Spoiled Milk

of a healthy diet. On today's episode, we discuss how milk is a perfect microcosm for the mini maladies plaguing our corporate food system, from deep pocketed lobbyists, in adequate school lunches, nutritional racism, and the relationship between the milk industry and fast food companies. In other words, we're talking about the everlasting, systemic problem of money shaping policy today.

On point of origin, it's spoiled milk. So I started looking at racism and food policy about fourteen years ago when I was a student at UC Berkeley Law School, and I first focused on fast food, and of course, a major component of fast food is milk. That's Andrea Freeman. Andrea is a professor of law at u C Berkeley in California, and her scholarship interrogates the intersection of critical race and class theory, with a particular focus on matters

of food policy, health, feminism and consumer credit. Her article to explore her pioneering theory of food oppression, examining how food related law, policy, and government action disproportionately harm marginalized communities. And what fascinated me about milk as I researched more and more. First, I was surprised to learn that milk is actually not a nutritious, healthy food, right. That a

lot of myths around that. But I think most people know from our personal physical experiences that milk is not a great product for us. But then a lot of research has come out showing that not only is it not nutritious, but it it's harmful and it has no health benefits. Right, And so a lot of people hold on to the myth that, for example, milk is important for calcium, but the calcium and milk comes from the grass that cows eat, So it's not actually from the milk.

It's using a cow as an intermediary for getting something that you could get directly yourself. Right. That was the first myth buster. But then I'm always looking at where racism plays into any kind of policy, and milk is something that recently has received some attention as being a symbol of white supremacists, but it's also something that has symbolized white superiority and white supremacy for at least a

hundred years. So learning that, I started to make connections between the way that white supremacists claim milk as a symbol of their own superiority and the way that the U. S t. A. Pushes milk and the covert ways that it promoted, and I started to see that as somewhat insidious and a racial justice issue that is not at all well known. I want to back up to the relationship between milk and white supremacy. I think many people will be surprised to hear that there is a relationship.

So can you say what some of those links are

that you found in your research? Absolutely, so it became a little bit more well known when chia le both had an art installation in Queens and New York where a group of neo Nazis crashed this anti Trump art installation chugging big jugs of milk with naked shirts where they allowed the milk to just flow over them and started talking about how they opposed a vegan agenda right, which really is clearly a code word, And at the same time some of the very prominent white nationalists started

using a glass of milk as an emoji in their Twitter names. So they began publicly signaling something that has long been an obsession by white supremacists, who look at UM studies that show which people in the world can digest milk, right, and they see the ability to digest milk which has we we actually look at the negative and called lactose intolerance, which is what most people have because it's actually unusual to be able to digest milk

past breastfeeding age. And but as with many things, the white people are the ones who can do it the most, and so that becomes the kind of normal baseline, right, and anything that diverges from that, even though it's the common thing, is seen as some kind of anomally right and given this negative name of lactose intolerance. So the white supremacist groups study charts of which people in the world can digest milk and see this as a symbol

of their greater health, their greater strength right. UM and that idea was first promoted in the nineteen twenties by the National Dairy Council. By the Agricultural Association of New York and pamphlets that explicitly associate arians and white people who drink milk with the strongest, the most intelligent, the

greatest culture. Okay, so I think this is kind of strange, But it turns out that milk, because of its whiteness, has been used as a symbol of white supremacy in social media and appears in pop culture and movies like Jordan Peel's box office hit get Out when an enslaver

slowly SIPs a glass of milk. The depiction actually has its origins in a nineteen twenties dairy pamphlet from the U s National Dairy Council, which explains, quote the people who have used liberal amounts of milk and its products, meaning white people are progressive in science and every activity of the human intellect. So basically, US dietary guidelines are both racist and culturally insensitive. So I want to be

sure that I understand you correctly. You're saying the National Dairy Council was tapping into an already existing relationship between whiteness and purity in order to promote and sell milk, and that this is in part due to the fact that those who can digest the milk are most often white. It's yeah to make money, right, So it's what has motivated the industry and both all corporations and companies from

for time immemorial, right seeing the same thing. Now, this is about money, This isn't about trying to promote health, because we have so many medical and scientific papers and research that demonstrate that drinking milk is harmful to help andrea. At the time, in the nineteen twenties, we were still on the outer edges of a mostly agrarian society. Was the U. S Government interested in creating incentives for presumably white land owning men and farmers, or were farmers taking

direction from what the National Dairy Council was promoting. So that was around the time I believe that milk became safe, right, because originally milk was responsible for many, many deaths, especially of children, because we didn't have the technology for raization, and we had the problem of trying to transport milk from rural areas to urban areas in ways that wasn't safe.

So once the technology developed, then there was the idea that it needed to be promoted and sold right to support this industry that's always been really close to the government and even in the first Farm Bill, which was a response to the Great Depression, and then it's part of the New Deal, right, the dairy industry was one of the primary ones focused for the government to subsidize two uplift, and so it's never really been subject to

regular market forces where supply and demand would dictate price or availability. And as we've come to realize over time how harmful milk is, there has been a lot of rob and demand for milk, but the USDA has continued to prop it up and the Farm Bill because of the influence of the industry. And this is also related to the consolidation of the industry, and what we saw over time is a massive consolidation so that the idea of what a dairy farmer is is not correct anymore.

This spring, at the onset of the pandemic in the US, we heard stories about hundreds of gallons of milk being dumped at precisely the moment when concerns about food scarcity and security we're growing. How is it that while in the midst of a crisis in the supply chain, corporations were dumping in commodity is highly valued as milk, so the issue is one of food distribution and food supply chains.

Right So, even though we have a lot of milk being produced through the support of the government, right um, we don't have the ability to package it in a way that can reach individual consumers. So a very large percentage of milk was going to institutions like schools. Um So, the u s d A has a school lunch program, a school meals program, and as part of that is

a special milk program. So one of the main ways that USDA is able to get rid of the surplus of milk that results from the agricultural subsidies is through schools. Even though we know that milk consumption by students is contributing to a lot of health problems, in particularly racial health disparities and children, there is significant lobbying from the

milk industry. Lobbyists from the sector fall hard against the Obama era reforms, which restricted schools from selling only non fat flavored milks and which the dairy industry blamed for a sharp decline. In two thousand eighteen alone, the International Dairy Foods Association spent three hundred thousand a quarter in lobbying on issues related to school lunches. So the closing down of schools and hotels and other institutions is what caused the need for a change in the way that

milk would be distributed. So the dairy farms did not have a way to repackage their milk, you know, into small containers that you could send to a food bank or send to a grocery store. So this is what led to the dumping of the milk because there were just no way to get it to consumers or individuals. That's a pivot that would take a lot of infrastructural

change that wasn't possible on such short notice. But let's go back to the part about racial health disparities in children in schools, because I remember I went to public school and elementary school. I remember the little milk cartons, you know, the chocolate milk UM and the regular milk. I think it was even skim milk maybe. So you know, the idea of milk being a part of um the lunch diet is something that is kind of in eight,

you know, for for many of us. But when we see as you're saying, that the the majority of the country cannot actually process milk um and that the health disparities of consumption are disproportionately affecting black and Brown's students. And also we're just drinking less milk as a society. So how is it that milk continues to find its way into our lunch rooms when seemingly all of these other factors would suggest that they don't really have any

business being there. The problem goes back to the dual roles of the U. S t A. The Department of Agriculture. So on the one hand, that agency is responsible for promoting the dairy industry and other agricultural industries, and on the other hand, it is responsible for the nation's nutrition programs, and one of the main ones is this school of

lunch programs. So it's found this neat solution, right of having such a large surplus of milk that is paid for by the government and then becomes the responsibility of the agency, and they have this need to get rid of it in any way possible. And so because they have the school lunch rooms program at their disposal, there able to direct milk into schools and make an essential part of the everyday diet. And that takes care of their problems, and that is their priority over looking at

how it affects the health of public school students. So the U. S d A has these dual functions, as you've outlined, both to be the agency on record for nutrition um but then also a promotional agency that needs to help distribute milk that is paid for by the United States government. So the milk that is paid for by the US government, the funds for that come from taxpayers, and those choices about the use of funds and the amount of funds. Does that come from the Farm Bill? Yes, Yes,

subsidies are set by the Farm Bill. Dairy farmers are the ones who will get it, and the bigger the farm, the more money they'll get. Without the support from the Farm Bill, probably most are a very large percentage of the dairy industry would completely collapse. So I just read that nine hundred dairy farms closed in and that's before any of you know, the pandemic and the decrease that's have been there. It's there's been I think a forty

year decline in milk sales. And so even though the U. S d A is making best efforts to prop up the industry, it's still failing. And so I think there's a renewed interest in getting away from dairy, and that is also very threatening to the industry, definitely going back to that vegan agenda that you were talking about, right, And there is a furious battle going on from the dairy industry actually in the courts to try to stop the use of the word milk for you know, substitutes

like almond milk or soy milk. Right. Um, they'd spend a lot of resources on trying to fight that, arguing that consumers don't understand the difference right between cow milk and another kind of milk. So that's another interesting aspect of what's going on now and what has been going on for a while. Yeah, so they're they're trying to both jam it up in court but simultaneously profit from the boom. Of course, now that sounds more like good

old fashioned American capitalism. One of the ways that usc A promote dairy is through a Dairy check Off program, where it takes money from farmers for marketing. And one of the main aspects of that marketing campaign in the net work is to partner with fast food companies to create and promote foods with higher milk content in them.

So classic example of that was the so it's called the d M I during Management Inc. Marketing branch, and uh, they worked with Dominoes to create a seven cheese pizza, which that's a lot. That's a lot, and they paid for it to debut at the Super Bowl. Okay, so we know how much those commercials are worth. Um. And so what they do is they collaborate with these companies to try to create products that just have more cheese in them. Okay, so you see the pizza hut crust

that's cheese filled in addition to the cheese on top. Right, that's your government at work. Yeah, and then some of the Taco Bello products that there's there's a range, right, Almost all, maybe all of the major fast food companies have worked with the U s c As marketing branch to try to create and then sell these products. You know, studies show that young people respond to that information. Right,

if you teach them about health, they're basically indifferent. But if you teach them that fast food companies are trying to use them for their own marketing, you know through their snapchats in it, they get mad and they don't want to do it. And I think we all feel that way to some extent, right, And if we could fully understand that what we interpret as choice, it's really

just about corporate profits. Yeah, and the two companies that you just mentioned our owned by one large corporation young brands, so that completely makes sense, especially when it feels like every month virtually there's a new Taco Bell product with some cheesy iterations. Another way that these things are all tied together is fast food has very much infiltrated schools. So if it's not your school cafeteria giving you the milk, there may be what are called alternative foods in schools

which sell on campus fast food, right. And if not, then what you're seeing is fast food logos all over schools, like even on their school buses, on their school signs, right. And fundraisers that take place go to McDonald's and support you know, a percentage will go to your classroom. If you win a competition in the school, then your reward is some fast food right made ice cream. So really every aspect of education has been infiltrated by dairy for

young kids. I wonder what degree the corporate investment in our school system has in the luss to send the children back to school in the pandemic. Everything about sending kids back to school is about money and capitalism, right there, There's absolutely every health reason not to do so. Things were much better when we first decided to take kids out of school than they are now. And there is uh very clearly calculated estimation that a certain number of

kids and teachers will die. But it's worth it to save the economy, right. So, I think what you're questioning is what parts of the economy are pushing for them. And I'm not in the room, so I don't know, But it does make sense to me that Trump is our fast food president. Right. He has demonstrated over and over again his allegiance to that industry, and his administration heavily supports a dairy industry in many ways, right, one

of them is through formula. And so it wouldn't surprise me if those were part of the group of corporations pushing to get people back in the schools. Andrea, let's talk about baby formula. Can you expound a bit on the Trump administration's role in prioritizing investment in more formula? Well, some of the most surprising things I came across in my research into formula. Was first of all, that the US government is the largest purchaser of formula in the

United States, and that's through the WIG program. But they spend more money on formula than anyone else and they then get these kick back rebates from the industry that allows them to actually run their program. So the formula industry has inserted themselves and made themselves key to actually

having a functioning program. At the World Health Assembly, there was a resolution proposed by Ecuador to promote breastfeeding, which would seem to be fairly benign, but it was opposed so strongly by the United States because of the formula industry that the US threatened trade and aid sanctions against Ecuador if it did not withdraw that resolution. Formula is dairy, so by supporting that industry, the US is finding another

way to ensure, you know, a demand for milk. And let's talk about how this disproportionately affects Black women and children. So in the United States, black women breastfeed far far less than any other women always have since slavery, and at the same time have the highest rate of infant mortality, which has also been consistent since slavery. And so there It's obviously complex, because that's why I wrote a whole

book about it. But there are a number of factors that range from you know, social pressure, to economic pressure, to you know, the refusal to accommodate, the refusal to provide any kind of resources for black women, medical racism, and just a lot of really structural factors that are dressed up as a preference for formula, which is not at all true. And formula marketing is a big piece

of that. And so the book that I wrote, Scams, is about the first marketing campaign for black women, which took place because a a white doctor sold the rights of the black identical quadruplets in the US to Formula company to use in advertising. And it was the first time that there was any advertising that wasn't just alcohol, cigarettes,

or beauty products directed to black families. And it's kind of like the rest is history in terms of marketing and the way that that also has played into these dramatic health disparities that come from the disparity and breasting range. From the moment I first encountered it, Andrea's research has really stuck with me. I think about the persistence of that ad campaign and those little twenty cent plastic bags of milk that I and many others were served in

elementary school. And how after all these years, the milk in those schools, like those commercials, continue to persist. Fortunately, the mythology around its nutritional benefits have waned in by all accounts, so too has our consumption. But when we learned that our government continues to collude with the dairy industry to make milk the default beverage in schools and in processed foods, we should hold that with skepticism and

maybe even a little higher. See corporations who pay politicians to make laws that use our tax dollars to subsidize their operation is something I'd prefer our government try to discourage and not indulge in as they currently are. But as they say, the system ain't broken. It's working just as it was intended to. I'd like to thank our guests today, Professor Andrea Freeman. You can learn more about this episode and Andrea's work at wet Stone magazine, dot com,

Backslash podcast, or on Instagram at wet Stone Magazine. That's w H E T S T O in E Magazine. We'll be back next week with more point of Origin, Thanks for listening. We'd also like to thank our incredible podcast producer Selene Glazier. Selene, you are the best. To our editor and Whetstone partner and director of Video David

Alexander in London. Appreciate you, Dave. Thanks to our wet Stone production intern Quentin le Beau, and last but not least, my business partner Mel she who makes all things at whet Stone possible. Thank you Mel. We'd also like to thank our partners and production at I Heeart Radio to Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer and executive producer Christopher Haciotis. We'll be back next week with more from the world

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