The name ‘fish milk’ has become popular and controversial lately, along with the discourse on the free nutritious meal menu or nutritious lunch, which is one of the programs of the elected president and vice president Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
Fish milk has been proposed as a substitute for cow’s milk in the nutritious lunch program menu. As one of the drinks that contains high nutrition, especially protein, the proposal to use fish milk as a meal menu should be welcomed and appreciated. However, the drink referred to as fish milk cannot replace cow’s milk. This is because fish milk is not a real milk product, as we know and consume it so far.
The term ‘fish milk’ to refer to a protein drink, a derivative of fish protein hydrolysate (HPI), which is processed and served to resemble milk, is not appropriate and is feared to be ‘misleading’. Many drinks are processed and resemble milk, but are not called milk. In addition to not using milk as a raw material, the term milk for every drink that is similar or resembles milk can be misleading, not to mention fooling the public.
For example, the term ‘soy milk’. Although soy milk, soya milk, or soy juice are drinks that contain high nutrition, are delicious, and very beneficial, soy milk is a drink that is processed by grinding and soaking soybeans, so it is a drink from vegetable extract. Even though it is called milk, soy milk cannot replace milk from animals. Like fish milk, the term for soy milk can also be misleading.
Milk is known to come from the mammary glands of mammals, including humans. The milk that is a drink for humans from babies to adults is a fluid from the udder (a gland in the breast that produces milk) of cows, buffalo, sheep, goats, horses, and other dairy livestock.
