semi-skim

[Chris Waigl]

On 26 Feb 2011, at 04:13, Victor Steinbok wrote:

> I was browsing a small cookbook intended for the UK market (and,
> possibly, Australian) and came across a reference to "semi-skim milk". I
> was not familiar with this terminology. A few years ago, US went through
> milk terminology standardization that restricted the use of "low-fat" in
> reference to milk. Previously, both 1% (milk fat) and 2% milk could both
> be referred to as "low-fat". Now, 2% milk can only be referred to as
> "reduced fat" and 1% as "low fat". Of course, this only applies to
> commercial expressions and people still use "low-fat" for both,
> although, I am sure, the commercial standardization will eventually make
> the usage more homogeneous. "Skim" milk traditionally has 0.5% fat or
> less--generally getting below 0.5% is hard and may require chemical
> assistance.

Your puzzlement explains why I encountered a communication breakdown the other day at the coffee shop when I asked whether semi-skimmed was available for my cappuccino (*).

In the UK, semi-skimmed would usually refer to milk containing 1.7-2% of milk fat (as sold in the supermarket(UK)/grocery store(US)). The French term "demi-écrémé" functions pretty much identically. Recently I'd seen some 1% low-fat milk in the UK (Waitrose supermarkets), which I'd also lump with semi-skimmed, personally.

Color coding of milk fat on the bottle labels and caps can be confusing if you're used to the UK system and go to France or vice versa:

UK:
full fat: blue
half fat/semi-skimmmed: green
skimmed: red

France:
full fat: red
semi-skimmed: blue
skimmed: green

The 1% milk I saw in the UK had a purple label. In contrast, there doesn't seem to be a label color convention here in the US.

There is a Wikipedia article with a section on terms for milk fat content by country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_content_of_milk#Terms_for_fat_content_by_country , but it claims semi-skimmed was known in the US. I asked my partner (US/Canadian dual citizen, has lived most of her life in the US), and she's unfamiliar with the term, though.

Chris Waigl
(*) I moved from London, UK to the Fairbanks, AK, US area and am having to go through some minor cultural adjustment here and there.


> So I was puzzled when I came across "semi-skim" milk. In principle, the
> concept is quite clear--it's the milk with fat content between 0.5%
> (skim) and 3% (or more--whole). But I don't know whether standard use
> points to a specific percentage or applies to all grades in that range.
> I am assuming that skim or "de-fatted" milk is pretty universal. And
> whole milk ranges between 3% and 3.6%, although some countries sell 6%
> milk--but it's usually labeled as such directly. But between those two,
> there are several possibilities and different countries offer different
> reduced-fat milk (some sell only 1.5%, some only 2%, others both 1% and
> 2%, as in US). Since I am not familiar with the term, I don't know if
> "semi-skim" refers to a particular type of product (as US "low fat" and
> "reduced fat" labels now do), or the entire range of products.
>
> To make things more difficult, neither the OED nor Wiki nor other online
> dictionaries offer any clues.
>
>    VS-)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

--
Chris Waigl -- http://chryss.eu -- http://eggcorns.lascribe.net
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org