These efforts, the department reported, helped generate a “cheese sales growth of nearly 30 million pounds.”Įvery day, the nation’s cows produce an average of about 60 million gallons of raw milk, yet less than a third goes toward making milk that people drink. “Both featured two slices of American cheese, a slice of pepper jack and a cheesy sauce,” the department said. In 2007, the department highlighted Pizza Hut’s Cheesy Bites pizza, Wendy’s “dual Double Melt sandwich concept,” and Burger King’s Cheesy Angus Bacon cheeseburger and TenderCrisp chicken sandwich. In its reports to Congress, however, the Agriculture Department tallies Dairy Management’s successes in millions of pounds of cheese served. “When eaten in moderation and with attention to portion size, cheese can fit into a low-fat, healthy diet,” the department said. The department acknowledged that cheese is high in saturated fat, but said that lower milk consumption had made cheese an important source of calcium. is enormous and way beyond what is optimally healthy.” A small amount of good-flavored cheese can be compatible with a healthy diet, but consumption in the U.S. should not be involved in these programs that are promoting foods that we are consuming too much of already. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health and a former member of the federal government’s nutrition advisory committee, said: “The U.S.D.A. When the campaign was challenged as false, government lawyers defended it, saying the Agriculture Department “reviewed, approved and continually oversaw” the effort.ĭr. The campaign went on for four years, ending in 2007, even though other researchers one paid by Dairy Management itself found no such weight-loss benefits. In one instance, Dairy Management spent millions of dollars on research to support a national advertising campaign promoting the notion that people could lose weight by consuming more dairy products, records and interviews show. The organization’s activities, revealed through interviews and records, provide a stark example of inherent conflicts in the Agriculture Department’s historical roles as both marketer of agriculture products and America’s nutrition police. But it also receives several million dollars a year from the Agriculture Department, which appoints some of its board members, approves its marketing campaigns and major contracts and periodically reports to Congress on its work. “The item used an average of eight times more cheese than other items on their menu,” the Agriculture Department said in a report, extolling Dairy Management’s work without mentioning that the quesadilla has more than three-quarters of the daily recommended level of saturated fat and sodium.ĭairy Management, whose annual budget approaches $140 million, is largely financed by a government-mandated fee on the dairy industry. “I want to challenge every restaurant to offer healthy menu options,” she told the National Restaurant Association’s annual meeting.Ĭonsider the Taco Bell steak quesadilla, with cheddar, pepper jack, mozzarella and a creamy sauce. When Michelle Obama implored restaurateurs in September to help fight obesity, she cited the proliferation of cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. Cheese has become the largest source of saturated fat an ounce of many cheeses contains as much saturated fat as a glass of whole milk. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.Īmericans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate. Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. It is a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting. And Dairy Management, which has made cheese its cause, is not a private business consultant.
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