Big Dairy is coming for your almond milk | AJ+
- This is me preparing to milk a nut.
We are milking nuts.
Well, not a nut, per say.
We're actually milking an oat.
The oats go up this tubeto be washed in that.
Why?
Well, the dairy industry'sbeen waging a war.
It's a war against plant-basedmilks made from stuff like
soy, oats, coconut, flax,cashews, hemp and almonds.
They're basically saying theyshouldn't be called milk,
and the Trump administrationseems to agree.
Their logic has somethingto do with nipples.
- And an almond doesn'tlactate, I will confess.
- Hi, I'm Yara and I take almond milk
every morning with my coffee.
Can I get that with almond milk?
Almond milk.
Almond milk.
But my almond milk is under attack.
For years the dairyindustry has tried to ban
its plant-based rivals from using terms
like milk, yogurt and cheese.
There's been lawsuits against almond milk.
- The almond milk does not have
the same nutritional content.
- [Yara] There's been a push for new laws.
- A new act is hoping to stop the misuse
of the term milk for plant-based products.
- [Yara] And there'seven a media campaign.
- Let's get you some soy milk.
- No!
- [Narrator] Real milk needs no shaking.
- [Yara] And so, thewar of the milks began.
With team plant on one side,and team cow on the other.
♪ Wow ♪
♪ Wow no cow ♪
- [Yara] Some on team plant have caved
into the pressure to stop saying milk.
While others are sticking to their guns.
Anyway, what set off this war?
Well for one thing, cow milk sales
have been plummeting for years.
While plant milk saleshave been sky rocketing.
But why are peopledrinking less cows milk?
What exactly makessomething a milk, anyway?
And who's winning this war?
To get the dairyindustries side of things,
we had to go undercoverinto the belly of the beast.
Is this where Mar-a-Lago is?
- [Man] I don't know, is it?
- So we're here at the dairy forum,
which has been describedas the premier event
for dairy executives.
We're here to speak to a dairy executive
to see if they have beef with anyone
in the plant-based foods industry.
Thank you.
We're inside The Ritz Carlton.
Everyone here is wearing suits.
I'm wearing my camouflage outfit.
Okay, so it wasn't all that undercover,
but I definitely was in the minority.
As a journalist and a lactose intolerant.
All the snacks here are dairy snacks.
Everything has tons of cheese.
It seems to be a verylactose-filled creamy sauce.
Anyway, I tried talkingto a lot of people.
Hey, can I bother you guys for a sec?
Can I bother for a sec?
I'm a documentary film maker
and I'm working on a documentaryabout the dairy industry.
I was wondering if either ofyou guys would be interested
in a one or two minute interview?
Just your kind of thoughtson plant-based alternatives.
- I don't think I have time.
- Oh, yeah, probably not.
- My company wouldn't allow me.
- I don't think so.- No? Okay.
We haven't had very much luck.
But eventually, people opened up.
Should plant-based milks be called milk.
- No.
- Definitely should not use the word milk.
- I don't really care if they call it.
- I think calling it milk confuses people.
- I don't think that they're milk.
- The definition of milk, as I know it,
means it comes from an animal.
- I just think it's totallyconfusing consumers.
- The nutritional profile.
- The nutritional properties.
- The nutritional content.
- Is so different.
- Significantly different.
- Is way different than whatthey can make out of almmonds.
- They're using the word milk
'cause they get some sort of benefit.
- I think it comes across more as petty.
- What alternative names would you
have in mind for nut milks or,
- It would be be more of a juice.
- Beverage.- Beverage.
- Juice.- Drink.
- Beverage.
- There's all kinds of things.
- [Yara] Most peopleat the dairy conference
seemed convinced that milkneeds to come from an animal,
or have certain nutrients.
But do they have a point?
First, let's start with the
Food and Drug Administration, or the FDA.
For every food category,
the FDA has what's calleda standard of identity.
Their definition for milk,"The lacteal secretion
"obtained by the complete milking
"of one or more healthy cows."
But that definition hasn'tbeen strictly enforced.
Otherwise neither goatsmilk nor sheep's milk
would count as milk.
The language is meant to protect consumers
from deceptive companiesthat sell poor quality
or imitation foods that looklike more expensive ones.
People have been using the word milk
for plant productsthroughout human history.
In medieval Europe, the catholic church
actually banned dairy andmeat as a form of fasting
on holy days, which at one point
meant every Wednesday,Friday and Saturday.
So what did people do instead?
They made almond milk,and occasionally hazelnut
and pistachio milks, and cooked with it.
And they actually called it milk.
Anyway, after new branches of Christianity
gained popularity, theserestrictions on meat
and dairy were lifted.
But let's go beyond Europe.
Scholars have traced the earliest mention
of soy milk to 14th century China.
It got so popular there,that by the 1700s,
it was being sold as street food.
Yet in Southeast Asian,Indian and African cuisines,
coconut milk has been used as a base
for curry's for centuries.
And some of thosecultures use the word milk
to describe the liquid ofboth plants and animals.
(cow mooing)
In 1828, Noah Webster,yeah the dictionary guy,
released the first editionof his famous dictionary.
In it, milk was givena secondary definition.
The white juice of certain plants.
So really, if we look at history,and the rest of the world,
it's obvious thatsomething doesn't need to
lactate to be a milk.
But what about when it comes to nutrition?
Are plant milks justas nutritious as dairy?
To answer that, I headedto Buffalo, New York.
We're here at Elmhurst 1925.
Elmhurst is a former dairy milk plant,
but now exclusivelyproduces plant-based milks.
That's their chief scientist, Cheryl.
- Cheryl.- Hi!
- Nice to meet you, yeah!- Nice to meet you!
- [Yara] She took us on a tourof their plant milk factory.
Big question, how do you milk a nut?
- First, we gotta get you all dressed up.
- We are covering Tabish's beard.
- [Cheryl] Pulled it out accidentally.
- Tabish, I love your style.
So, behind these doors, we'regonna learn how to milk a nut.
- This is the world of milking nuts.
- Milking nuts.
And today, they were milking oats.
First, the oats travel up this chute.
- See 'em start going up to the top?
- [Yara] And are then droppeddown here to be washed.
- You'll be able to see littlebit of the oats trickle down.
- [Yara] Now this is whereElmhurts uses its pantented
- Hydrorelease Technology.
- [Yara] Which wasinvented by Cheryl herself.
It mostly comes down to this,
putting the nuts through a
super high pressure powerwash.
Not once.
- It's already started to be milk.
- [Yara] Not twice.
- It's continuing.
- [Yara] But three times.
So it's the water pressurethat's essentially
removing the layers from- Yes, that's right.
- The nuts.
They haven't been crushed?
- There's no crushing!- There's no crushing!
To make nut milk, you usuallyhave to crush your nuts,
and blend them with water
and thickening agents to make milk.
But the hydrorelease process is different.
- Like if you took a high-powered washer
and sprayed something,it doesn't destroy it,
it just takes it off.
- One layer at a time.- Oh, like layer by layer.
- The natural oils andnutrients and the proteins,
they're all released from each other.
This is why we don't have to add anything.
- Whoa, that looks- Yeah, it's different.
- Really creamy.
Can I like, like?- Yeah.
And then it'll go overjust some other times
where it's heated andpasteurized, homogenized,
just like you would dairy milk.
And we're gonna grab a sample.
You notice that it's hot.
There you go.
- What are the ingredients in this?
- Whole grain oat.
- And?- Water.
- That's it?- That's it!
- There's just two things?- Yep.
- Should you guys be recognized as a milk?
Should you guys be in the milk aisle?
- We absolutely shouldbe recognized as milk.
- A lot of dairy folkssay that plant-based milks
don't have the same nutritional value.
- Ah, but nutritive plant milks do.
We can have six to eightgrams or more of protein.
That's naturally contained because of
the amount of nuts we use.
- [Yara] So exactly how nutritious
are plant-based milkscompared to cows milk?
Well cows milk isadmittedly a well-balanced
source of nutrients, like fat,carbohydrates and proteins.
And it's packed with a diverse array
of vitamins and minerals.
Plant-based milks don't have the sort of
all in one nutrition.
Vitamin B12, for example, is often missing
from plant-based foods.
But that's the thing with plant milks.
They each offer somethingdifferent nutritionally.
Oat milk, for example,
has more fiber than cowsmilk, which has none.
Almond milk has way fewercalories than cows milk.
And soy milk has a lot of protein,
about as much as cows milk.
All together, plant milkshave virtually no cholesterol,
while cows milk can be packed with it.
And plant milks are often fortified
with the vitamins and minerals they lack.
- Families are very diverse right now
with regards to their biogenomic needs.
I might like the omega3s and 6s from walnuts,
where as you might want thebeta glucans in oat milk.
- [Yara] So which one of theseplant milks taste the best?
Tristan,- Yes.
- So what do you do here?
- I'm the corporate executive iron d chef.
- So these taste the way theydo, in part, because of you.
- Yes.- Wow.
All right, let's go ahead and taste them.
Almond, mm, I love almond milk.
Hazelnut, I taste the hazelnut.
Hazelnut is not my favorite nut.
Walnut, wow you put maple syrup in this.
- No, no, no that's,- Wait, this is just walnut?
- That's walnut, cane sugarand a little touch of salt.
- Wow.
- Wow.
- Oat, it's really creamy and like fatty.
Got the sides of my mouth feelin',
- Mouth feel, it has a
better mouth feel.- Mouth feel, Yeah.
Cashew,
whoa, there's somethin'
majestic about that one.- Majestic.
- [Cheryl] A lot of people will tell us
this is a one-to-one replacementfor a whole fat dairy milk.
- This is a magical nut.
- Really?- You like this the best?
- [Yara] That thing was amazing.
- It's a different--- No?
- [Tabish] Yeah.
- [Yara] It's so creamy!
- I think I just don'tlike milk that much.
(everyone laughing)
- So we're goin' upstairs to attend a talk
by someone who makes vegan cheese.
- Plant-based products have been
skyrocketing for a number of years.
- She's recently beenembroiled in a lawsuit
because she uses the termbutter in one of her products.
- Now what does this mean for all of you?
- That's Miyoko Schinner.
She's the founder of Miyoko's.
A company that makes plant-basedbutter, cheese, and more.
- So this is what I propose,that we redefine dairy
as something coming from milk,
and that milk can come fromeither animals or from plants.
Yeah so we have the tasting at 6:30.
- Okay so this is the cheddar.
- You don't need this one?
- Wow, this is cheddar,but without cow's milk.
It has a sort of like, umami flavor.
- [Miyoko] It's the culturing.
- Right.- It's really just taking
cashews and then inoculatingit with dairy cultures
and transforming just plain, sweet cashews
and just suddenly it tastes like cheese.
- What's the relationship beenlike between dairy producers
and plant-based foods producers?
- The incumbent industry is threatened
by the plant-based industry.
They're seeing the lossof their shelf space
to almond milk or vegan cheese.
There was a lawsuit filed against us
about the word butter on our packaging.
So there are people that arevery upset, but you know,
we're just at a shiftingpoint in consumption of food
where people aren't gonna be eating
the same way 20 years from now.
- So I'm supposed to eatthis and give a reaction?
- [Yara] Yeah.
- Off the charts.
- I would totally eat this again.
- It's a really nice, umami
great coverage on the palette.
- It's excellent, this is delicious.
- I like this, creamy, creamy texture.
- The taste, it's missing.
The cream is missing.
- You know, dairy products have been
plummeting for a number of years.
In 1970, the average Americandrank 247 pounds of milk
and more today it's more like 147 pounds.
And meanwhile plant-based products surged
like 61% in the last five years.
- [Yara] So why are peopledrinking less cows milk?
Well for one, a growing number of people
think avoiding dairy is betterfor their digestive health.
Two, some are switchingto plant-based options
like almond, soy and oat.
And three, some peoplehave ethical concerns.
- Today on dairy farms,cows are constantly
in a state of being pregnantand lactating at the same time.
The babies get taken awayas soon as they're born.
The mothers mourn, the babiesare raised in isolation.
- [Yara] Then there's four,
the environmental considerations.
Livestock like dairy cows are responsible
for a quarter of allmethane emissions in the US,
and methane is a bigcontributor to global warming.
It traps heat in theatmosphere with an intensity
that's 28 times strongerthan carbon dioxide.
Now, it's true, some ofthe nuts used to make milk
take a toll on our water supply.
In California, it takesan entire gallon of water
to grow one almond, butit takes way more water
to produce a gallon ofcows milk than almond milk.
- I really do feel thatpeople wanna buy products
that make them feel better.
You know, they're saving the world
with every bite or every drink.
And that's really what's driving
the growth of this movement.
- [Yara] If somebodygave you that at a party?
- I wouldn't know that it wasn't dairy.
- I wouldn't think twice about it.
- I would think it was acream cheese with chive.
- I wouldn't really think about it.
Especially after the first glass of wine.
- The texture, the whole texture is,
that's not really what we call cheese.
- [Yara] So where do we go from here?
Well so far team plant has won
a number of big cases in court.
When they've been suedby the dairy industry
for misleading consumers.
In one case, the court ruled that,
- "A reasonable consumer would not assume
that two distinct products have
the same nutritional content."
- [Yara] And another, the court said that
if people were deceived by plant milks,
then they'd probably also think,
- "Veggie bacon containspork, or that e-books
are made out of paper."
- Ultimately, it's about making sure
that the consumer understands what it is
that these products are.
- [Yara] That's Dr. Stephen Ostroff,
he used to work at theFDA, and he's currently
being blinded by the sun.
- For many of these products,they make it abundantly clear
that it's from almond, you know it says
- It's on the package.- That this is non-dairy.
- There's a picture of an almond.
- Yeah, exactly.
You'd be hard pressed to say that
any reasonable consumer would be misled
about what it is that they're consuming.
- [Yara] But this war of wordsisn't exclusive to the US.
In Europe, dairy style wordslike milk, butter and yogurt,
can only be used for foods made from
animal milk, with some exceptions.
And in Canada, the popularprotein drink, Muscle Milk,
was forced to change its nameto Muscle Mulk, Malaka, MLK?
- I think it's just like,any shift in human history,
right when it's happening iswhen it's most challenging.
But these so called alternative products
in about 10 years will nolonger be the alternative.
They're going to becomethe majority at some point.
The conversation will change.
- [Yara] The politics of food labeling
will probably continuelong after this video.
But between us, it doesn't really matter
that almonds, oats, walnutsand peanuts don't lactate.
They make for pretty deliciousmilk, and they always have.
Whoa.
For years, the dairy industry has tried to stop producers of plant-based foods – like almond, soy, coconut and oat milk – from labeling their vegan products with terms like milk, yogurt and cheese. Follow Yara as he tries to find out why they’re trying to recruit the FDA – and the Trump administration – to wage a war against almond milk and its ilk. And besides – what exactly is a milk anyway? #AlmondMilk #Vegan #PlantBased HOST/PRODUCER: Yara Elmjouie PRODUCER: Serena Ajbani SENIOR PRODUCER: Tabish Talib EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Sarah Nasr EDITORS: Yara Elmjouie, Serena Ajbani FINISHING EDITORS: Nanako Pierce, Corinna Wollman ANIMATOR: Milad Aramnia CAMERA: Serena, Ajbani, Tabish Talib, Yara Elmjouie BRANDING/LOGO: Mohammad Aklik, Mohammad Kakhi FEATURING: Miyoko Schinner (Miyoko’s), Dairy Forum (International Dairy Foods Association; IDFA), Stephen Ostroff (FDA), Dr. Cheryl Mitchell (Elmhurst 1925), Scott Gottlieb (FDA) Subscribe for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV3Nm3T-XAgVhKH9jT0ViRg?sub_confirmation=1 Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajplus