Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018)

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by fredley on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:43AM (#19026175)

Usage defines language, not the other way around.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by shlant on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:48AM (#19026216)

exactly, and "milk" is a good descriptor for consumers: a pale liquid with some viscosity and a mild taste that can be used in the same ways cows milk is used. Usually the only people who complain about calling it "milk" are people who sell dairy products (not saying OP is one of them).

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by stillbourne on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @10:55AM (#19027318)

Uh, no. The defining characteristic of mammals is the ability to produce milk. The word itself is derived from the latin word breast. There is a definition for the word milk as a verb in the mechanical sense as in to extract a substance from an object mechanically but the product from that extraction is not, in any sense, milk, as in the noun. The only other known animals to provide milk are a specific species of jumping spiders. But, as this is specifically a single species, or perhaps even a small genus of interrelated jumping spiders, it is not a defining characteristic of its entire class from an evolutionary stand point.

Milk is an important substance and the definition of which should be more regulated to prevent distortion or misinterpretation of its function by marketing. The only manufactured food substance that approximates milk is baby formula. It is time to stop calling all of these mechanical extractions that are marketed as substitutions something other than milk. This is important because there is a lot of misinformation and general quackery that is related to these mechanical extractions that endanger the lives of infants such as the parents that killed their 7 month old infant by substituting quinoa milk with actual milk or formula because it was "natural."

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by natch on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:30AM (#19052081)

Looks like the dairy industry is here on HN.

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by LaGrange on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:50AM (#19026224)

...also, non-dairy milk products have a _very_ long history.

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by natch on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:56AM (#19026766)

Yep. Just checked some corpus data and taking soy milk as an example, "soy milk" is used 76.5% of the time by real people not subject to legal shenanigans imposed by the dairy industry, compared to "soymilk" only 23.5% of the time, in the slice of data I looked at. Not the best data (skewed to a certain US locale home to high tech, cable cars, and some large bridges) but pretty overwhelming. And these are people who are being influenced by commercial labels forced by lawsuits to use "soymilk", yet they still separate the words. Usage ftw.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by Nasrudith on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:58AM (#19026279)

The usage of it dates back to medieval times when almond milk was a bit of an indulgence in that it was allowed during lent by nobility.

The livestock have left the barn there so long ago they have completely dedomesticated.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by m0skit0 on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @05:33AM (#19034014)

And? Old means correct? They probably used "milk" to confuse people and make them buy it, whereas its nutritional value is way below "actual" milk.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by Nasrudith on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @03:07PM (#19038866)

The point is that the meaning is well established. Milk has long meant "edible white liquid" - see coconut milk, as well and milk of magnesia and poppy milk. The later two are essentially drugs but still fit with that definition! Unless it is believed that the non-animal milk producers are time travelers claiming it is some new deception to be corrected for when everyone has known that for centuries. They aren't changing the meaning - advocates for restricting it are.

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by limyt on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:08AM (#19026339)

In french, the word milk (lait) has been used in the expression almond milk since at least the XIIIrd century.

source: http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/lait

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by m0skit0 on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @05:31AM (#19034004)

And? I'm calling to stop using that word :) It is confusing and these beverages are nothing like milk except in the looks.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by hypeibole on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:11AM (#19026365)

IIRC they can't be sold as "milk" inside the EU, they're usually called some variation of "beverage" or "drink". The only product that can be labelled as "milk" has to be produced, as you said, by mammals.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by bashy on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @09:28AM (#19035250)

We can't get coconut milk in the EU since it can't be called milk. So sad.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by m0skit0 on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @05:30AM (#19034000)

Exactly, and I think "milk" is a confusing term that doesn't even describe what all these beverages are, which usually are way less nutritious than "real" milk.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by black-tea on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:02AM (#19026298)

Milk as a general term for a white liquid made from nuts and grains goes back hundreds of years. Nobody is calling it "milk", they are calling it "oat milk". Calling it "juice" as you have is far more wrong.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by badhombres on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:52AM (#19026238)

Additives? Just oats and water to make oat milk and some sugar if you want it sweet.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by nailer on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:45AM (#19026190)

I wonder if the cow breast milk industry will also embrace correctness.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by grawprog on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:04AM (#19026315)

If we're going for correctness, we should call it the bovine mammary lactation industry. Though there is something horribly unappealing about that.

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by justtopost on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:32AM (#19026540)

Kinda like tomato and vinegar syrup?

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by m0skit0 on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @05:31AM (#19034001)

Except it is not always bovine.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by sithadmin on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:16AM (#19026407)

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/milk?src=search-d...

"Milk: ... 2 : a liquid resembling milk in appearance: such as a : the latex of a plant b : the contents of an unripe kernel of grain"

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by natch on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:25AM (#19052073)

Oak juice lol. Juice comes from fruits and oak is not a fruit (and nor are oats) so you might want to check your hipocrisy there calling it juice.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by benj111 on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @12:56PM (#19028357)

To further muddy the milk/not milk waters. Oatly[1] appears to be grain, soaked in water, with enzymes added to break down starches into simple sugars.

Any brewer should know this is a wort, basically unfermented beer (without hops).

So there you go, you should really be asking for wort in your coffee.

[1] https://www.oatly.com/int/our-process

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by jdavis703 on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @09:11AM (#19026371)

Should the milkweed plant also be renamed to ”juiceweed?” What happens when someone synthesizes petri-dish dairy milk?

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Re:Oat Milk Could Change the Way You Drink Coffee (2018) by akskos on Tuesday January 29, 2019 @08:52AM (#19026240)

An opaque white fluid rich in fat and protein, secreted by female mammals for the nourishment of their young.

I'm thinking does this definition apply to also the liquid from cows that is produced for humans since we're not their "young"

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