Speaker 1: M got milk. You're familiar with those commercials. You've seen
Speaker 1: the billboards hundreds of times. Those milk mustaches seemed innocuous enough.
Speaker 1: But what you may not have considered is how we've
Speaker 1: been coerced into believing that milk is an essential part
Speaker 1: of a healthy diet. On today's episode, we discuss how
Speaker 1: milk is a perfect microcosm for the mini maladies plaguing
Speaker 1: our corporate food system, from deep pocketed lobbyists, in adequate
Speaker 1: school lunches, nutritional racism, and the relationship between the milk
Speaker 1: industry and fast food companies. In other words, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the everlasting, systemic problem of money shaping policy today.
Speaker 1: On point of origin, it's spoiled milk. So I started
Speaker 1: looking at racism and food policy about fourteen years ago
Speaker 1: when I was a student at UC Berkeley Law School,
Speaker 1: and I first focused on fast food, and of course,
Speaker 1: a major component of fast food is milk. That's Andrea Freeman.
Speaker 1: Andrea is a professor of law at u C Berkeley
Speaker 1: in California, and her scholarship interrogates the intersection of critical
Speaker 1: race and class theory, with a particular focus on matters
Speaker 1: of food policy, health, feminism and consumer credit. Her article
Speaker 1: to explore her pioneering theory of food oppression, examining how
Speaker 1: food related law, policy, and government action disproportionately harm marginalized communities.
Speaker 1: And what fascinated me about milk as I researched more
Speaker 1: and more. First, I was surprised to learn that milk
Speaker 1: is actually not a nutritious, healthy food, right. That a
Speaker 1: lot of myths around that. But I think most people
Speaker 1: know from our personal physical experiences that milk is not
Speaker 1: a great product for us. But then a lot of
Speaker 1: research has come out showing that not only is it
Speaker 1: not nutritious, but it it's harmful and it has no
Speaker 1: health benefits. Right, And so a lot of people hold
Speaker 1: on to the myth that, for example, milk is important
Speaker 1: for calcium, but the calcium and milk comes from the
Speaker 1: grass that cows eat, So it's not actually from the milk.
Speaker 1: It's using a cow as an intermediary for getting something
Speaker 1: that you could get directly yourself. Right. That was the
Speaker 1: first myth buster. But then I'm always looking at where
Speaker 1: racism plays into any kind of policy, and milk is
Speaker 1: something that recently has received some attention as being a
Speaker 1: symbol of white supremacists, but it's also something that has
Speaker 1: symbolized white superiority and white supremacy for at least a
Speaker 1: hundred years. So learning that, I started to make connections
Speaker 1: between the way that white supremacists claim milk as a
Speaker 1: symbol of their own superiority and the way that the U.
Speaker 1: S t. A. Pushes milk and the covert ways that
Speaker 1: it promoted, and I started to see that as somewhat
Speaker 1: insidious and a racial justice issue that is not at
Speaker 1: all well known. I want to back up to the
Speaker 1: relationship between milk and white supremacy. I think many people
Speaker 1: will be surprised to hear that there is a relationship.
Speaker 1: So can you say what some of those links are
Speaker 1: that you found in your research? Absolutely, so it became
Speaker 1: a little bit more well known when chia le both
Speaker 1: had an art installation in Queens and New York where
Speaker 1: a group of neo Nazis crashed this anti Trump art
Speaker 1: installation chugging big jugs of milk with naked shirts where
Speaker 1: they allowed the milk to just flow over them and
Speaker 1: started talking about how they opposed a vegan agenda right,
Speaker 1: which really is clearly a code word, And at the
Speaker 1: same time some of the very prominent white nationalists started
Speaker 1: using a glass of milk as an emoji in their
Speaker 1: Twitter names. So they began publicly signaling something that has
Speaker 1: long been an obsession by white supremacists, who look at
Speaker 1: UM studies that show which people in the world can
Speaker 1: digest milk, right, and they see the ability to digest
Speaker 1: milk which has we we actually look at the negative
Speaker 1: and called lactose intolerance, which is what most people have
Speaker 1: because it's actually unusual to be able to digest milk
Speaker 1: past breastfeeding age. And but as with many things, the
Speaker 1: white people are the ones who can do it the most,
Speaker 1: and so that becomes the kind of normal baseline, right,
Speaker 1: and anything that diverges from that, even though it's the
Speaker 1: common thing, is seen as some kind of anomally right
Speaker 1: and given this negative name of lactose intolerance. So the
Speaker 1: white supremacist groups study charts of which people in the
Speaker 1: world can digest milk and see this as a symbol
Speaker 1: of their greater health, their greater strength right. UM and
Speaker 1: that idea was first promoted in the nineteen twenties by
Speaker 1: the National Dairy Council. By the Agricultural Association of New
Speaker 1: York and pamphlets that explicitly associate arians and white people
Speaker 1: who drink milk with the strongest, the most intelligent, the
Speaker 1: greatest culture. Okay, so I think this is kind of strange,
Speaker 1: But it turns out that milk, because of its whiteness,
Speaker 1: has been used as a symbol of white supremacy in
Speaker 1: social media and appears in pop culture and movies like
Speaker 1: Jordan Peel's box office hit get Out when an enslaver
Speaker 1: slowly SIPs a glass of milk. The depiction actually has
Speaker 1: its origins in a nineteen twenties dairy pamphlet from the
Speaker 1: U s National Dairy Council, which explains, quote the people
Speaker 1: who have used liberal amounts of milk and its products,
Speaker 1: meaning white people are progressive in science and every activity
Speaker 1: of the human intellect. So basically, US dietary guidelines are
Speaker 1: both racist and culturally insensitive. So I want to be
Speaker 1: sure that I understand you correctly. You're saying the National
Speaker 1: Dairy Council was tapping into an already existing relationship between
Speaker 1: whiteness and purity in order to promote and sell milk,
Speaker 1: and that this is in part due to the fact
Speaker 1: that those who can digest the milk are most often white.
Speaker 1: It's yeah to make money, right, So it's what has
Speaker 1: motivated the industry and both all corporations and companies from
Speaker 1: for time immemorial, right seeing the same thing. Now, this
Speaker 1: is about money, This isn't about trying to promote health,
Speaker 1: because we have so many medical and scientific papers and
Speaker 1: research that demonstrate that drinking milk is harmful to help andrea.
Speaker 1: At the time, in the nineteen twenties, we were still
Speaker 1: on the outer edges of a mostly agrarian society. Was
Speaker 1: the U. S Government interested in creating incentives for presumably
Speaker 1: white land owning men and farmers, or were farmers taking
Speaker 1: direction from what the National Dairy Council was promoting. So
Speaker 1: that was around the time I believe that milk became safe, right,
Speaker 1: because originally milk was responsible for many, many deaths, especially
Speaker 1: of children, because we didn't have the technology for raization,
Speaker 1: and we had the problem of trying to transport milk
Speaker 1: from rural areas to urban areas in ways that wasn't safe.
Speaker 1: So once the technology developed, then there was the idea
Speaker 1: that it needed to be promoted and sold right to
Speaker 1: support this industry that's always been really close to the
Speaker 1: government and even in the first Farm Bill, which was
Speaker 1: a response to the Great Depression, and then it's part
Speaker 1: of the New Deal, right, the dairy industry was one
Speaker 1: of the primary ones focused for the government to subsidize
Speaker 1: two uplift, and so it's never really been subject to
Speaker 1: regular market forces where supply and demand would dictate price
Speaker 1: or availability. And as we've come to realize over time
Speaker 1: how harmful milk is, there has been a lot of
Speaker 1: rob and demand for milk, but the USDA has continued
Speaker 1: to prop it up and the Farm Bill because of
Speaker 1: the influence of the industry. And this is also related
Speaker 1: to the consolidation of the industry, and what we saw
Speaker 1: over time is a massive consolidation so that the idea
Speaker 1: of what a dairy farmer is is not correct anymore.
Speaker 1: This spring, at the onset of the pandemic in the US,
Speaker 1: we heard stories about hundreds of gallons of milk being
Speaker 1: dumped at precisely the moment when concerns about food scarcity
Speaker 1: and security we're growing. How is it that while in
Speaker 1: the midst of a crisis in the supply chain, corporations
Speaker 1: were dumping in commodity is highly valued as milk, so
Speaker 1: the issue is one of food distribution and food supply chains.
Speaker 1: Right So, even though we have a lot of milk
Speaker 1: being produced through the support of the government, right um,
Speaker 1: we don't have the ability to package it in a
Speaker 1: way that can reach individual consumers. So a very large
Speaker 1: percentage of milk was going to institutions like schools. Um So,
Speaker 1: the u s d A has a school lunch program,
Speaker 1: a school meals program, and as part of that is
Speaker 1: a special milk program. So one of the main ways
Speaker 1: that USDA is able to get rid of the surplus
Speaker 1: of milk that results from the agricultural subsidies is through schools.
Speaker 1: Even though we know that milk consumption by students is
Speaker 1: contributing to a lot of health problems, in particularly racial
Speaker 1: health disparities and children, there is significant lobbying from the
Speaker 1: milk industry. Lobbyists from the sector fall hard against the
Speaker 1: Obama era reforms, which restricted schools from selling only non
Speaker 1: fat flavored milks and which the dairy industry blamed for
Speaker 1: a sharp decline. In two thousand eighteen alone, the International
Speaker 1: Dairy Foods Association spent three hundred thousand a quarter in
Speaker 1: lobbying on issues related to school lunches. So the closing
Speaker 1: down of schools and hotels and other institutions is what
Speaker 1: caused the need for a change in the way that
Speaker 1: milk would be distributed. So the dairy farms did not
Speaker 1: have a way to repackage their milk, you know, into
Speaker 1: small containers that you could send to a food bank
Speaker 1: or send to a grocery store. So this is what
Speaker 1: led to the dumping of the milk because there were
Speaker 1: just no way to get it to consumers or individuals.
Speaker 1: That's a pivot that would take a lot of infrastructural
Speaker 1: change that wasn't possible on such short notice. But let's
Speaker 1: go back to the part about racial health disparities in
Speaker 1: children in schools, because I remember I went to public
Speaker 1: school and elementary school. I remember the little milk cartons,
Speaker 1: you know, the chocolate milk UM and the regular milk.
Speaker 1: I think it was even skim milk maybe. So you know,
Speaker 1: the idea of milk being a part of um the
Speaker 1: lunch diet is something that is kind of in eight,
Speaker 1: you know, for for many of us. But when we
Speaker 1: see as you're saying, that the the majority of the
Speaker 1: country cannot actually process milk um and that the health
Speaker 1: disparities of consumption are disproportionately affecting black and Brown's students.
Speaker 1: And also we're just drinking less milk as a society.
Speaker 1: So how is it that milk continues to find its
Speaker 1: way into our lunch rooms when seemingly all of these
Speaker 1: other factors would suggest that they don't really have any
Speaker 1: business being there. The problem goes back to the dual
Speaker 1: roles of the U. S t A. The Department of Agriculture.
Speaker 1: So on the one hand, that agency is responsible for
Speaker 1: promoting the dairy industry and other agricultural industries, and on
Speaker 1: the other hand, it is responsible for the nation's nutrition programs,
Speaker 1: and one of the main ones is this school of
Speaker 1: lunch programs. So it's found this neat solution, right of
Speaker 1: having such a large surplus of milk that is paid
Speaker 1: for by the government and then becomes the responsibility of
Speaker 1: the agency, and they have this need to get rid
Speaker 1: of it in any way possible. And so because they
Speaker 1: have the school lunch rooms program at their disposal, there
Speaker 1: able to direct milk into schools and make an essential
Speaker 1: part of the everyday diet. And that takes care of
Speaker 1: their problems, and that is their priority over looking at
Speaker 1: how it affects the health of public school students. So
Speaker 1: the U. S d A has these dual functions, as
Speaker 1: you've outlined, both to be the agency on record for
Speaker 1: nutrition um but then also a promotional agency that needs
Speaker 1: to help distribute milk that is paid for by the
Speaker 1: United States government. So the milk that is paid for
Speaker 1: by the US government, the funds for that come from taxpayers,
Speaker 1: and those choices about the use of funds and the
Speaker 1: amount of funds. Does that come from the Farm Bill? Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: subsidies are set by the Farm Bill. Dairy farmers are
Speaker 1: the ones who will get it, and the bigger the farm,
Speaker 1: the more money they'll get. Without the support from the
Speaker 1: Farm Bill, probably most are a very large percentage of
Speaker 1: the dairy industry would completely collapse. So I just read
Speaker 1: that nine hundred dairy farms closed in and that's before
Speaker 1: any of you know, the pandemic and the decrease that's
Speaker 1: have been there. It's there's been I think a forty
Speaker 1: year decline in milk sales. And so even though the U.
Speaker 1: S d A is making best efforts to prop up
Speaker 1: the industry, it's still failing. And so I think there's
Speaker 1: a renewed interest in getting away from dairy, and that
Speaker 1: is also very threatening to the industry, definitely going back
Speaker 1: to that vegan agenda that you were talking about, right,
Speaker 1: And there is a furious battle going on from the
Speaker 1: dairy industry actually in the courts to try to stop
Speaker 1: the use of the word milk for you know, substitutes
Speaker 1: like almond milk or soy milk. Right. Um, they'd spend
Speaker 1: a lot of resources on trying to fight that, arguing
Speaker 1: that consumers don't understand the difference right between cow milk
Speaker 1: and another kind of milk. So that's another interesting aspect
Speaker 1: of what's going on now and what has been going
Speaker 1: on for a while. Yeah, so they're they're trying to
Speaker 1: both jam it up in court but simultaneously profit from
Speaker 1: the boom. Of course, now that sounds more like good
Speaker 1: old fashioned American capitalism. One of the ways that usc
Speaker 1: A promote dairy is through a Dairy check Off program,
Speaker 1: where it takes money from farmers for marketing. And one
Speaker 1: of the main aspects of that marketing campaign in the
Speaker 1: net work is to partner with fast food companies to
Speaker 1: create and promote foods with higher milk content in them.
Speaker 1: So classic example of that was the so it's called
Speaker 1: the d M I during Management Inc. Marketing branch, and uh,
Speaker 1: they worked with Dominoes to create a seven cheese pizza,
Speaker 1: which that's a lot. That's a lot, and they paid
Speaker 1: for it to debut at the Super Bowl. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we know how much those commercials are worth. Um. And
Speaker 1: so what they do is they collaborate with these companies
Speaker 1: to try to create products that just have more cheese
Speaker 1: in them. Okay, so you see the pizza hut crust
Speaker 1: that's cheese filled in addition to the cheese on top. Right,
Speaker 1: that's your government at work. Yeah, and then some of
Speaker 1: the Taco Bello products that there's there's a range, right,
Speaker 1: Almost all, maybe all of the major fast food companies
Speaker 1: have worked with the U s c As marketing branch
Speaker 1: to try to create and then sell these products. You know,
Speaker 1: studies show that young people respond to that information. Right,
Speaker 1: if you teach them about health, they're basically indifferent. But
Speaker 1: if you teach them that fast food companies are trying
Speaker 1: to use them for their own marketing, you know through
Speaker 1: their snapchats in it, they get mad and they don't
Speaker 1: want to do it. And I think we all feel
Speaker 1: that way to some extent, right, And if we could
Speaker 1: fully understand that what we interpret as choice, it's really
Speaker 1: just about corporate profits. Yeah, and the two companies that
Speaker 1: you just mentioned our owned by one large corporation young brands,
Speaker 1: so that completely makes sense, especially when it feels like
Speaker 1: every month virtually there's a new Taco Bell product with
Speaker 1: some cheesy iterations. Another way that these things are all
Speaker 1: tied together is fast food has very much infiltrated schools.
Speaker 1: So if it's not your school cafeteria giving you the milk,
Speaker 1: there may be what are called alternative foods in schools
Speaker 1: which sell on campus fast food, right. And if not,
Speaker 1: then what you're seeing is fast food logos all over schools,
Speaker 1: like even on their school buses, on their school signs, right.
Speaker 1: And fundraisers that take place go to McDonald's and support
Speaker 1: you know, a percentage will go to your classroom. If
Speaker 1: you win a competition in the school, then your reward
Speaker 1: is some fast food right made ice cream. So really
Speaker 1: every aspect of education has been infiltrated by dairy for
Speaker 1: young kids. I wonder what degree the corporate investment in
Speaker 1: our school system has in the luss to send the
Speaker 1: children back to school in the pandemic. Everything about sending
Speaker 1: kids back to school is about money and capitalism, right there,
Speaker 1: There's absolutely every health reason not to do so. Things
Speaker 1: were much better when we first decided to take kids
Speaker 1: out of school than they are now. And there is
Speaker 1: uh very clearly calculated estimation that a certain number of
Speaker 1: kids and teachers will die. But it's worth it to
Speaker 1: save the economy, right. So, I think what you're questioning
Speaker 1: is what parts of the economy are pushing for them.
Speaker 1: And I'm not in the room, so I don't know,
Speaker 1: But it does make sense to me that Trump is
Speaker 1: our fast food president. Right. He has demonstrated over and
Speaker 1: over again his allegiance to that industry, and his administration
Speaker 1: heavily supports a dairy industry in many ways, right, one
Speaker 1: of them is through formula. And so it wouldn't surprise
Speaker 1: me if those were part of the group of corporations
Speaker 1: pushing to get people back in the schools. Andrea, let's
Speaker 1: talk about baby formula. Can you expound a bit on
Speaker 1: the Trump administration's role in prioritizing investment in more formula? Well,
Speaker 1: some of the most surprising things I came across in
Speaker 1: my research into formula. Was first of all, that the
Speaker 1: US government is the largest purchaser of formula in the
Speaker 1: United States, and that's through the WIG program. But they
Speaker 1: spend more money on formula than anyone else and they
Speaker 1: then get these kick back rebates from the industry that
Speaker 1: allows them to actually run their program. So the formula
Speaker 1: industry has inserted themselves and made themselves key to actually
Speaker 1: having a functioning program. At the World Health Assembly, there
Speaker 1: was a resolution proposed by Ecuador to promote breastfeeding, which
Speaker 1: would seem to be fairly benign, but it was opposed
Speaker 1: so strongly by the United States because of the formula
Speaker 1: industry that the US threatened trade and aid sanctions against
Speaker 1: Ecuador if it did not withdraw that resolution. Formula is dairy,
Speaker 1: so by supporting that industry, the US is finding another
Speaker 1: way to ensure, you know, a demand for milk. And
Speaker 1: let's talk about how this disproportionately affects Black women and children.
Speaker 1: So in the United States, black women breastfeed far far
Speaker 1: less than any other women always have since slavery, and
Speaker 1: at the same time have the highest rate of infant mortality,
Speaker 1: which has also been consistent since slavery. And so there
Speaker 1: It's obviously complex, because that's why I wrote a whole
Speaker 1: book about it. But there are a number of factors
Speaker 1: that range from you know, social pressure, to economic pressure,
Speaker 1: to you know, the refusal to accommodate, the refusal to
Speaker 1: provide any kind of resources for black women, medical racism,
Speaker 1: and just a lot of really structural factors that are
Speaker 1: dressed up as a preference for formula, which is not
Speaker 1: at all true. And formula marketing is a big piece
Speaker 1: of that. And so the book that I wrote, Scams,
Speaker 1: is about the first marketing campaign for black women, which
Speaker 1: took place because a a white doctor sold the rights
Speaker 1: of the black identical quadruplets in the US to Formula
Speaker 1: company to use in advertising. And it was the first
Speaker 1: time that there was any advertising that wasn't just alcohol, cigarettes,
Speaker 1: or beauty products directed to black families. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the rest is history in terms of marketing
Speaker 1: and the way that that also has played into these
Speaker 1: dramatic health disparities that come from the disparity and breasting range.
Speaker 1: From the moment I first encountered it, Andrea's research has
Speaker 1: really stuck with me. I think about the persistence of
Speaker 1: that ad campaign and those little twenty cent plastic bags
Speaker 1: of milk that I and many others were served in
Speaker 1: elementary school. And how after all these years, the milk
Speaker 1: in those schools, like those commercials, continue to persist. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: the mythology around its nutritional benefits have waned in by
Speaker 1: all accounts, so too has our consumption. But when we
Speaker 1: learned that our government continues to collude with the dairy
Speaker 1: industry to make milk the default beverage in schools and
Speaker 1: in processed foods, we should hold that with skepticism and
Speaker 1: maybe even a little higher. See corporations who pay politicians
Speaker 1: to make laws that use our tax dollars to subsidize
Speaker 1: their operation is something I'd prefer our government try to
Speaker 1: discourage and not indulge in as they currently are. But
Speaker 1: as they say, the system ain't broken. It's working just
Speaker 1: as it was intended to. I'd like to thank our
Speaker 1: guests today, Professor Andrea Freeman. You can learn more about
Speaker 1: this episode and Andrea's work at wet Stone magazine, dot com,
Speaker 1: Backslash podcast, or on Instagram at wet Stone Magazine. That's
Speaker 1: w H E T S T O in E Magazine.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with more point of Origin,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. We'd also like to thank our incredible
Speaker 1: podcast producer Selene Glazier. Selene, you are the best. To
Speaker 1: our editor and Whetstone partner and director of Video David
Speaker 1: Alexander in London. Appreciate you, Dave. Thanks to our wet
Speaker 1: Stone production intern Quentin le Beau, and last but not least,
Speaker 1: my business partner Mel she who makes all things at
Speaker 1: whet Stone possible. Thank you Mel. We'd also like to
Speaker 1: thank our partners and production at I Heeart Radio to
Speaker 1: Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer and executive producer Christopher Haciotis.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with more from the world
Speaker 1: of food worldwide Point of Origin listeners. As you know,
Speaker 1: rating and reviewing our podcast is the very best way
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