this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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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.

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[–] HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 13 hours ago

That's fucking stupid. Sausage can be anything ordinary sausage proves this.

[–] stray@pawb.social 7 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Remembering that person who bought a "soy chorizo" on accident because they read the label as a sentence.

spoiler"I'm a sausage."

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

They should call it "chorisoya" to avoid confusion. It sounds almost the same anyway and is kind of a neat name.

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

As idiotic calling that thing sausage is, I guess we have bigger problems than spending time on saying what can be called sausage and what can't.

[–] sirico@feddit.uk 15 points 23 hours ago

The whole point of sausages existing is lack of meat

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de -4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

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"?

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 7 points 11 hours ago

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.

[–] qarbone@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If it's ground up and tubed into a thin, edible casing skin, it's a sausage.

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 7 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The German emperor's last chancellor Bismarck, who was decently leaning on the conservative side, said famously that there are two things where you really don't want to know how they are made: Politics and sausages.

[–] AgentRocket@feddit.org 4 points 13 hours ago

"Die Gedanken einer Frau,
der Magen einer Sau
und der Inhalt einer Wurst,
bleiben ewig unerforscht."

Translation:
The thoughts of a woman,
the stomach of a pig
and the content of a sausage, will be forever unexplored.

[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 125 points 2 days ago (7 children)

I think the rules should be even stricter. An Hamburger should only be made in Hamburg, otherwise it's a Minced Corpse Patty.

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[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] wieson@feddit.org 74 points 2 days ago (5 children)

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.

[–] GMac@feddit.org 6 points 1 day ago

"Creamy nut juice" just didn't do very well in the test marketing

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de -3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Meshuggah333@piefed.world 4 points 11 hours ago

That's BS and you know it is, stop lying and you'll feel less hollow inside. 

[–] tresspass@lemmy.world 39 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

The definition of milk literally includes plant milks. Milk has been used to describe these beverages for as long as they have existed.

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[–] Jajcus@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I have seen coconut milk sold as 'coconut drink', even though it is not used as drink. That is stupid.

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[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Do hot dogs legally qualify as sausages in the EU?

[–] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 5 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

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+

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[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

sausages are already pretty much non-meat products though, unless its actually well made sausage

[–] Asfalttikyntaja@sopuli.xyz 3 points 23 hours ago

According to rumors, the EU intends to classify Finnish sausage “HK Sininen” as a pastry because it contains so much flour.

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 18 points 1 day ago

"Ground up dead body of an animal fisted into another animals anal canal"

I mean we can just call it what it is

[–] runwaylights@lemmy.world 40 points 2 days ago

I couldn't care less what you call them. You can call them vegetable dicks and I would still eat them. It's just a ridiculous waste of resources powered by the meat lobby who have seen a portion of their market share disappear.

[–] texture@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

desperate dinosaurs are scrambling to protect their investments in the torment of animals, who knew

[–] Zier@fedia.io 18 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Sausages can be called "links". Burgers can be called "patties". The only people pissed about Soy Milk, Vegan Burgers and Veggie Sausages are the corporations who sell meat exclusively, and the people who don't read food packaging. Smart vegan & vegetarians know that you need to read the ingredients before you buy that product. I always make sure I go home with the right wiener.

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[–] ThirdConsul@lemmy.zip 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I hate that a sausage comes from a "food company" instead of a butcher. (Or grocer for vegan sausage)

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