Whitewashed: How Industry and Government Promote Dairy Junk Foods

How your taxes help push junk food to kids

Michele Simon is a remarkable woman. With degrees in biology, public health and law, she has devoted her career to holding the processed food and alcohol industries to account for the multitude of ways in which they undermine public health. Along the way, she has also exposed the insidious collaboration between these industries and various government departments and agencies which are charged with protecting public health.

Ms Simon’s presentation at the International Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare Conference focused on the activities of the US dairy industry, and its incestuous relationship with the Department of Agriculture (USDA). You can view my summary of it in the International PBNHC Round-Up Webinar (1:32:40).

Even if you’re as cynical as I am, after a 20-year career in nutrition, I guarantee you that you’ll be shocked at what the dairy industry and their handmaidens in the USDA are up to:

• Through the so-called ‘dairy checkoff program’, USDA works hand-in-hand with the dairy and processed food industries to promote the consumption of dairy products, mostly as cheese, flavoured milk, sweetened yoghurt, ice cream and other junk foods.
• 6 full-time dairy checkoff employees (paid by USDA – that is, the taxpayer) work at McDonald’s headquarters to develop new dairy-based product lines, which resulted in an additional 0.77 billion kilograms of dairy sales between 2009 and 2011. Among their ‘achievements’ is a dairy-based coffee drink that contains a whopping 67 g sugar per serve.
• Other willing collaborators with USDA include Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, all of which have massively increased the use of cheese in their products as a direct result of their engagement with USDA through the dairy checkoff program.
• The products resulting from these partnerships directly contradict Dietary Guidelines for Americans issued by USDA:

1. 11 percent of all sugar goes into the production of dairy products
2. Cheese is the single largest source of saturated fat in the US diet; milk is the third largest source of saturated fat.
3. Dairy foods are also among the top sources of sodium, which contributes to high blood pressure, another risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Just in case you were labouring under the delusion that this is one of those ‘only in America’ stories, let me draw your attention to a similar example right here in Australia.

‘Healthy Bones Action Week’ is an initiative developed by Dairy Australia, which is, as described on their website,

“the investment arm for dairy levy payers [i.e. dairy farmers], returning a $3 benefit for every $1 levy dollar raised.”

The Healthy Bones Action Week website provides a 3-step action plan for building strong bones, with consumption of dairy products positioned at #1.

Dairy Australia receives funding from dairy farmers ($34 million per annum, paid by farmers based on milk production), the government – i.e., taxpayers ($19 million p.a.), and educational and research institutions and other dairy support organisations – again, mostly or partly funded by taxpayers ($20-30 million p.a.).

So, with financial resources garnered largely from taxpayers, and the full support of both Federal and State education departments, each year the dairy industry is given the green light to market its products to primary school aged children throughout the country even more aggressively than usual under the guise of promoting bone health, during both classroom time and recess and lunch breaks.

Dairy Australia provides posters, ‘educational materials’ and prizes for competitions that promote dairy product consumption, directly to schools; here’s the winning entry for 2014, submitted by St. Paul’s Anglican Grammar School –Traralgon:

“The classroom of Year 6H will do tasks relating to calcium and the benefits of dairy foods. We will make mini pizzas (cheese), have a milk moustache competition, and guess the flavour of frozen yogurt. We will survey the grade as to how much dairy we consume in a week. We will investigate the types of things that can go wrong with us if we do not have enough dairy. We will create posters encouraging all students to consume milk products.”

This blatant propagandising is permitted – in fact encouraged – in Australian schools despite an overwhelming lack of evidence that dairy product consumption benefits children’s bone health in any way. For example, a review article published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found that

“Of the remaining 37 studies of dairy or unsupplemented dietary calcium intake, 27 studies found no relationship between dairy or dietary calcium intake and measures of bone health. In the remaining 9 reports, the effects on bone health are small and 3 were confounded by vitamin D intake from milk fortified with vitamin D. Therefore, in clinical, longitudinal, retrospective, and cross-sectional studies, neither increased consumption of dairy products, specifically, nor total dietary calcium consumption has shown even a modestly consistent benefit for child or young adult bone health.”

What’s even more disgraceful than the total lack of an evidence base for the claim that dairy product consumption is the most important factor in improving children’s bone health, is the types of dairy product that are most heavily pushed in this annual orgy of bovine baby food boosting.

My daughter’s primary school decided to celebrate Healthy Bones Action Week with a special on Oak flavoured milk in the school canteen. A quick check of the manufacturer’s website reveals that Oak chocolate milk contains nearly 32 g of sugar per 300 ml carton, while the strawberry flavour packs nearly 34 g.

The same quantity of whole plain milk contains 14 g of sugar, in the form of lactose (milk sugar), which means 18 g and 20 g of refined sugar is added to these Oak products respectively. This yields 72-80 calories of sugar, which equates to a little over 5% of the recommended daily calorie intake for a primary school aged child.

The official Australian Dietary Guidelines state that

“… added sugars can increase the energy content of the diet while diluting its nutrient density… At any given level of energy intake, as the proportion of added sugars in the diet increases, the nutrient density will fall… a recent analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data (2003–2006)… noted that intake of essential nutrients was less with each 5% increase in added sugars above 5–10% of energy.”

So consuming just one chocolate or strawberry milk per day will bring a child to the danger level for sugar consumption… and that’s not even taking into account their intake of refined sugar from breakfast cereals, spreads, packaged snack foods, cordials and soft drinks, desserts, and the plethora of other ‘edible food-like substances’ (to borrow Michael Pollan’s evocative phrase) that passes for food in most children’s diets.

But never fear; Dairy Australia’s Orwellian-titled ‘Fact Sheet’ called “Dairy Food Myths” reassures worried parents and teachers that

“Flavoured milk contains the same 10 essential nutrients as plain milk.”

Well, what a relief that is. If a food contains ‘essential nutrients’, we will be magically protected from its harmful constituents… NOT!!!

Tobacco is rich in the essential nutrient vitamin B3, also known as niacin or nicotinic acid. So should you go and munch on tobacco leaves to get your niacin requirement? Of course not! The detrimental effects of the nicotine and other toxins in tobacco far outweigh the benefits of its niacin content.

Likewise for dairy products. The nutrients they contain – calcium, protein, riboflavin and so on – can easily be gained from whole plant foods such as vegetables, legumes, seeds and nuts, without exposing yourself to the harmful saturated fat, excessive sodium, cow hormones, cancer-promoting IGF-1 and the host of other disease-promoting agents that dairy products unavoidably contain.

Food is a package deal; you can’t select out only the nutrients you want, and leave the undesirable elements behind. And whole, minimally processed plant foods are quite simply the best nutritional packages!

P.S. I wrote a politely-worded email to my daughter’s school principal, outlining my concerns about the school’s support of aggressive dairy industry marketing to school children. I am yet to receive a reply from him.

I’d love to hear from you – have you ever taken action against unhealthy food in your child’s school? What was the outcome? Comment below!

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