Dear John,
Part of the process of driving reform requires building awareness of problems. That’s precisely why we are hosting the first in a new monthly series of educational seminars on major animal welfare and human well-being issues in the United States and abroad. The
inaugural event focuses on the dairy industry’s monopoly on nutritious beverages in the public schools:
Ending the USDA's 'Milk Mandate' in Schools and Providing a Plant-Based Option for Kids.
It’s outrageous that our federal government gives kids no choice in the schools and puts a carton of milk on 30 million lunch trays every day even though perhaps 15 million of the recipients are lactose intolerant. Ten million kids choose to throw away the milk in the carton, burning $300 million in tax dollars a year and rendering the suffering of thousands of dairy cows meaningless. And millions of other kids drink the product and get sick, compromising learning in the classroom and making kids ill.
If you have a heart for dairy cows, if you care about childhood nutrition and education, or you want your tax dollars used in proper ways, this webinar is for you. We hope you’ll register today.
It takes place April 27, 2023, at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT, and is free, thanks to the generous sponsor of this Claudia Miller Ignite Series on Animal Welfare.
Under its current nutrition-assistance framework, the USDA won’t reimburse school districts for any nutritious alternative to cow’s milk, mandating milk on every tray. Each year, the USDA spends $1 billion to reimburse school districts for buying cow’s milk, but one study from the agency estimates that 30 percent of the kids toss the cartons unopened. Add in the kids who sip and then toss the remainder, and it becomes easy to accept another study that estimates about 45 million gallons of milk each year are dumped down the drain in schools.
The National Institutes of Health
reports the majority of all people have a reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy, with especially high rates among African Americans and Asian Americans. Lactose intolerance “is also very common in people of West African, Arab, Jewish, Greek and Italian descent.”
We’ll talk about the incidence of lactose intolerance and the need for legislative change as proposed in a new bill called the
ADD SOY Act. We’ll also debunk many of the common myths about soy milk that critics are using to impede this reform.
The interactive event will feature Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy; Dotsie Bausch, Olympic athlete and president of Switch4Good, a health-and-wellness advocacy group; and Dr. Dr. Lakshman Mulpuri, chief executive of PlantsNourish.
Please register for this event today, and please forward this email to friends and family who have a vested interest in the well-being of our school children.
Participants can learn more and register free at https://bit.ly/MilkMandate.
