The Burden of the “Dairy Surplus” on Black Communities
I currently work as an AmeriCorps volunteer with a focus on food systems, nutrition and community health. Much of my time is dedicated to assisting with local Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Education efforts in my local community. SNAP is funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and most of us probably think of SNAP (incorrectly but commonly referred to as “food stamps”) just as a program to help families in need buy more groceries. Beyond just distributing money every month to families in need, SNAP and the USDA are both heavily involved in federal and state nutritional education and guidelines for Americans. When I began my term with SNAP, I quickly realized that there was more to the USDA Food Guidelines than just flashy graphics.
Every ten years the USDA nutrition guidelines are updated by a team of researchers, nutrition experts, and lobbyists. These guidelines shape what doctors recommend, what nutritionists learn in universities, what children learn about in school, and more directly, what they eat in school for lunch. Many are familiar with the old guidelines that showed a “food pyramid,” which is now represented through a graphic called “MyPlate.” It’s through these graphics that we can begin to see the influence of lobbying on the development of the Nutrition Guidelines. Over the course of the last few months I have personally begun to connect the dots that the USDA, along with aggressive lobbying by the dairy industry, knowingly and disproportionately affects the health of Black communities. I am a white person so I cannot tell the stories of how these food policies feel in real people’s bodies or in their communities, but I will try and articulate how research, policy, and numbers come together to tell a story of systemic injustice and a public health crisis.
Hiding nutrition science through lobbying:
The dairy industry spends millions of dollars a year in advertising campaigns, paying researchers to testify while lobbying so that politicians and the USDA work in their best interest. This means that the USDA health guidelines are not solely based on objective science, but rather a combination of nutrition research and the interests of whoever is paying the most.
I’ve even seen this in my work in subtle ways while working with children in nutritional education programs. For example, the dairy industry in my state has paid to produce a whole program that encourages students to learn nutrition facts while playing P.E. style games. Many of the games feature dairy products as one of the only sources of calcium, and even allow students to win faster if they name a dairy product before their peers.
The power of this lobby is especially important when we consider that, for decades, there has been objective science that tells us that the majority of BIPOC people experience lactose intolerance, and that dairy products are not effective in fighting diseases commonly associated with calcium deficiencies. In an article in the Journal of the National Medical Association from 1999 researchers found: “The [Food Guide] Pyramid recommends two to three daily servings of dairy products. However, research has shown that lactase nonpersistence, the loss of enzymes that digest the milk sugar lactose, occurs in a majority of African-, Asian-, Hispanic-, and Native-American individuals. ... Calcium is available in other foods that do not contain lactose. Osteoporosis is less common among African Americans and Mexican Americans than among whites, and there is little evidence that dairy products have an effect on osteoporosis among racial minorities.”
Despite knowing that milk makes people of color sick, the National Nutrition Program continues to promote dairy as a health food because of the power of the milk lobby. We are currently seeing a surge in dairy lobbying activity in the US due to a variety of factors. Dairy farmers are losing millions in profits annual as a result of Trump administration “tariff wars” decreasing international markets for dairy products. Dairy production nationally has risen 13% during this time, while demand falls domestically due to the prevalence and popularity of plant based milks and other vegan products. Dairy farmers are struggling so the dairy lobby seeks to increase its influence in our political system through spending.
Disproportionate marketing tactics:
“The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk” by Andrea Freeman, is a positively thrilling expose on USDA food marketing tactics (read it here). I admit that reading this piece was the catalyst for a whirlwind change in my perspective toward our food system. Dr. Freeman is a pioneer of the term “food oppression.” Here’s her definition:
“Food oppression is institutional, systemic, food-related action or policy that physically debilitates a socially subordinated group. Politically and financially weak communities absorb the external costs of food oppression, rendering these costs largely invisible to the mainstream. The effects of the oppression also increase the harmed groups’ vulnerability by constraining their political voices, reducing their work capacity, and draining the energy of household and community members who must care for the sick and take on the responsibilities that ill members cannot fulfill. In the long term, food oppression diminishes already vulnerable populations in numbers and in power. Illness arising from food oppression also leads to social invisibility, decreased social status, depression, and despair.”
In “The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk” Dr. Freeman uses the USDA’s food marketing of milk as an example of food oppression. Here’s how she lays it out: The USDA is constantly working to reduce the US milk surplus—the result of overproduction nationwide—using the aggressive force of dairy lobbyists. Remember the iconic “Got Milk?” campaign? The campaign used many predominant Black and Latinx athletes and celebrities at the time, and promoted eating dairy products as a way to lose weight, despite no research behind the claims. But it gets more sinister. The USDA also created partnerships with fast food chains like Dominos and Taco Bell to target Black and Latinx communities. These partnerships were made to develop products that use up the dairy surplus through excessively cheesy recipes. The four cheese burrito at Taco Bell? Oh you bet, made in partnership and paid for by the USDA. These fast food chains target low-income consumers, who then eat food that makes them sick, leading to high rates of chronic illness like diabetes. How can communities thrive when their population is literally debilitated by the food they are encouraged to eat by our government?
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not implying that anyone should be denied the wondrous joys of a scoop of ice cream or a cheesy pizza. Everyone should have access to eat what makes them feel happy, healthy and empowered. No one should ever feel shamed into eating in any particular way, and going to Taco Bell a few times will not instantly give you diabetes. However, the USDA is creating areas of food apartheid where unhealthy foods are the only option, which disproportionately puts the burden of diet related illness on Black and Latinx communities.
BIPOC children disproportionately rely on school meals—which follow harmful USDA Nutrition Guidelines:
Due to systemic inequities that lead to BIPOC families living on lower incomes than white families, Black children and POC children rely on school lunches more than their white schoolmates do. In 2018, food insecurity amongst Black children was three times the rate of white children, and national averages indicate that Black, Hispanic and Native American students qualify for free-and-reduced lunch programs at double the rate of their white peers. Qualification is based on income levels, which are the result of centuries of systemic injustice—thus food security is a symptom of a larger broken system regarding poverty. School breakfast and lunch programs are essential for student health and success, especially for children coming from low-income households.
This is not news to Black communities. The Black Panther Party, amongst a wide variety of other successful programs/organizations, developed the first successful school breakfast programs that are now standard in schools. The FBI, however, was so terrified by the act of feeding children so they could be successful in school that they destroyed and urinated on the food so the programs would fail. Read more about this history here.
USDA requires milk in school lunches:
The USDA and their milk lobby enter the scene yet again.
As we previously mentioned, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans directly affect school meals that are served in schools nationwide. How much do they guide what is on the plate? Public schools cannot legally serve a school meal without a carton or glass of milk. The only exceptions are some school districts that are able to offer an expensive soy milk alternative and children may return the milk unopened, but they legally have to take the milk with them to their table.
Even with dedicated research that indicates that, despite some positive health outcomes, milk is not a good nutritional recommendation—especially for Black Americans—the USDA continues to show that it is more concerned with their ability to make school districts spend their money on dairy (to use up the surplus because of pressure from the dairy industry). Within the last year the Trump administration has also rolled back school lunch health guidelines so that even fattier milks can be served in schools, rather than the skim-milks required before. This prioritization of lobbyist interests over student health is felt disproportionately in the lives of young Black and Latinx children who rely on school lunches at higher rates than white children in the US.
Remember when farmers were dumping milk during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic? That was because the majority of the milk in the US is distributed through school lunch programs that were now closed. The USDA uses young bodies to mop up their milk surplus.
How does food oppression affect sustainability?
First, the USDA does not just support dairy business and create food guidelines. The USDA spends federal dollars to support farmers nationwide. They also work in organics, soil health, and fund a wide variety of research and programs that support sustainable agriculture efforts. This support is not equitable in who it serves and how it serves those farmers. A deep dive on the lack of equity in farmer support by the USDA is coming soon… But we do know that the time, energy and financial resources that are spent on promoting dairy products and poor nutrition could instead be spent by the USDA on sustainable agriculture development, supporting small farmers, and helping BIPOC farmers access land.
We cannot have a sustainable food system without racial justice, and we cannot have racial justice when the people who are enduring injustices are disproportionately sicker than the rest of the population. Black, Latinx and Native Americans disproportionately carry the burden of environmental destruction and poor nutrition. We cannot focus on sustainability unless everyone can take part.
