The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk: Food Oppression and the USDA
Despite the massive popularity of animal-derived foods as part of a typical North American diet, many of these food and drink consumables are heavily subsidized and reliant on marketing campaigns to sustain their prominence. This study looks at the political forces that promote and subsidize milk products, specifically the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and how its dual role as a nutrition advisor and milk promoter puts it in a deep conflict of interest. The research also examines how USDA policies and milk marketing have disproportionately and negatively affected people of color in the U.S.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an organization in charge of publishing impartial nutrition guidelines for the whole country. In addition, its role is to oversee the promotion and subsidization of various food products. These dual functions put it in a difficult and deeply conflicted position. This study examines the crux of the USDA’s role in “food oppression,” which it defines as the “institutional, systemic, food-related action or policy that physically debilitates a socially subordinated group. […] 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.” The paper focuses specifically on how “the USDA’s efforts to reduce the high-fat milk surplus by selling it to fast food consumers impose health costs on Americans generally, but disproportionately harm low-income African Americans and Latina/os who live in urban centers dominated by fast food restaurants.”
The study notes that the USDA’s role in the subsidization and promotion of high-fat surplus milk through projects such as the “Got Milk” campaign (which also had a latino version), was directly at cross purposes to their nutritional guidelines, which do not encourage high-fat milk consumption. But why does this policy directly affect people of color? The paper states that “African Americans and Latina/os suffer from the most serious health conditions associated with saturated fats at higher rates than whites,” and that “lactose intolerance also affects more African Americans and Latina/os than whites.” Perhaps most importantly, the research points out that “even the phrase ‘lactose intolerance’ reflects a cultural bias,” because “a significant percentage of individuals from all communities, with the exception of Scandinavian and Northern European whites, do not retain the enzyme lactase through adulthood. […] Although statistics vary, seventy-nine percent of African American adults, forty-five percent of African American children, seventy-four percent of Mexicans from rural communities, ninety-eight percent of Southeast Asians, and ninety percent of Asian Americans cannot digest lactose.” This means that, in general, the USDA’s guidelines are culturally problematic, but even more so in the context of it promoting advertising campaigns for milk products. According to the study, the Congressional Black Caucus has noticed and “complained about the ‘consistent racial bias’ in the Guidelines, as evidenced by their emphasis on milk products despite the lactose intolerance experienced by most African Americans.”
For a systemic problem that seems deeply entrenched, the paper focuses on using legal strategies as a possible way of getting the policy to change. Future legal strategies, it says, “might include a lawsuit brought by states against the USDA alleging that the USDA’s successful efforts to reduce the milk surplus harm their citizens.” It also suggests that legislation could “resolve the immediate problem of the overconsumption of saturated fats, particularly in fast food meals” by restricting the amount of milk and cheese that restaurants could legally serve. For advocates, this paper helps us to better understand the cultural issues at play in dairy consumption, as well as assisting advocates to think about joining forces with grassroots food justice groups to combat pernicious dairy product advertising.
Original Abstract:
Food oppression is institutional, systemic, food-related action or policy that physically debilitates a socially marginalized group. This theory attributes racial/socioeconomic health disparities to policies and practices that appear neutral yet disproportionately harm vulnerable individuals, particularly those whose identities lie on multiple axes of oppression, including race, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, and immigration status. Unbearable Whiteness explores this theory through the specific example of the USDA’s dual role of nutrition adviser and entity responsible for the dairy surplus. The USDA’s advice in the federal Dietary Guidelines led to a thirty year decline in milk sales. In response, the USDA formed a marketing branch that partners with fast food companies to increase the amount of cheese in their products. This tactic has successfully reduced the surplus and added harmful amounts of saturated fats to the diets of communities who rely primarily on fast food for nutrition in urban centers. These populations consist mainly of low-income African Americans and Latinos. Unbearable Whiteness explores how the joint actions of industry and government may lead to the creation and perpetuation of health disparities and explores legal challenges to the problem.