Bureaucratic Busybodies May Require Almond Milk, Soy Milk to Use Non-Milk Names

If Washington politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists have their way, consumers of common nondairy “milks”—such as almond milk and soy milk—may soon have to buy those products under obscure labeling such as “plant juice” and “tree-nut beverage.”

In another unfortunate instance of overcriminalization, after efforts to make it a crime to label nondairy products as “milk” stalled in the Senate, the Food and Drug Administration may now be trying to do through regulatory means what Congress has been unwilling or unable to do through legislation.

Today, the U.S. Code contains a literal A-to-Y list of misbranding offenses. The DAIRY PRIDE Act would, if enacted, complete that alphabet of horribles by adding a section (Z) for nondairy products labeled as “milk.”

Misbranding food is punishable with fines up to $1,000 and imprisonment up to one year, or up to $10,000 and three years, or both, if the government can prove that a defendant acted with intent to defraud or mislead consumers.

Fortunately, federal courts have fairly applied the law on behalf of American consumers and refused to say that nondairy products are misleading just because their labels say “milk.”

In the plant-based “milk” case, Conti wrote that the plaintiffs’ claims were just as “highly improbable” and “stretched the bounds of credulity,” because by the same logic, “a reasonable consumer might also believe that veggie bacon contains pork, that flourless chocolate cake contains flour, or that e-books are made out of paper.”.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, attempted to block Gottlieb’s plan, but the Senate voted 84-14 to let the agency do the dirty work that Congress could not do itself.

“No one buys almond milk under the false allusion that it came from a cow,” Lee said. “They buy it because it didn’t come from a cow. Consumers are not deceived by these labels.”

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