Op-Ed by Caitlin Alyse Baiduc, Humane Action Pennsylvania, Eastern PA Coordinator
Meet Diego. Diego is a seventh grader at Kennett Middle School. He is Latino, loves sports (especially baseball), and is the youngest of three brothers. Diego is enrolled in the National School Lunch Program and thus every day at lunch a carton of dairy milk is placed on his tray alongside his reduced-cost meal. Sometimes Diego drinks the milk, though he tends to feel unwell afterward (anyone suffering from lactose intolerance can likely relate); on these days, Diego’s concentration in his afternoon classes wanes. Other times, Diego throws the milk carton straight in the trash and drinks water instead.
Diego is a fictional character. But this brief narrative reflects a nationwide issue. Approximately 30 million children in the United States participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Some of these children receive their meals at no cost and others at reduced cost. With every school lunch (or breakfast) they receive, each of these 30 million children also receives a carton of dairy milk (AKA cow’s milk). Here’s where the problem lies. Children have no choice in the matter. Whether they dislike dairy milk and would prefer a different beverage instead or are lactose intolerant, they receive a carton of dairy milk with each NSLP-eligible meal. The government refuses to reimburse school districts the entire cost of the meal unless cow’s milk is placed on the tray of every student receiving nutrition assistance. This requirement has aptly been called the government’s “milk mandate.”
Consider that up to 65% of children (or 19.5 of the 30 million children) enrolled in the NSLP may have some degree of lactose intolerance (LI) based on NIH-reported incidence rates of LI. Documented rates of LI are especially high for Blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. LI prevents the body from fully digesting lactose, the sugar found in dairy products; the resultant undigested lactose lingers in the lower intestinal tract causing symptoms such as diarrhea, cramps, and nausea. (No wonder poor Diego couldn’t concentrate in class!) Lactose intolerance is not always recognized by children or their parents, causing many children to continue consuming the very product that causes their discomfort.
In addition to children getting sick from drinking cow’s milk, there is also the issue of our tax dollars going to waste. According to the USDA, 29% of the milk cartons served end up unopened and in the trash (Fox, Gearan E. School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study, 2019). This translates to hundreds of millions of wasted tax dollars.
And what about the cows producing the milk? Dairy cows have been engineered to such an extent that now rather than producing an average of 434 gallons of milk per year just a few decades ago, each cow in the industrialized farm system now produces, on average, upwards of 2,690 gallons of milk annually in order to keep up with demand. This astonishing 6-fold increase places an incredible amount of stress on dairy cows’ bodies – leading to painful inflammation of the udders and often rendering cows lame or in chronic pain due to their unnaturally massive frames.
There is a simple solution that not only helps our children but also benefits animal welfare and strengthens how our tax dollars are spent: offer children an alternative, a beverage that is equally nutritious, but comes without the added GI-stress. The ADD SOY Act (HR1619, Addressing Digestive Distress in Stomachs of Our Youth) proposes to do just that. ADD SOY would require public schools to offer the choice of dairy milk or soy milk to children (K-12) participating in the NSLP and would direct the USDA to also fully reimburse schools for the cost of the soy milk provided (source). This is a win for children participating in the NSLP and represents a potential boon for the more than 500,000 U.S. soybean farmers.
As mainstream tastes in America evolve, the market for plant-based milks continues to expand. The reasons vary – taste/preference, a concern for animal welfare, health concerns, environmental concerns – but the end result is the same. Americans want the power to choose, and increasingly, they are choosing plant-based alternatives to cow’s milk. ADD SOY is thus in keeping with current trends and gives children the power to choose the right beverage for them.
Caitlin Alyse Baiduc – Humane Action Pennsylvania, Eastern PA Coordinator
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