Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2024 June 30

= June 30 =

Plant milk ratings
What is the highest rated type of plant milk for use as a creamer in coffee, in terms of taste tests? I'm not talking about brands, but rather the type of plant milk, such as soy, almond, oat, pea, etc. I've been wondering about this for a while, but I've never been able to find an answer. The other strange thing is that the answer appears to change over time, as if taste is a function of trends and market preference, maybe even culture? But surely, someone can point to a specific type of plant milk and say, "our overall taste tests show that people prefer this type in coffee over others". But what if this kind of result is the function of specific populations, where taste is determined by other factors? On the other hand, food science is fairly mature at this point, so it should be quite easy to say "x type of plant milk is preferred by most people in coffee", but not just as a function of sales (because people will often buy what is cheaper, not simply what tastes the best). Is this doable? Can one say which is both preferred and tastes the best? Viriditas (talk) 21:54, 30 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Advances in food science will hardly be of help. One can imagine a study in which a panel of tasters, say regular cappuccino users, are asked to rank various plant milks. But designing such a study is not easy. There are many confounding issues, including personal preferences, cultural preferences, and significant differences in taste (e.g. sweetness) between brands for the same type of milk substitute. I have a hard time imagining a research council funding an independent study on ranking the suitability of milk substitutes for use as a creamer in coffee. If any such studies have been conducted, they were most likely of the type informally conducted by newspapers or magazines. --Lambiam 07:22, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Some plant milks are not suitable for all consumers for medical reasons. Giving almond milk to someone with a nut allergy would not be clever! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:44, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * My own original research involving witnessing non-vegan friends opting for plantmilk upgrades at coffee shops would indicate that is the preferred creamer for this purpose. I acknowledge the sample may not be representative and few coffee shops stock more than three or four species of non-dairy creamers. Folly Mox (talk) 10:51, 1 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Which plant-based ‘milk’ is best? (BBC). Alansplodge (talk) 16:59, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * That's very helpful. Thank you everyone. Viriditas (talk) 20:17, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia tells me milk comes from mammals. HiLo48 (talk) 00:39, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Milk does, but plant milk does not. I'm sure you're aware that this is far from the only case in the English language where modifying a term does not make the referent an instance of the unmodified term.  --Trovatore (talk) 01:31, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Can't its supporters come up with an original name? HiLo48 (talk) 01:34, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Edible slurry. DuncanHill (talk) 01:40, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Samuel Johnson called it "milk" in 1755, so this is not exactly a novelty, as much as it may irritate the National Milk Producers sic for the missing apostrophe Federation and similar industry mouthpieces. --Trovatore (talk) 01:44, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance" DuncanHill (talk) 01:46, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. --Trovatore (talk) 01:50, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to picture a milking machine attached to a plant. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:02, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * That's an image the dairy industry put in your head.
 * Look, I like milk and cheese. I have no particular animus against dairy farmers.  But their behavior as an industry on this particular issue has been utterly loathsome and reprehensible.  You shouldn't be doing their work for them. --Trovatore (talk) 16:35, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Which industry controls your head Trovatore? Or are you a special case, better than the rest of us? DuncanHill (talk) 16:51, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Bit of an overreact there? Everything ok? Folly Mox (talk) 11:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Not an over-reaction. DuncanHill (talk) 11:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No, that is the obvious first thought when you come across the term "plant milk" ( or any of the various types thereof). No matter how long the terms have been used, they are inherently silly. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:55, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Although EO has some info on "milk", I'm not seeing anything about oats. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:09, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Meh, doesn't seem silly to me, calling a culinary substitute the same term as the product it substitutes. * or * would be significantly sillier. Folly Mox (talk) 11:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * So you're ok with calling chicory coffee, or margarine butter, or potato bread wheaten bread? DuncanHill (talk) 11:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There's plenty of precedent for naming things after other things that are similar in appearance or purpose, whether it be chicory coffee, herbal tea, laverbread, milk of magnesia, filter cake... AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 12:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * *Apostrophe is not required. It could simply be a federation of producers; the producers don't necessarily possess the federation. 136.54.106.120 (talk) 02:16, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * In that case the plural would not be needed; it would be the "National Milk Producer Federation". I know our British friends sometimes use plural noun adjuncts, but it sounds bad on this side of the Pond. --Trovatore (talk) 05:22, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, and by the way the English genitive does not necessarily imply possession. That's the clamorous error, completely indefensible and I hope you won't try, made by the US Bureau of Geographic Names, when they imposed ridiculous forms like *Pikes Peak, luckily ignored by sensible people. --Trovatore (talk) 05:26, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... I live in Kings Langley which has survived without any apostrophe since the 14th century when it was Kyngeslangley. Alansplodge (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The apostrophe was not introduced into English until the 16th century. Kings Langley is therefore too old to have used it. -- Verbarson talkedits 17:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)