Based on what's going on today, the development of food labeling laws will probably become pretty interesting. CytoSport, the maker of the well known workout supplements Muscle Milk and Monster Milk, has not too long ago gotten into hot water with the FDA. The Food and Drug Administration sent an official warning letter this past June to CytoSport, suggesting that their supplements deceive consumers by fallaciously selling themselves as containing dairy. Oddly, one of the more advertised aspects of Muscle Milk is actually that it's lactose free, permitting lactose-intolerant fitness enthusiasts to obtain their protein kick whilst avoiding the unpleasant bloating. The regulatory agency seems to have actually been bothered by CytoSport's use of the word “milk” on the supplement labeling, although the label on the product explicitly advises that it has no milk. Strangely, the Food and Drug Administration concurrently took offense to this very claim since the product contains whey, which is derived from milk.What’s interesting about this situation is that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hardly ever writes formal warnings. The agency would not comment on the warning letter, but it is actually quite extensive and it critiques various aspects of The supplement manufacturer’s advertising, including everything from their packaging to statements published in their web page. This whole thing seems like a quite benign instance of false advertisement for the regulatory agency to get in such a fit over. It may be that the true agent behind this has not been actually the Food and Drug Administration but the U.S. dairy industry. For a while, it was continuously pushing to rebrand common milk alternatives such as soy and coconut milk, professing that the term "milk" ought to be set aside for real dairy products. The most persuasive assertion made by The Monster Milk maker is that the makers of these types of alternative milk products are currently allowed to market their products as a kind of "milk", therefore they should be allowed to too.
This whole case raises a couple of intriguing concerns. How much power should the FDA have over social constructs of speech? The word “milk” may have exclusively been reference to cow's dairy at one time, but the introduction of alternative milk products surely has broadened the meaning of this specific word in the minds of a large number of people. Phrases like “coconut milk” appear so widely recognised at this point that it would appear ridiculous and authoritarian to pressure producers of these substitute dairy products to avoid using the name "milk". Also, is the power of industry lobbies over regulatory agencies starting to be out of hand? Lobbying is an acknowledged evil in today's political atmosphere, but it appears that they are going too far when they can easily solidly affect the organizations that look after the health of the people.
At any rate, it will be intriguing to see the way in which this event affects the future of the FDA and branding regulations in general. Even though the phrase “milk” isn't quite yet entirely reserved for dairy, one can only contemplate whether or not our valued diversity of substitute milks are going to have to be renamed in the near future.
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