Calling it as it is

inside the box in my fridge comes from a plant and is produced by a complicated process of soaking and grinding beans, boiling the mixture and then filtering out particles to end up with this emulsion of oil, water and protein.

Nothing to do with mammals, mammaries, or mothers and cunningly labelled and marketed incorrectly. Milk is also a verb meaning – to exploit, take advantage of, cash in on.

To call this soy soakedground-boiled-filtered liquid ‘‘milk’’ is certainly milking the real thing. The same for product squeezed from rice, almonds and coconut. It may be opaque, white, fluid, may have protein and may be healthy and a good alternative to animal product, but it is obviously all plant originated and therefore blatantly not milk.

It’s as ridiculous as me drinking the stuff then calling myself a vegan. The background, the philosophy and the story behind are totally at odds. That difference is vitally important and yet we accept it.

Consumers are increasingly looking for that story behind what they eat, for natural, less processed, known origin, trusted foods. Yet in contradiction to that trend, surprisingly a synthetic product masquerading as ‘‘meat’’ is being developed in a laboratory.

It’s not pedantic to argue that the word ‘‘meat’’ can not be assigned to an imitation. This manufactured fake steak must be differentiated from the wonderful naturally grown authentic product that’s correctly and proudly called meat. How about Stem Cell Artificial Medium Laboratory Adjusted Manufactured Substance? This could be shortened to ‘‘Scamlams’’.