More than a dozen food companies have urged the European Commission not to ban the use of words such as “sausage” and “burger” for non-meat products.
That is so silly. I love pork sausage but veggie sausage is the next best one and clearly is sausage.
Same as “burger”, it is a preparation not an ingredient.
I’m a happy meat eater and considering the number of different kinds of sausage with all different ingredients in different proportions and different textures and different herbs and spices and different skins and different sizes and different ways to prepare them I think this is absolutely ridiculous.
If tiny dried sausages with lamb and herbs in natural skin are just as much sausage as spiced up raw mince in a plastic skin are just as much sausage as precooked hot dogs with pork and salt but mostly potato filler in mysterious edible non natural skin, then a sausage with vegetable mash for filling is definitely a sausage as well.
Do hot dogs legally qualify as sausages in the EU?
I don’t know. We all have different words for “sausage” and different cultural attachments to them.
In Swedish, the word for sausage, “korv” is widely used (albeit informally) as a word describing the shape, and not necssesarily the product.
Hot dogs are in the section of sausages at least, but the meat % is almost always on the front of the packages. Which for “hot dogs” is ~34%. I don’t know who buys them. Personally I go for the 70+
Yeah sausage is at least in my eyes a form of food. Kinda like a loaf of bread can be different types of bread so can a sausage be different meat (or not even meat at all).
Remembering that person who bought a “soy chorizo” on accident because they read the label as a sentence.
spoiler
“I’m a sausage.”
They should call it “chorisoya” to avoid confusion. It sounds almost the same anyway and is kind of a neat name.
That’s fucking stupid. Sausage can be anything ordinary sausage proves this.
But such a ban is needed. Urgently.
They want to lie? They even think that their business depends on such lies? Then the market will eliminate them anyway, and nobody is going to mourn them.
A sausage is a sausage, no matter what you stuff inside it. It’s the shape, use and all the practicalities of a sausage that determine that it’s a sausage.
When I hear “sausage” I know what to do with the thing. I can’t know what it includes.
Beef? Pork? Chicken? Horse? Peas? Beans? Mushroom? Tofu? That’s to be determined by the other words on the package.A sausage is a sausage, no matter what you stuff inside it
That is limited to english vocabulary I guess. In spanish there are distictions between salchichas, chorizos, longanizas, etc, and all of them are their own kind of “embutidos”. So in spanish, it would make sense to name it “embutido de guisantes”
Similarly with milk. I know you may milk nuts (jk), but not the “frutos secos” kind. How would you milk an oatmeal? A grain of rice?
To answer the last they’re labeled:
Bebida de Soja (avena, almendras etc), sometimes adding ‘for baristas’…but that’s only one brand.
Soy Drink.
No milk in the description at all, that’s just for the English.
And this is about the English word in the English use, with English rules, so let’s stick to those, shall we.
Milk is another word with another angle. The connotation is no longer, in everyday layman use, connected to “something you get out of a teet” and instead it is what children drink, you put in cereals or coffee, etc.
That’s the beauty about languages, they evolve with the needs of the populace that uses them.
We no longer live in an agrarian society, so when somebody now speaks of milk, you don’t think, “what did they milk it from”, you think “what are they going to put that thing in that they bought from a shop”.
Milk of Magnesia. Coconut milk. Dandelion milk. These are all descriptions of very long standing (100s of years).
evolve
I don’t think it means what you think it means.
That’s the beauty about languages, they evolve with the needs of the populace that uses them.
In this context, no, language does not evolve. It adapts to the way it is being used.
I certainly would not like to reach a point where we must use doublespeak-eske language to communicate with certain people, but it feels like we are heading there.
Oh ok. So the word evolve hasnt adapted to mean “slowly changes over time due to small changes” in day to day speak, along with many other meanings. See pokemon, video game bosses etc. etc.
We already doublespeak in many situations. For example “theory” in layman’s terms is used like “hypothesis” instead of it’s true meaning. Where as it’s true meaning is pretty much only used in scientific terminology.
Anyway I’m sure 100% of people understood exactly what I meant.
You did not use the word incorrectly.
Language does evolve. Here are a few examples of the word being used in this context:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-evolution-language/
Its not a lie… thats how people know and name the item. In fact this ban would punish people using natural established names for things thst have been in use for decades. It is nonsensical.
Urgently? You get easily confused in the supermarket?
Urgently?
The fraudsters are actually making money.
By that same arguments you could also call meat lobby the fraudsters. They’re the ones whining, moaning and lobbying to the European parliament to get the ban in order. In stead of using regular sales tactics.
Note that they will still be able to sell them though. The products are allowed - they just won’t be allowed to mislead consumers anymore. I really don’t understand why y’all are getting so up in arms about this.
I actually did have vegan “fish” by accident once. Ordered normal fish and chips, but they called the vegan stuff Vish, so it was easy to get mixed up. It was quite the disappointment (I immediately tasted that this was not fish).
I don’t understand why people keep insisting that it has to be called a burger or a sausage. With a burger - OK, I kind of see that we’ve already muddied the waters on what can be called a burger, but a sausage? That has just about always been with meat until recently, and obviously for many people that’s part of the definition. Why can’t we just call it something else if the core element of what makes it a thing is absent? (And why do we even have to try to recreate meat by processing vegan stuff until what it used to be is unrecognizable? There’s so much more to vegan coming than that…)
There have been vegan sausages for years. It’s just recently developed a hype. And they also where called sausages for literally decades.
While I agree that there is much more to vegan than just meat replacements, and personally I don’t care what they call it. There are a couple of arguments for recreating meat:
- It sells. And in this world: if it sells, people will keep making it.
- Being vegetarian, vegan or someone who wants to cut back on their meat eating, doesn’t mean that they don’t like the taste and feel of meat. Some might do it for the environment or animal suffering. But they still like that meat taste and want a replacement.
- One does not exclude the other: you can have both meat replacements and non meat looking vegan stuff. Which there are BTW
- Its funny: especially the vegetarian butcher has some clever wordplays
- Live and let live I guess
Fair enough. I guess it just often bothers me that I’ll be somewhere, and the choice I get is between meat and something that tries to be meat. I’ve tried the latter a number of times and always been disappointed. Which often ends up preventing me from reducing my meat consumption, because if I don’t want something masquerading as meat, well then there’s nothing other than meat.
Oh yes that is a real issue. It is hard sometimes to get a good vegan/vegetarian meal. I just want something original, not another goat cheese salad or a burger.
We’ve had veggie sausages (the non meat replacement kind) for a very fucking long time. Definitely more than 30 years. Why is the term so precious now?
The core element of a sausage is not, that it is made from meat. Its the shape and structure, namingly “Ground up things stuffed into a thin tube, then cooked, smoked or grilled”.
There have been so many changes even before adding being vegetarian to the mix.
Most sausage you buy nowadays is no longer made with pig intestines. Does that bother you as well?
There was also sausage that was not made from meat before or only contained very little, Luke Pinkel or Grützwurst
Traditionally, yes, it is that it is made from meat. Even most dictionaries will back that up. Even vegan “sausages” will try to make the contents taste like meat (the keyword is in my experience “try”), which kind of proves the point.
And yes, most sausages aren’t made from intestine anymore, but if you want a really good one - it still is, and there’s an argument to be made that it isn’t an authentic traditional sausage if it isn’t. To be fair, though, the intestine isn’t central to the taste, it’s more of a functional thing. The filling isn’t, though.
And I’m not sure you understand what Grützwurst is, then - the base is still meat.
The core element of a sausage is not, that it is made from meat.
Wrong. Simply wrong.
is black pudding a sausage?
I don’t really know that thing. I have heard that it’s made of boiled meat and blood, so maybe yes.
For the Vish 'n Chips, I fully agree. If the names are too easily mixed up, then it should be changed, 100%.
But just using the word
burgerorsausageas part of the productname shouldn’t be banned. As long as you put a clear descriptive of the kind of sausage in front of it likeveggie sausageorquorn sausages. If you gave people asausage, and when they bite into it they find out its chicken sausage or even blood sausage, would their outrage not be equally valid, since they expected a normal pork sausage?And why do we even have to try to recreate meat by processing vegan stuff until what it used to be is unrecognizable?
Isn’t that basically what the traditional sausage was as well, made from blended scrap parts and organs? Minced meat on its own is processing the meat of an animal until it is unrecognizable
So you didn’t do your due diligence as a restaurant patron to find out exactly what you were ordering, and somehow that means others are to blame?
I can’t fathom sincerely making such an argument. You saw a strange name, didn’t ask questions, ordered it, and got disappointed.
Okay, now I know that sounds awfully confrontational, but it’s a harsh truth that we as consumers need to do our own due diligence when making purchases. If something seems off, I’d implore you (and everyone else reading this) to investigate it, for your own sake and safety. We live in a world that’s ready to swindle every one of us at any given chance - no matter what kind of product we’re looking at.
For me that comes down to the same argument as “didn’t you read the fine print?” If I spent time researching the due diligence you’re expecting, I would have time for nothing else anymore.
And I didn’t order wrong, they misunderstood me, because it was so confusing.
I hate that a sausage comes from a “food company” instead of a butcher. (Or grocer for vegan sausage)
So, food companies, just how much actual meat is there in your sausages and what animal parts are you using?
Ngl the difference between a local butchers farm sausages & mass produced meat tubes is huge.
I think the rules should be even stricter. An Hamburger should only be made in Hamburg, otherwise it’s a Minced Corpse Patty.
Found the vegan!
/s ?
That’s a very metal name ! 🤟
It should actually be called Cow Mince. We have Pork Chops, Lamb Chops, they should use Cow as well.
Shouldn’t it be Beef Mince then?
Otherwise we’d have Pig Chops right?
Fucking metal. I’m in.
I wish I could build a time machine and put it in operation as a shuttle service, so that people from the future in business attire, with suitcases full of money, could enter parliament lobbies, party centrals and regulatory agencies. We would have far less problems with necessary change.
I think there’s a valid concern here. When fake meat technology inevitably becomes cheaper than real meat, companies will definitely try passing off fake meat as real meat or try to thin out real meat with fake meat, and will definitely try to be deceptive about it. However, I think the solution is to allow the terms sausage and burger, but require very clear labeling like requiring the term “plant-based” or “partially plant based” to be on the packaging in the same font size as the term “sausage” or “burger” if there is more than 20% plant matter included (number based on existing EU regulations for sausages). That said, IDK if this would fully stop it. In the US it would just have as little description as possible with “[Brand Name] Links” or “[Brand Name] Patties” if they weren’t allowed to say sausage or burger.
Oh no, are companies going to start using healthier, more environmentally sustainable products and not tell us about it?
I’m really not sure what the big deal is, so long as allergens get labeled properly.
What kind of an argument is this? Customers should always be as informed as possible about the products and services that they’re paying for.
The problem with being more permissive with naming is that the realistic outcome is simply gonna be that companies take the chance to deliver cheaper quality at the expense of the consumer.
Like, if the requirement that milk actually has to be cow milk is loosened, what’s stopping the companies from just mixing the cow milk with water and selling that as “milk”?
If law wasn’t decided by a complicated system of books and men wearing tunics but by popular democracy, it would be obvious and would need no technicality that watering down milk would be illegal and selling almond milk as almond milk would be legal.
what if the almond milk is watered down?
i’m asking because it almost always is
That is simply a delicious looking pork sword.
Listen, I’m not a vegan, but I find this names that are bent around the bush so annoying.
Yeah, I get it , it’s not literally milk. But calling it “almond milk” is waaay smoother than “almond drink” or “almond concoction” or whatever.
Same with Malzbier.
But calling it “almond milk” is waaay smoother than “almond drink” or “almond concoction”
By having to give it a weird name those products and the sustainability argument behind it get associated with weirdness, and are less appealing to people who might otherwise consider trying them.
The definition of milk literally includes plant milks. Milk has been used to describe these beverages for as long as the give existed.
I agree, but that’s not what the marketing law in Germany says. Not long ago, it was changed by conservatives to only include real cow’s milk.
What makes it even stupider is that everyone still calls it soy- or whatever-milk.
What a bunch of snowflakes. Imagine that being the biggest problem in your life.
They just want the sweet sweet money from farmers
I have seen coconut milk sold as ‘coconut drink’, even though it is not used as drink. That is stupid.
In the case of coconut there’s both the milk and the water, and coconut drink is likely the water.
It was the milk, though.
So much for my hypothesis.
i argue calling it coconut drink is stupid, because in the specific case of coconuts you should specify milk or water.
“Creamy nut juice” just didn’t do very well in the test marketing
The problem i have is just that i walk into a store, buy some cheese for my cheese toast, then later at home discover it’s not “cheese” but some disgusting mixture of plant oils and flavour agents that makes me want to vomit and throw up.
The problem is not vegan products existing, but them deceiving and tricking the ordinary person about what they are with no clear labeling. It simply has to be explicit that it is not what a normal person thinks when they read “cheese”, but some other experimental food instead.
That’s BS and you know it is, stop lying and you’ll feel less hollow inside.
that’s not true. you’re claiming to know me better than i know myself. what hybris
sausages are already pretty much non-meat products though, unless its actually well made sausage
According to rumors, the EU intends to classify Finnish sausage “HK Sininen” as a pastry because it contains so much flour.
Sausage can be whatever as the name corresponds to beinh heavily salted.
Sooo. There’s a word.
Kackwurst, die
Grammatik
Substantiv (Femininum)- Genitiv Singular: Kackwurst
- Nominativ Plural: Kackwürste
Aussprache
[ˈkakvʊʁst]Worttrennung
Kack-wurstClearly, this may be, or may not be a meat product. If they want to regulate something so so far, they must go all the way!
