Arizona lawmakers on Wednesday advanced a bill that would mandate that almond milk be labeled as “fake milk” or “alternative milk.”
The bill also mandates that a similar “prominent statement” be made on the packaging for food products such as veggie burgers that are made from plants or grown in a lab, according to the Arizona Capitol Times.
State Republican Rep. David Cook told the Capitol Times that “words matter’’ and said the bill was intended to tackle laboratory-produced food that appears on the shelves of grocery stores so that consumers understand what is in them.
“All I’m saying is when you walk up and use simple words like ‘milk,’ we should know what that’s from,” he said during a hearing on the bill, which gained preliminary approval Wednesday, adding that “almonds do not lactate.”
The legislation would also put a similar requirement on the word “meat,” with Cook, a rancher, saying the word could only be used on food that came from a living animal.
“I believe these people want to tie themselves to our products that have been rigorously tested through the Food and Drug Administration and say that they’re safe and something that they’re not,” he said.
The measure will go to a roll-call vote in the House before it would go to the Senate.
A federal lawsuit seeking to label almond milk as “imitation milk” against Blue Diamond Growers, one of the largest manufacturers of the product, was dismissed late last year. The suit argued that “almond milk” was deceiving consumers.
The FDA put out a guidance memo last year that stated the agency was looking into updating its definitions of certain food products due to the influx of plant-based items.