What is “cheese”? Is a Kraft American Single “cheese”? What about Cheese Whiz?

Certainly there’s a lot of debate about “cheese” even before getting into vegan

There's no real debate about those products. They're not cheese and can't be labeled as such.

When you have to put "with real cheese!" on the label, it's not that real cheese.

If plant-based cheese is ever going to gain mainstream acceptance, it will be necessary to fall under the "cheese" category alongside cow, goat, and other animal-based cheeses. The founder of Impossible Foods has a great framing on this about targeting meat-eaters with a substitute, rather than going after the much smaller group of highly incentivized vegetarians/vegans.

There are multiple legal fights by animal agriculture lobbying groups to exclude plant-based products from using the meat/cheese/egg terms, specifically (IMO) to try to maintain the status quo and prevent these products from gaining traction.

Ultimately there are no natural laws governing language, and given the above acceptance of plant-based products under these terms is a fight worth fighting for anyone hoping to see them gain traction and mainstream acceptance.

The EU has protections these sort of brand dilutions. You can't call it cheese if it doesn't come from milk and you can't call it milk if it doesn't come from a teat.

Which is weird to me, coconut milk has been "milk" for over 300 years.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coconut%20milk

Almond milk predates coconut milk by several hundred years even. I remember reading an account by a European man stranded in North America of almond milk but I couldn't find the source again.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/almond%20milk https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/almond-milk-obsession-...

Which is why it's basically the only exception. No other non-milks are allowed that. Good

But if consumers understand that coconut milk doesn't come from a cow, surely they can understand soy milk doesn't.

Milk is already used for non animal milks as coconut shows, so I don't see this doing anything pro-consumer.

A historical exception isn't an acceptable excuse to muddy the otherwise precisely defined definition further. But that's just my opinion. I'd even wager that coconut liquid may lose its privilege in the near future. Good