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07/03/2003
"The USDA’s Food Pyramid Scheme"
To read more check out Not Milkhe U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to its mission statement, is charged with "enhancing the quality of life for the American people by supporting the production of agriculture." Created by the pro-business Lincoln administration in 1862, today’s USDA has the dual responsibility of assisting dairy farmers while promoting healthy dietary choices for Americans. Not surprisingly, this creates a conflict of interest that puts at risk the objectivity of government farm policy and the health of all dairy-consuming Americans.
In December 1999, the PCRM filed suit against the USDA, claiming the department unfairly promotes the special interests of the meat and dairy industries through its official dietary guidelines and the Food Pyramid. Six of the eleven members assigned to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee were demonstrated to have financial ties to meat, dairy, and egg interests. Prior to the suit, which the PCRM won in December 2000, the USDA had refused to disclose such conflicts of interest to the general public.
The USDA’s advisory committees have been dominated by the agriculture industry since the early 1950s, when the department devised the Four Food Groups, including milk, meat, fruits and vegetables, and breads and cereals. Over the years, these dietary guidelines have consistently reflected the industry’s push for greater consumption of both meat and dairy, despite the testimony of numerous physicians’ groups and watchdog organizations criticizing the Food Pyramid as biased and unhealthful.
The USDA’s counter-argument? The food dietary guidelines must be reality-based, says the USDA, arguing that what people should really be eating is moot because it doesn’t fit with the American lifestyle. Apparently, the USDA thinks it’s unrealistic to promote healthy dietary guidelines to the increasingly obese American public, despite the fact that such guidelines are understood by just about everyone to be goals, not de facto rules. In other words, the USDA doesn’t even think it’s reasonable to aspire to what constitutes a healthy diet.
Government Cheese
ith the recent passage of the Farm Bill on May 13, 2002, dairy farmers and processors will receive $2 billion more in subsidies over the next three and a half years, largely realized through price supports that inflate costs for consumers. Dairy subsidies are a carryover from the Depression era, when survival of small dairy farmers was considered essential to maintaining a national food supply.
Today, a large chunk of that additional $2 billion in subsidies is going to large dairy farms in twelve northeastern states. Further, as consolidation continues to occur in the dairy industry, federal subsidies are going to an increasingly small number of highly concentrated dairy operations, hanging small farmers out to dry and encouraging the demise of family farms. This increase in large industrial farms bodes ill for both cows and humans.
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