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Dear John,
In the Texas panhandle county of Castro, with 7,000 people and 60,000 dairy cows, there was a calamity that got just a passing mention in the national news. A fire, triggered by an electrical problem, raced through the dairy complex.
18,000 cows.
Trapped inside. Nowhere to go. No one to help them.
All perished. Eaten up by flames. Choked by smoke.
No one—from the owners of the dairy conglomerate to anyone else with a conscience—could think that this was anything but a colossal tragedy.
It was a particularly vivid example of the sacrifice that cows make to put milk into the marketplace for human consumption.
Too often we forget about the sacrifices that animals make in agriculture.
And this was no Old McDonald’s Farm. These cows were in confinement. Selectively bred to produce enormous volumes of milk (27,000 pounds in a single year). Spent at just 3 to 5 years of age. Sent to slaughter as very young animals for a low-grade beef product.
Yet, too often, end users of the products seem to forget what the animals endure at the starting point of the supply chain.
A Milk Mandate in Our Public Schools
Each year, USDA spends $1 billion to reimburse school districts for cow’s milk for the National School Lunch Program—a familiar program for those of us who attended public schools. For eight decades, the federal government has required milk on every tray, and it provides no nutritionally equivalent option to cow’s milk for the kids getting nutrition assistance.
Yet now we know that lactose intolerance is widespread in our society, and millions of kids avoid a food staple that makes them sick.
Up to 80 percent of African Americans and Native Americans, 60 percent of Latinos, and 90 percent of Asian Americans are lactose intolerant—causing diarrhea, nausea, cramps, bloating and in severe cases, vomiting. The National Institutes of Health reports the majority of all people have a reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy, and lactose intolerance “is also very common in people of West African, Arab, Jewish, Greek and Italian descent.” Even 15 percent of people of European descent are lactose intolerant.
Of the 30 million kids getting milk, nearly 10 million kids throw the milk away in unopened cartons. Add in the kids who sip and then toss the rest, and you can understand how one separate study noted that school kids are dumping 45 million gallons of milk each year down the drain.
All that sacrifice endured by cows, and massive volumes of their milk are tossed in the trash.
Call it the government’s “milk mandate.” And a draining of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars.
Giving Kids a Choice, Giving Cows a Break
This year, U.S. Representatives Troy Carter, D-La., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced legislation to provide a simple, common-sense fix: give kids a nutritionally equivalent, plant-based option.
Their bill, H.R. 1619, the Addressing Digestive Distress in Stomachs of Our Youth (ADD SOY) Act, requires public schools to offer a nutritionally equivalent plant-based milk option to kids participating in the National School Lunch Program and directs USDA to reimburse schools for the cost of the soy milk provided.
“Too many children who cannot safely or comfortably consume dairy are being forced to accept containers of cows’ milk on their lunch trays,” said Rep. Carter.
“The federal government is wasting $300 million of our tax dollars a year by mandating that every school kid getting nutrition assistance has a carton of cow’s milk on the tray even though millions of them don’t want it and get sick from it,” said Rep. Mace.
This is a government program on autopilot since World War II, and it makes no sense for school kids, taxpayers, or the cows. The government is overreaching by subsidizing and promoting milk beyond its natural appeal to consumers. Kids need a choice in the classroom.
Please, take action today and urge your lawmakers to end the "dairy milk mandate" in the National School Lunch Program! A Senate bill is soon to come, so it’s important to urge your two U.S. Senators to support this reform too.
Remember, all animals matter, including those raised for food. Let’s never forget about the animals at the front end of our supply chains.
For smarter government, better outcomes for animals,
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Wayne Pacelle
President
Animal Wellness Action
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Photo courtesy of Andrew Skowron/We Animals Media.
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