Oat milk isn’t milk. Even vegans like me can see that

When I was a strict vegan a few years ago, I had a friend – let’s call him Mary Q Contrary – who strongly objected to vegan products “pretending” to be meat and dairy.

”It’s not a sausage,” he’d insist. “It’s butternut squash and barley compacted into a cylindrical shape.”

And woe betide anyone who mentioned plant “milk.”

“How is it milk?” he’d say. “It’s the thin, miserable juice of peas! It’s the run-off from damp cashews!“

I used to attempt to put up a fight – vegans deserve sausages and milk too – but in retrospect, I agree with him. Why are we so insistent that plant products must borrow names from the meat and dairy industries to make them palatable?

In the heady days of 2016, when everyone from Beyonce to Brad Pitt claimed they’d gone vegan, and big brands were leaping on the soy-based bandwagon, I edited a vegan food magazine. It was thought that retaining the “meaty” names might win carnivores to the cause. Reader, it did not. In fact, the vogue for “pea protein chicken” and “potato milk” (no, I know, don’t remind me) only served to confuse shoppers who didn’t understand why they were getting seitan instead of bacon, when it clearly said “bacon” on the packet.

Now, it’s been decreed that Oatly, makers of what used to be called “oat milk,” cannot even use the M word in its marketing. This week, the righteous Scandi company attempted to trademark the phrase “post-milk generation”, and was refused by the UK Supreme Court, which insisted that “milk” can only refer to the animal kind.

It’s probably a good thing, because “post-milk generation” sounds like toddlers who have stopped breastfeeding and moved on to Fruit Shoots, but Oatly is furious. General Manager Bryan Carroll said the decision only creates an “uneven playing field for plant-based products that solely benefits Big Dairy." For a while, the hideous word “mylk” was rolled out to indicate non-animal drinks, but as well as being far too redolent of old hippies dancing to panpipes, it was also banned because it sounded too much like “milk.” The whole debate has frankly become somewhat farcical, with vegan companies determined to crowbar “burgers” and “sausages” into the packaging of damp mushroom patties, and Big Meat insisting that it only counts as a name if animals have genuinely been harmed to make them. Nobody is winning here.

As an ex-vegan who still doesn’t eat meat, and refuses to buy milk unless the cows involved have lived fairytale lives in rolling pastures, I think it’s perfectly sensible for plant-eaters not to borrow the ancient descriptions favoured by the meat industry. I don’t want to think about dead pigs when I’m eating a pleasant, pea-based cylinder, and I don’t want to consider the process by which a cow becomes a burger when I’m enjoying ground veg in the shape of a hockey puck. As for “oat milk,” all vegans know there is nothing that comes from a grain, nut or vegetable that tastes decent in tea, it’s a painful fact – and calling these strained, processed liquids “milk” isn’t fooling anyone.

It’s time plant-lovers coined our own language for use on packaging, and turned our backs on Big Meat, Big Dairy and Big Fish altogether. We could have “Protein Pucks” instead of burgers and “Smoky Slices” for bacon. Milk can be rebranded as “Pourable Plants,” which sounds more fun than the weedy “oat drink” branding companies currently use. We don’t need all those meaty, dairy-ish words. We can start a new language. Admittedly, meat-eaters won’t be drawn to these brave new products… but who cares? It’s a vegan revolution, and it begins with a big Puck Off.