When I first started working for Farm World, I was at a loss over the controversy regarding labeling of dairy-like products as milk or cheese. I thought since I understood that almond milk is not milk and that tree-nut cheese is not really cheese, then we surely didn’t need more labeling laws.

I am now rethinking my position. Watching people shop makes me wonder how many people buy things just because of a pretty picture. It is certainly that way in dog food. Who doesn’t want to feed their dog something that evokes a mighty wolf stalking a bison?

And yet, many of those dog foods with amazing art and catchphrases contain products that are not really that great for your dog. The food I feed does not come in a fancy package; it comes from a micro-independent pet food store that only sells products in which the owner believes. In most cases the owner has personally visited the plants that process the pet foods he sells. You won’t find any bags of food with eye-catching art in his shop.

A recent survey from group of cheese and dairy farmers in Wisconsin caught my eye as it came across my email. The research evaluated three plant-based foods that mimic dairy cheese to understand if the packaging and descriptions are confusing. The survey, conducted by Ravel, was commissioned by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Assoc. (WCMA), Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin (DFW) and Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative, also based in Wisconsin.

“The results of a new survey show that customers are confused about whether those products are indeed dairy foods and whether they carry the same nutritional value,” according to the press release.

The findings were included in comments that WMCA and Edge submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is collecting public input as the agency considers changes to its enforcement of non-dairy labeling rules.

Among the national survey’s findings:

•Nearly half of customers indicated that plant-based foods that mimic cheddar and mozzarella cheese were actually cheese.

•About one-quarter of customers said they don’t know what ingredients are in the plant-based imitations. The same percentage mistakenly thought the products contained milk.

•About one-third of customers think that plant-based foods that mimic cheese contain protein, and 21 percent think it is of a higher quality than dairy even though the imitations have little to no protein. Real dairy cheese has 7 grams of protein.

•About one-quarter of customers purchase plant-based foods that mimic cheese because they believe them to be low in calories and fat, and without additives. In reality, these plant-based foods contain an equal or comparable amount of fat and calories and substantially more additives than dairy cheeses.

As I said in a prior column, I think some of the issue is many people are so far removed from a farm they really may not know where food comes from and what actually is in something you buy in the store. Maybe many people don’t know that cheese and butter start out as milk.

If you didn’t know that cheese and butter have milk in them, then it would certainly be easy to become confused by something that says “nutcheese.” This could lead people to think cheese comes from nuts and thus assume they are eating real cheese, versus plant-based cheese.

Also confusing is packaging that contains words like “Provolone style” or “Mozzarella style.” Those are two well-known cheeses and if you miss the word “style” or you don’t understand its use in this context, then a person could certainly think this was a dairy-based product.

Another question might be: Do people care? Other than people eating a vegan diet, does the average person care what their food is made of? Do they care something is made from milk versus a plant? I am wondering what drives someone’s choices toward a plant-based product versus a dairy-based product.

The survey folks evidently had similar thoughts to mine. “The next phase is to understand why consumers associate dairy and non-dairy products with differing attributes,” said Patrick Geoghegan, senior vice president of marketing and industry relations at DFW.