The French government issued a decree Tuesday banning the term “steak” on the label of vegetarian products, saying it was reserved for meat alone.
Confusing and misrepresenting. Steak is meat.
That’s why you put vegan before it. Like coconut milk, nothing confusing at all - was used for really long time and nobody ever had any problems with that term.
Except that in some cases it’s not.
How is it not clear if it’s called vegan steak? What is not clear about it?
Again confusing and misrepresenting for customers. The reason why France legislated about this BTW, let’s not pretend it’s hard to grasp
Or maybe to protect their meat industry? The same reason Champagne is a protected name. Lets not pretend that’s difficult to understand.
No I am talking about a processed vegan food that is called ‘vegan something’ but that it turns out, has chicken eggs and maybe even meat in the list of ingredients. Just because someone might argue around the meaning of ‘vegan’ the way we are doing for steak, and legislation in some countriesight not protect the meaning of vegan in food names.
But that is just a wrong analogy. You are not calling a steak a carnivore stake or do you? So an example of a vegan food wood be a banana. You don’t call it vegan banana because that’s the expectation, like with a steak. You ad a word to make clear that it’s different from what you normally would expect - so vegan steak or meat banana. In both cases it’s rather clear how it’s meant.
Just to be very clear. Nothing against vegans or vegan food. I am for clarity when it comes to customers, particularly in the food industry.
I could not care less, since I’m not vegan - I just don’t like stupid rules.
EDIT:
This discussion is incredibly funny from Germany since we have a traditional sausage that is called Leberkäse or Fleischkäse, which is translated as liver-cheese or meat-cheese. There is no cheese involved at all.
For starters the word vegan is relatively new and not widely adopted by the general population. Older generations are likely not familiar with it and once again we are trying to put on the customer the onus of disambiguation. On the other hand they are familiar with the word steak, and associate that with an animal cut.
While your suggestion is intriguing, fake meat producers could just come up with a name for their products that doesn’t confuse people so you don’t need to put ‘vegan’ in front of it. Which is what France is doing and other countries will follow soon.
For starters the word vegan is relatively new and not widely adopted by the general population.
That would be a somehow valid argument if true. But the more the word is used the faster people will understand what it means, so this problems solves by itself.
disambiguation.
Again, nothing ambiguous about vegan steak. It’s self explanatory concept, something that supposed to taste like stake but is vegan. The best way to convey this information is to call it a vegan stake. The only way to be confused about it, if you don’t know the word vegan (this will become better the more it’s used) or if you don’t read the labels, but than labeling differently wont help either.
fake meat producers could just come up with a name for their products that doesn’t confuse people so you don’t need to put ‘vegan’ in front of it.
Fake meat products, are targeted at people who want something that taste like meat. Calling something vegan meat - is the best way to communicate that concept. And again it’s not that meat-cheese (Fleischkäse) has been around for long time and we are all still fine, nobody is up in arms against it - the same goes for coconut milk.
I am not familiar with meat cheese, though the idea made me barf a bit.
You have a point with coconut milk bit it’s such a niche product. I’m not living in the eu at them moment but would have no idea where to find it in my local supermarket.
Alternative meats are obviously confusing people if a country feel the need to legislate, and others are discussing the same
