The Forme of Cury, a cookbook published in 1390, mentions almond milk. There's no "trying", we've been referring to non-dairy milk as milk (Middle English: mylke) for at least 650 years.

It's a freak out because they've been called milks for an exceptionally long time. "Milk" has never exclusively meant the product of lactation in English. It's always referred to something white and more opaque than not.

http://www.godecookery.com/goderec/grec31.htm

As another reply mentioned, we specifically have recipes for almond milk from before modern English.
It's hardly a new thing, just something gaining popularity.

We have specific regulations to prevent consumers from buying the wrong thing within reason. Because most people assume milk means cow milk in the US, that's what the standard of identity for milk refers to. We don't need legislation specifically saying that plant milk can't use the word because you already can't pickup two jugs labeled "milk" and be unsure if they're the same thing. Same as goat milk, sheep milk, milk of magnesia, 2% milk, whole milk, skim milk, vitamin D milk, lactose free milk, chocolate milk or strawberry milk.
Hell, "muscle milk" is only technically barely a milk product, absolutely isn't milk (two milk derived proteins that using prevents a product from being labeled cheese and relegates it to "cheese product"), and would be stupendously unsuitable for cooking. No one complains about it, nor how it contains no muscle at all.

I'd find concerns of consumer protection a lot more credible if they had insisted that other animal milks couldn't be labeled as such, or at least objected to things like "coconut water", "rose water", "cactus water", "birch water", "maple water", "water chestnuts" or "watermelon". Consumers are evidently only confused by plant milk though, which also prevents them from reading the name of the product. Works fine for other animal milks though, and anything that isn't milky.

Milky way, milk thistle, milk weed, milk tree, dandelion milk... The list goes on. Oh, and don't forget cream of wheat or tartar, for when your milky substance is also thick.

Milk has been used for crushed plant products with a milky consistency for millinia; longer than the English language, that's for sure. You bought a stupid argument sold to you by the dairy industry. The word for milk from a cow is dairy, not specifically milk. Milk of magnesia, poppy milk, and all kinds of other things are called milk, and they're not dairy substitutes, because that's not what that word means.

You should always stop and think, and maybe do some research, before making up your mind, especially when it's people who make money off of it trying to convince you of something.