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Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

thehill.com

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Re: Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

#81

Post by tablespoon »

igetspam wrote: post #57
mc32 wrote: post #2

I agree with this. Make up your own new word for the new product. Tufu isn't "bean cheese". People don't need "to be fooled" in order to get them to try highly processed plant products. Truth in advertising and all that. If you're selling processed plants or insects, great, market it and label it as such. If it's yummy, people will lap it up.

This is stupid. Meat is not solely used to describe the output of slaughter. I'll even help you out: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/meat We've used "meat" to describe lots of things that we eat for a very long time. This is purely bending the knee to a lobby and hyper regulation of enterprise. It makes sense since that's a core value of republican... wait a second! What's happening? What about free enterprise and…

> We've used "meat" to describe lots of things that we eat for a very long time.

That's not a very good argument. Those other uses are only valid in very specific contexts. If someone ordered "extra meat" for their sandwich, and the restaurant threw in some apple slices (as in meat = "the edible part of anything, as a fruit or nut"), pretty much everyone would find that to be scammy.

> Nobody is fooled. It's called "Beyond Beef," not "Beef."

Yet. This fake "beef" is currently a trendy novelty product. If/when it becomes cheaper than real beef, I guarantee you that there will be concerted attempts to trick people into buying it.

These kinds of naming standards are necessary. For instance the difference between "frozen dairy dessert" and "ice cream" (which as a specific government enforced definition). They're both marketed like ice cream, but if I see the former label, I know not to buy it because it's cost-reduced crap (e.g. they whipped so much air into it it can't be called ice cream anymore).

Re: Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

#82

Post by quantified »

igetspam wrote: post #67
quantified wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems more of a truth in labeling measure. A product won’t be allowed to say it contains the meat if it doesn’t. Also says that it cannot claim to imitate the meat if it doesn’t. But the bar for “sufficiently imitates to be allowed to say it imitates” is unclear. Any poor imitation of a Picasso is still an imitation. Talking about “hamburger” is laughable, as ground-up people from Hamburg is forbidden by most culinar…

Define meat. Go check. We'll wait. I'll be hear eating some coconut meat while you look.

IIRC the solid part of a beefsteak tomato (oops!) is referred to as “flesh”. Is there a difference between flesh and meat?

Re: Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

#83

Post by kodah »

I think politicians are generally expecting the industry to come up with a different name. For all the people talking about being "insulted" by these protections, then maybe you'd be insulted by the fact that orange juice, pasteurized milk, ice cream, and yogurt are all things that have general definitions what constitutes them because businesses have deliberately tried to fool the public. It's why you can't just throw 1% orange juice with sugar water and call it orange juice because you threw some pulp in there. Sometimes this is the FDA and sometimes it's a state, as is the case with frozen yogurt and the state of California. [0]

Companies like Beyond Meat are producing products that the aspire to taste just like beef. This is one of the first laws I expected to see, because it's standard practice based on precedent.

0: https://www.realcaliforniamilk.com/real-california/frozen-yo...

Re: Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

#84

Post by david38 »

mc32 wrote: post #2

I agree with this. Make up your own new word for the new product. Tufu isn't "bean cheese". People don't need "to be fooled" in order to get them to try highly processed plant products. Truth in advertising and all that. If you're selling processed plants or insects, great, market it and label it as such. If it's yummy, people will lap it up.

Thick tires have a lot of “meat”.

Meat does not just mean the muscle fiber of an animal.

I wonder how opposed Texas was to what people call “American cheese”, now just called “American” because of the FDA.

What about negations? Is it now illegal to call something “fake meat”?

What about “I can’t believe it’s not butter”? Is that legal in Texas?

The lengths to which Texas politicians will go to protect their masters is crazy.

Re: Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

#86

Post by dzhiurgis »

igetspam wrote: post #57
mc32 wrote: post #2

I agree with this. Make up your own new word for the new product. Tufu isn't "bean cheese". People don't need "to be fooled" in order to get them to try highly processed plant products. Truth in advertising and all that. If you're selling processed plants or insects, great, market it and label it as such. If it's yummy, people will lap it up.

This is stupid. Meat is not solely used to describe the output of slaughter. I'll even help you out: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/meat We've used "meat" to describe lots of things that we eat for a very long time. This is purely bending the knee to a lobby and hyper regulation of enterprise. It makes sense since that's a core value of republican... wait a second! What's happening? What about free enterprise and…

The biggest advertising lie from all these companies was "it's so good that you can't tell it apart, vegetarians even sick from it". If you ever tried it, it's not Beyond Beef, it's more of Near Rubbish.

Re: Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

#87

Post by voisin »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #86
igetspam wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is stupid. Meat is not solely used to describe the output of slaughter. I'll even help you out: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/meat We've used "meat" to describe lots of things that we eat for a very long time. This is purely bending the knee to a lobby and hyper regulation of enterprise. It makes sense since that's a core value of republican... wait a second! What's happening? What about free enterprise and…

The biggest advertising lie from all these companies was "it's so good that you can't tell it apart, vegetarians even sick from it". If you ever tried it, it's not Beyond Beef, it's more of Near Rubbish.

Can you recognize that some people hold different opinions from you? You feel that way - great. But clearly not everyone does, and labelling the product as what it’s historical analogue is allows people to have a sense of what they are getting. Did the designer try to mimic beef, or chicken, or pork, or what? It’s handy for the newly curious.

Re: Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

#88

Post by dzhiurgis »

voisin wrote: post #87
dzhiurgis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest advertising lie from all these companies was "it's so good that you can't tell it apart, vegetarians even sick from it". If you ever tried it, it's not Beyond Beef, it's more of Near Rubbish.

Can you recognize that some people hold different opinions from you? You feel that way - great. But clearly not everyone does, and labelling the product as what it’s historical analogue is allows people to have a sense of what they are getting. Did the designer try to mimic beef, or chicken, or pork, or what? It’s handy for the newly curious.

Unsure what's the personal attack for, but to answer the second part of your comment - should we also allow labelling quinoa as pork imitation? I mean it has the protein...

It's handy to know when you are in substitutes section and seeing what is what. Hijacking SKU is fraud.

Re: Texas lawmakers approve bill banning 'meat' & 'beef' on plant-based food labels

#90

Post by jfengel »

mikewhy wrote: post #11
elliottkember wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curd is not cheese

TBH I still don't get why cheese is being referenced, I've never heard that comparison. I brought it up because the GP said "tofu is not bean cheese" when that's almost exactly what tofu means.

Cheese is being referenced because it's a natural extension of "You can't call it X if it's not the way we used to do X". If Texas wants to limit the definition of meat, then logically they should be limiting the definition of cheese, milk, and even salt, for that matter.

Without that, it looks less like a matter of evenhanded regulatory enforcement or consumer protection, and more like a legislature beholden to a corporation.

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