奶，关于植物雌激素对发育中的儿童的影响有严重的杰出问题。尽管美国的儿科医生在婴儿出现胃肠道问题时很快建议以大豆为基础的婴儿配方奶粉，但大豆配方奶粉只有在欧洲提供医生的处方。
8. The majority of plant-based beverages are conventional, not organic, and contain agrochemical residues. This is a particular concern with oat “milk” because of the use of herbicides, such as Glyphosate, as a desiccant prior to harvest. Caution is also called for with rice milk, related to arsenic contamination and the high consumption of rice-based products, in aggregate, by babies and children.
9. In terms of the beverages produced from seeds and grains (or added oils as an ingredient in many product formulations), consumption of these products will also further skew the American diet which is already out of balance in terms of omega six to omega three fatty acid consumption.
10.消费者为这些主要是“自然”（常规）产品的传统牛奶价格支付溢价。有机杏仁“牛奶”的费用为每加仑20-25美元！这使得有机，草食牛奶看起来像便宜货。
11.根据剑桥大学出版社90 percent of households that purchase plant-based beverages also enjoy dairy. The real driver is often the perceived health benefit, not lactose intolerance or committed vegan diets.
Why the big growth in plant-based beverages? Because it represents an orgy of venture capital and other equity investments attempting to patent and brand food (this includes the juggernaut of hydroponic produce, cell-based meat, dairy and eggs, and other exotic alternatives to farming and食物). A branded handful of soybeans and water is profoundly more profitable than selling dairy milk.
People who are lactose intolerant will want to find the safest and most nutritional alternatives to incorporate into their cooking and food consumption. But generally, what is on the market are highly processed, engineered products that pale in comparison to eating the whole foods they are based on in terms of nutrition, fiber, and other attributes. Alternatively, “milks” with organic ingredients can be made at home.
Organicee对个人饮食选择（素食，素食，生，杂食等）充满热情地“中立”。我们认为，人们的偏好，无论是基于健康的重点，宗教还是哲学，都应受到尊重。食客应该可以访问其决定基础的准确，客观的信息，以及最安全和营养的食物选择。
大多数“基于植物性的食物”都是高度加工的，大多数是常规的，并且含有农业化学残留物，许多食物在营养上是可疑的。吃素食食品，尤其是当地有机农产品，即使平衡，可以在每顿饭时都可以替代食用动物产品。但是配制的商业版本很昂贵，在许多情况下，可能对人类健康有害。
通过食品坦克成员的慷慨大方，像您刚刚阅读的文章一样成为可能。w88优德老虎机平台我们可以指望您成为我们不断发展的运动的一部分吗？立即单击此处成为会员。
照片由Megumi Nachev提供，Unsplash
