Cheese Biz
You can put cheese on most anything, but extra cheese won't help farmers sell more of it at a fair price.
We live in a food world of rather unusual contradictions. Some of them would almost seem amusing if it weren’t for the impact they can have on food policy and public health.
Sunday’s New York Times article on the lengths USDA goes to in its promotion of cheese consumption reveals the stunning failure of a federal agency to establish a true north when it comes to their mission that includes both giving nutrition advice and promoting American agriculture.
On one hand, in its role as the official mom of nutrition policy, the USDA warns us about the saturated fat in our cheese and reminds us that Americans eat far too much of it — three times the amount we ate in 1970. Then, on the other hand, the agency spends more money to fund marketing campaigns that encourage us to pour another layer of cheese onto our triple cheese burritos, cheese sandwiches and pizzas.
The USDA explains that they promote cheese to “bolster farmers and rural economies,” through the work they do through a project called Dairy Management, but we’ve already explained why that is a far cry from a sensible solution. A smarter Farm Bill could help the USDA implement necessary reforms to address issues like market concentration, which is the real reason there is so much cheese on the market that needs to be eaten.
If the USDA wants us to get our calcium and help the dairy industry, telling us to eat pizzas with 6 different cheeses isn’t the way to do it. Making sure dairy farmers get a fair price for their milk, without having to produce so much milk that we are unable to eat all the resulting cheese, would be a great start.
-Rich Bindell