#would it be unfair to say that canadians are right now content to call trump hitler while forgetting about the annexation of poland

[swamp-world]

can we stop putting canada in this power-grab trade war in a position of innocence and unprecedentedness when canada has refused to oppose the US at any significant turn until this point, has so often followed in lockstep with the US, smugly wears its role as the Kindly Little Rodent Hat Atop America That Pops Its Head Up Once In A While And Says "It's Fine That They're Couping Colombia, Actually" And Then Other Folks Say "We Trust You, We Know You're Nice, Unlike America" And Everyone Ignores The Raccoon's Mining Investments In South America. Even as the US noticeably started tumbling towards fascism, Canada has done very little to actually protect itself from or recognize in any serious way the threat of fascism-imperialism. this isn't to "victim blame" canada but just that like. well. it's been quite content to act as an arm of the american empire, profiting from the spoils of american imperialism, at the expense of 1. the colonized folks from turtle island 2. the imperialized folks of the world and 3. its own sovereignty as a settler-colonial nation whose identity exists almost exclusively as a nominal negation of the other imperial power. it has won nothing except this precarity.

[theconservativebrief]

“An almond doesn’t lactate, I will confess,” declared Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb last month at a Politico summit.

This droll observation was music to the ears of the $35.5 billion US cattle milk industry, which lately has been challenging the $1.6 billion plant-based milk industry’s right to use the word “milk.” Gottlieb seems to be sympathetic: His agency has proposed enforcing its own labeling rules for milk, which could prevent producers of almond milk and oat milk from continuing to use the term.

At stake are what the FDA calls “standards of identity,” legally-binding definitions of products to ensure consumers know what they are getting. In March, the FDA launched a strategy to update these standards “in light of marketing trends and the latest nutritional science.”

Milk has a complicated, jargon-filled standard of identity, but in short, the FDA says it is: “the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows.”

The dairy industry has complained for almost 20 years that the FDA hasn’t policed this definition as products made from soy, almonds, cashews, rice, hemp, and oats have filled shelves in the dairy aisle. In particular, dairy producers argue plant-based milk producers are playing “fast and loose using standardized dairy terms” and that it’s unfair for them to do so because plant-based products don’t have the same nutritional profile or taste but nonetheless take advantage of the milk “brand.”

The dairy industry is now seizing this opportunity to sway a new FDA commissioner and a potentially friendly White House.

However, plant milk producers say the rules amount to protectionism. Enforcing labeling requirements would also yield little benefit to ailing dairy farmers while adding more confusing labeling demands. There’s also little evidence that dairy alternatives are taking away market share from dairy milk since they have different core markets.

The fight over what to call white opaque beverages that don’t come from an animal also has implications for other plant-derived versions of animal products. Lab-grown meat is already facing its own naming controversies.

What’s clear is that any forthcoming federal action could bring some changes to the fortunes of food companies, animal or otherwise, as they gain or lose customers who respond to what’s on the label. But these shifts will be swamped in the Trump administration’s trade war, which will cascade throughout the entire US agriculture sector and portends bigger losses than any label can fix.

Since nuts don’t have nipples, the FDA is well within its existing authority to deny the term “milk” to plant-derived products, according to farmers, who have been petitioning for this since 1997.

But the agency has not sent out any cease-and-desist notices to companies that use “milk” to describe beverages made from soy and other plants. Lawmakers have tried to force the FDA’s hand. In 2017, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced the DAIRY PRIDE Act (Defending Against Imitations and Replacements of Yogurt, Milk, and Cheese to Promote Regular Intake of Dairy Everyday Act) which would compel the FDA to enforce its milk standard of identity.

Courts are stepping in as well. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is currently hearing a case over whether almond milk should be sold as “imitation milk.”

At the same time, the dairy sector has been facing mounting financial pressure. Milk producers have been losing ground in the United States while plant-based milk products have rapidly gained popularity. By 2016, plant-based milks had made it into one-third of US households, according to surveys.

Milk, according to food chemists, is a liquid combination of fat, protein, enzymes, vitamins, and sugar produced by mammals to nourish their offspring.

For dietary, ethical, or other reasons, many people don’t want to drink milk that comes from animals. But plant-derived milk products have different nutritional profiles and tastes. For example, Vitamin B12, which is required for brain function and is found in cow’s milk, is not found in plants.

The dairy industry says no plant-based alternatives match the nutrition and taste of cow’s milk. Shutterstock

In a study published last year in the Journal of Food Science and Technology, researchers reported that no plant-based milk product matches the nutrients provided by cow’s milk, but noted that soy milk was the most balanced in terms of nutrition. Other scientists have counseled caution in swapping cow’s milk for plant-based milk, particularly for children.

“Nondairy milk beverages vary in their nutritional profiles,” according to a 2017 paper in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition. “These should not be considered nutritional substitutes for cow’s milk until nutrient quality and bioavailability are established.”

This is the crux of the milk industry’s argument for stricter labeling rules; consumers aren’t necessarily confused about where plant milk comes from, but the term “milk” evokes a nutritional profile that these milk alternatives don’t meet.

“When these products are properly labeled, they are not a substitute one-to-one for milk,” said Christopher Galen, a spokesperson for the National Milk Producers Federation.

The relevant analogy here is margarine, according to Galen. Though it imitates butter, it’s made from vegetable oil. That means it has a different variety and ratio of fats and proteins, so it can’t replace butter in some recipes. As a result, margarine makers can’t call it “butter” (though some manufacturers have found creative loopholes).

Peanut butter, on the other hand, isn’t pretending to be something else, so it gets away with using that name. It also has its own standard of identity.

Milk producers say that all they want is for the FDA to enforce the rules on the books so products made with soy, oats, or almonds can’t use the term as a descriptor on their packaging. Other countries already bar plant-based beverages from calling themselves milk (Muscle Milk is called Muscle Mlk in Canada).

Why now? Galen said that the appointment of Gottlieb as FDA director gave the industry an opportunity to revisit the issue. The number of milk-alternative products on the market has also vastly grown: Nondairy milk sales have soared by 61 percent in the last five years. And the prospect of lab-grown meat has added a sense of urgency for getting definitions right.

“Our organization has increased pressure on the FDA,” Galen said. “There’s so many more of these fake milks out there than there were 20 years ago.”

Jessica Almy, director of policy at the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that promotes clean meat and plant-based alternatives to animal products, looks at it differently. She said that the standard of identity as written only applies to the unadorned word “milk.” Modifiers like “chocolate milk” have been allowed by the FDA. Barring plant products from using the term would prejudice regulators against one industry in favor of another, and it would violate the first amendment.

“It wouldn’t be a change in enforcement,” she said. “It would be a dramatic shift in policy for the FDA.”

Not pictured: a cow. Shutterstock

The milk standard of identity refers specifically to “healthy cows” as the source, so milk from goats or sheep would not meet the definition of “milk” if the standard were enforced, according to Almy.

Animal-based milk products also have a variety of nutritional profiles depending on their fat content and whether they’ve been fortified with vitamins. So the criticism that plant-based milk products have different amounts of nutrients also applies to variations of dairy milk.

Should the rules be enforced, they would require manufacturers to re-label their products with names like “oat drink,” “soy beverage,” and “almond-based dairy-alternative.” Almy said this would likely confuse grocery shoppers for a while, but sales of plant-based milk products would still continue to grow.

The dairy industry as a whole has been languishing in recent years. Demand for fluid milk in the United States has fallen by almost half since the 1970s and is projected to fall further. Dairy cattle herds are shrinking. Milk prices are falling. The country has a 1.39 billion-pound cheese surplus.

“Dairy farmers are feeling pretty beat up,” said Andrew Novakovic, a dairy markets and policy researcher at Cornell University. “The last three years have been pretty unkind to dairy.”

On top of all this, the Trump administration is waging a trade war as the dairy industry is desperately trying to secure foreign customers. About 10 to 15 percent of the US milk supply is sold abroad, including products like cheese and butter, and it remains one of the fastest-growing market sectors for dairy. Retaliatory tariffs from other countries could slice through these sales. “Doing anything that damages that relationship is going exactly in the wrong direction,” Novakovic said.

Though Trump has proposed tariffs on Canadian milk, the US dairy industry will only receive a small slice of the $12 billion aid package for farmers hurt by the administration’s trade policies, a total of $127 million.

There’s a lot of money at stake in the fight over defining milk. Shutterstock

But plant products are also going to be a casualty in the trade war. “Most agricultural analysts would agree that the agriculture sector that would be hit the hardest is soybeans,” Novakovic said. China is the largest export customer for US soy, including products like soy milk.

So both sides of the milk labeling fight are bracing for losses, but it’s unlikely that a decision in either direction from the FDA will make much of a difference to their balance sheets.

Still, Lindsay Moyer, a senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told Vox there is an important consumer protection issue at play: People still aren’t clear what all these beverages contain and what they mean for health. “The agency should prioritize public health and not the competitive or market concerns of any industry,” she said.

Rather than policing the term milk, Moyer said her group advocates nutrition disclosures that show what plant-based milk products contain and what they lack relative to milk. The goal is to help people understand how these beverages can fit into their diets and where they might fall short.

Original Source -> “Fake milk”: why the dairy industry is boiling over plant-based milks

via The Conservative Brief

[dani-qrt]

Mexico says NAFTA deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A deal on a new North American Free Trade Agreement is close at hand but talks to arrive at a finishing point are not easy, top Mexican officials said on Thursday as ministers met in Washington for a third successive day.

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo attends a meeting with the Mexican Iron and Steel Industry Chamber (CANACERO) in Mexico City, Mexico April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Gustavo Graf

Negotiators from the United States, Mexico and Canada have been working relentlessly for weeks to clinch a deal, but major differences remain on contentious topics such as autos content.

Complicating matters, the Trump administration has threatened to impose sanctions on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum on May 1 if not enough progress has been made on NAFTA.

President Donald Trump, who came into office in January 2017 decrying NAFTA and other international trade deals as unfair to the United States, has repeatedly threatened to walk away from the agreement with Canada and Mexico, which took effect in 1994.

“I think we are reasonably close. Certainly this has been a very good week,” said Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray.

He said talks would resume on Friday morning.

Still, much remains to be done before a new NAFTA deal is reached.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo gave a more tempered view saying there was movement in the right direction but “we’re still in the process.”

Earlier in the day, after a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Guajardo told reporters: “It is going, it’s going, but not easy – too many things, too many issues to tackle.”

Now underway for eight months, the talks to revamp the accord underpinning $1.2 trillion in trade entered a more intensive phase after the last formal round of negotiations ended in March with ministers vowing to push for a deal.

Lighthizer is due to visit China next week, and when asked if a deal was possible before the USTR left, Guajardo said: “It will depend on our abilities and creativity. We are trying to do our best, but there are still a lot of things pending.”

Although Washington is keen for an agreement soon to avoid clashing with a July 1 Mexican presidential election, the three NAFTA members remain locked in talks to agree on new rules governing minimum content requirements for the auto industry.

Still, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland rejected the notion that discussion of the so-called rules of origin for the automotive sector was holding up the process.

Freeland said the autos conversation was not “log-jammed” but underscored that more work needed to be done as it was a very detailed issue. “This is a week when very good, significant progress is being made on rules of origin for the car sector.”

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks with reporters after meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to discus NAFTA autos negotiations in Washington, D.C., April 25, 2018. REUTERS/David Lawder

Freeland said she would skip a planned visit to a NATO summit in Brussels on Friday, and vowed to stay in Washington for “as long as it takes.” Guajardo, too, said he was ready to remain in Washington this week for more talks.

‘WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER’

The three sides are also trying to settle disagreements over U.S. demands to change how trade disputes are handled, to restrict access to agricultural markets and to include a clause that would allow a country to quit NAFTA after five years.

Bosco de la Vega, head of Mexico’s National Agricultural Council, the main farm lobby, said he believed the three would be able to reach an agreement on agricultural access.

But the auto sector rules were still contentious, he added.

“It’s the most important issue there,” he said, adding that he had earmarked May 10 as the deadline for a quick deal.

U.S. negotiators initially demanded that North American-built vehicles contain 85 percent content made in NAFTA countries by value, up from 62.5 percent now. But industry officials say that has been cut to 75 percent, with certain components coming from areas that pay higher wages.

“The United States initially floated proposals on $15/$16 an hour, total content of the car assembly at about 30 percent of the cost of the car. Now they are talking about increasing the 30 percent,” Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, the largest Canadian private-sector union, said of the proposal to build certain parts in higher wage areas.

Washington is still calling for the elimination of the so-called Chapter 19 dispute mechanism, a move that Ottawa has rejected, said Dias. “That will happen when hell freezes over.”

LAWMAKERS IN THE DARK

Earlier on Thursday, a group of Democratic U.S. congressmen said they were frustrated with a lack of information from USTR about the trade negotiations and said this could cost Trump support for a NAFTA deal.

“If their strategy is based upon not sharing what is happening with negotiations … I would suggest that their tactics are wrong and they shouldn’t take any votes for granted,” said Representative Rick Larsen of Washington state.

Larsen, whose district includes Boeing Co’s largest commercial aircraft plant a massive source of U.S. exports, is a member of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of 68 centrist Democrats that are seen as crucial for passing trade deals.

Lighthizer had been scheduled to meet with the group on Thursday but canceled because of the intensified NAFTA talks.

Reporting by Jason Lange and David Lawder; additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Dave Graham in Mexico City; Writing by Anthony Esposito; editing by Dan Grebler and Grant McCool

The post Mexico says NAFTA deal appeared first on World The News.

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