Rivella (warning: CH newbie alert)

Food & Drink, Events and Entertainment
41
Well I love Rivella and don't like root beer

42
Corrected that for you

43
Can anyone explain why on milk cartons in CH, it is disconcertingly labelled 'Milk Drink' rather than just plain milk?

I guess if it is pastuerised or something it's seen as impure or processed and only farm milk straight from the udder is real milk?

44
Love love love love love rootbeer, really not keen on Rivella.

Then again, I grew up with the one and not the other and hubby, who grew up with Rivella likes it but not rootbeer.

Near as I have sussed (and I could be - and probably am - wrong), the "Milk Drink" is lower fat than "vollmilch". General advice maybe to drink the lower fat milk and hence the "drink" label?

45
Exactly. You grew up with it, that's why you don't even notice that it actually tastes like a bottled breath taken in the Paint & Varnishes department of a hardware store.

Correct. Milchdrink has about 2.8 % fat, whereas Vollmilch has about 3.5 % fat. The strange naming was introduced in the 1950's by Migros, when they launched a beverage called Chocodrink , made of skim milk and chocolate. I think it was the first beverage in Switzerland that was sold in the legendary Tetrapak cartons, I mean the real tetrahedral ones, not today's Tetrabrik kind.

Ever since, pretty much everything based on low fat milk in Switzerland has been called a drink. Motto: Main thing it sounds English, no matter how wrong.

46
If milk is labeled as Drink Milk, it means that most of the cream has removed. If the milk still contains its cream it's labeled "Vollmilch". It has nothing to do with whether the milk has been pasteurized or not.

47
You are that yak, then?