Tag: Dairy Products

Is Milk Racist?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals made headlines recently after sending Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson a letter asking him to change the state’s official beverage from milk to something “more healthful and humane” such as soy “milk.” PETA’s letter was filled with the typical animal rights nonsense about milk — that it’s “liquid meat” that causes everything from heart disease to cancer to osteoporosis. As PETA’s Bruce Friedrich summed it up, “If the milk industry did not spendso much money promoting milk, it would be listed as a health risk.”

Pretty standard fare for PETA except that beyond its alleged health risks, PETA Chairman Alex Pacheco claimed that Wisconsin’s selection of milk as its state beverage might also be racist. See if you can follow the logic here.

Some members of minority groups are to one degree or another lactose intolerant — most mildly so. Therefore choosing milk as a state beverage is racist or as Pacheco put it, “a white choice in more ways than one.”

It is because of proclamations like this that Wisconsin Farm Bureau spokesman Tom Thieding pretty accurately describes PETA’s predicament. “I think they overplay their hand,” Thieding told Scripps Howard. “I don’t think the general public takes them seriously, especially when they do things like this and shout down children at Oscar Mayer events [PETA has been sponsoring protests of Oscar Mayer’s Weinermobile].”

Source:

“Animal-rights group PETA attacks milk as ‘liquid meat'” – Amy Rinard, Scripps Howard, July 23, 1998.

Dr. Spock, AntiDairy Coalition take aim at milk

In the latest (posthumous) edition
of Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care, the famous pediatrician
attacks meat and milk arguing that, “children can get plenty of protein
and iron from vegetables, beans and other plant foods that avoid the fat
and cholesterol that are in animal products.” Meanwhile a newly formed
group called the AntiDairy Coalition made its debut in June decrying “the
health and nutritional risks of consuming dairy products.”

What’s going on here? I tend
to agree with one of Spock’s friends, pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton,
who described Spock’s recommendations as “absolutely insane.”
Much the same applies to the AntiDairy Coalition.

Lets tackle Spock first. According
to Spock’s co-author, Steven J. Parker (who also believes Spock’s
dietary advice is too extreme), the famous pediatrician believed his conversion
to vegetarianism helped extend his life. But Spock didn’t become
a vegetarian until he was 87 years old. Clearly his meat and dairy eating
did not interfere with his longevity in any meaningful way.

Second, as Brazelton told the New
York Times, “Meat is an excellent source of the iron and protein
children need, and to take away milk from children, I think that’s
really dangerous. Milk is needed for calcium and vitamin D.”

As junk science debunker Steve Milloy noted, after becoming
a vegetarian Spock lost 50 pounds (a phenomenon which most vegetarians
claim to be a beneficial result from a vegetarian diet), but for children
the most important dietary need is ensuring steady weight gain.

Besides, ever try to get a toddler
to eat kale?

As for the AntiDairy Coalition,
this group merely repeated the same old unsubstantiated conjectures about
milk that have become articles of faith among animal rights activists.

For example, take the AntiDairy
Coalition’s claims about milk’s ability to cause allergies.
According to the Coalition, since milk is full of protein and proteins
can trigger allergies, the large increase in asthma over the last 20 years
or so must be caused by protein in milk. Can someone say post hoc?

Similarly the Coalition notes that women in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden both a) consume
lots of milk and b) have high rates of breast cancer. Milk consumption, therefore,
must cause breast cancer. Again, this is classic post hoc reasoning that
is unsupported by any evidence. Readers should want and expect the ADC
to present serious epidemiological studies documenting these effect.

Certainly a diet excessively high
in dairy products may be harmful and some people do suffer from lactose
intolerance. In its attempts at scare mongering, however, the ADC vastly
exaggerates the problem — moderate milk and dairy consumption can be
part of a healthy lifestyle.