Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

This week Virginia lawmakers responsibly enacted legislation to protect public health AND protect dairy producers by requiring that milk and other dairy products be pasteurized. Sounds simple enough. Pasteurization ensures that children, the largest consumers of dairy products, are protected against potentially deadly bacteria and viruses that can find their way into unpasteurized dairy products. But pure food nuts are up in arms over this sensible public health policy. Other states, like Colorado, are actually moving forward with the agenda of these food fanatics to allow unpasteurized milk - also called “raw milk” - to be sold.

Here in the United States we’ve been restricting the sale of raw milk products since the 1940s. Dr. John Sheehan, Director of the FDA’s Division of Dairy and Egg Safety says drinking raw milk is “like playing Russian roulette with your health.” In 1986 a judge went so far as to order the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to ban the interstate shipment of raw milk. Why? Because people, especially children or others with weak immune systems, can die from consuming dairy products tainted with bacteria commonly found in raw, unpasteurized dairy products: Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella (over 1600 types) and Listeria monocytogenes. People, this stuff isn’t for kids or anyone else, unless you enjoy muscle pain followed by diarrhea (sometimes bloody), acute kidney failure, high fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, meningitis, spontaneous abortion (in pregnant women) or death. Those are just some of the symptoms associated with the types of food poisoning that can be caused by drinking raw milk.

An article co-authored by Senator Rudy Boschwitz points out that the U.S. Public Health Service says four of these bacteria (Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli O157:H7) are the most serious foodborne pathogens in America. Five kids in Vancouver, Canada, were poisoned by drinking raw milk from a cooperative farm; two suffered permanent liver damage. In the 1990s, Massachusetts even reported two incidents of potential mass raw-milk exposures to rabies! Two different cows in different herds were diagnosed with rabies, and 80 people who drank their raw milk had to take the painful series of rabies shots. In Wisconsin, some 70 people got sick from drinking illegal raw milk tainted with campylobacter bacteria.

And still, the pure food nuts are pressuring legislators to end decades-long protections so they can sell and promote raw milk. Some poorly informed lawmakers are even listening! In Colorado, dangerous legislation is currently moving forward to allow more public access to raw milk. This is being promoted by a Washington, DC-based activist group called the Weston A. Price Foundation and other extreme organic agriculture purists. This group bases its reputation on the teachings of Weston A. Price, a dentist working in Cleveland in the 1930s who claimed that raw milk is healthier.

Bunk! Extensive nutritional and medical research discredits these claims. Further, in 1989 the California Superior Court ruled against Alta Dena dairy, who was selling and promoting raw milk as healthier, and found that: (a) “overwhelming evidence proved that Alta-Dena’s raw (unpasteurized) milk frequently contains dangerous bacteria that can cause serious illness”; and (b) the company must stop its false advertising. So why are activist groups like Weston A. Price and the Organic Consumers Association promoting raw milk and spreading false claims?

The Weston A. Price Foundation is lead today by Nancy Fallon, a frequent speaker at organic conferences and other holistic health and alternative agriculture events. The Price board includes a wide-range of alternative health industry representatives and reports that it receives financial support from for-profit alternative-health and products companies. These are some of the same people who are telling cancer patients to ignore physicians and treat themselves with non-commercially harvested organic seaweed and that microwave ovens and digital alarm clocks are poisoning us with their electromagnetic signals. Can you say “nut jobs”? Unfortunately, this alternative health and products industry generates hundred of millions of dollars from people scared into buying their products. They may be nut jobs, but they’ve got big moneyed interests behind them. Heck, they even have a “raw milk” t-shirt and coffee mug concession - that should instill confidence by consumers and misguided legislators following their advice!

Dr. William Jarvis of The National Council Against Health Fraud addresses the issue of raw milk effectively and to the point: “The evidence is clear. Milk is a wholesome food, but there is nothing to be gained from drinking it in its raw, natural form. (Raw milk) poses a serious health risk to significant segments of the population. Only pasteurized milk should be sold for general public consumption.”

It’s time for regulators, nutrition and medical professionals to step up and inform these apparently ill-informed legislators promoting the agendas of these radical pure food zealots about the dangers they present to our children and to our very important dairy trade in this country. Dairy producers and retailers also need to be heard on this matter. How much damage to overall dairy sales do they think the first child death linked to consuming raw milk will cause? Every legislator sponsoring and voting to enable raw milk sales should be held accountable - don’t let them say they didn’t know.

Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

Modern agricultural methods of production, like biotechnology and animal health products, are under attack. Recently, the New York Times printed an article that would seem to take the wind out of the anti-biotech movement. “Facing Biotech Foods without the Fear Factor” by Jane Brody, personal health columnist for the NY Times and a hundred other newspapers, takes an in depth look at the history and current reality of genetic modification, or introducing genes into plants. Her conclusion? GMOs “could raise the standard of living worldwide and better protect the planet from chemical contamination.” That is what technology allows. Getting more from less; giving farmers and ranchers a choice to be more efficient while using fewer resources. But the attacks continue. Why?

Simply follow the money. The issue of food produced with the aid of modern biotechnology has gained increased attention among activist and special interest groups in the United States because it helps line these special interest pockets. Traditional eco-activist and “organic” advocacy groups are emerging as virtual marketing partners with the multi-billion-dollar organic and natural products industry, challenging biotechnology and conventional food product safety. These groups are determined to instill fear in the public about the safety of the food we eat. Funded by a growing industry which benefits from this black marketing, these advocacy groups are generating fear campaigns targeting children and parents. According to a recent article by Oregonians for Food and Shelter, in the long-run, these attacks will hurt all agriculture, organic included.

Milk is no exception. Activists have been spreading rumors that “biotech” milk from cloned cows is headed to a grocery store near you any day now if you don’t act immediately to stop it. Well, they’ve made this warning for more than three years now, and their dire predictions aren’t even close to coming true. From this column, you know that others are baselessly attacking milk producers’ use of supplemental somatotropin (bovine growth hormone) with false claims that the milk is somehow genetically modified or different. It is not, and as made clear by the New York Times, these attacks on biotechnology are simply bogus. And their tactic of targeting children is, well frankly, obscene.

The GE Food Alert coalition, for example, announced a Halloween “scare campaign” a few years back. They have established yet another Web site: www.StopFrankenfood.org to facilitate the sending of email form letters to the FDA as part of its on-line consumer campaign against agricultural biotechnology. Targeting children, their key message is, “Trick… or trick? This Halloween, some of the spookiest stuff out there won’t be found in cemeteries or haunted houses. No, this Halloween, we should all be looking for the freaky foods on our grocery store shelves.”

Lest we forget, these same “public interest” activist groups have a long and well-documented history of similar fear campaigns, all of which have proven to be misleading or outright false. The costs of these campaigns to consumers and producers have been significant. Examples include, the now debunked Alar scare costing apple growers some $150 million and the false silicone breast implant scare which bankrupted Dow Corning. The purpose of such scares, according to a memo by the public relations firm hired to promote them was to increase fundraising for their non-profit activist group clients. This is the same public relations firm hired to promote today’s anti-biotechnology scares.

Indeed, the very reason some products are misleadingly labeled as such is to take advantage of the consumer fears that these campaigns claim to represent. The result is exactly - and deliberately - the opposite of what the campaigners claim to be for: consumer choice. How could this be so?

Consider the choices, or lack thereof, for consumers in the U.K. There are only two types of food choices there, organic and non-biotech conventional. Even if they want the choice of biotech foods that have improved nutritional qualities or are produced with fewer pesticides, they cannot. The reason for the lack of choice is fear-based labeling and activist pressure schemes. These campaigns led to public pressure for food labeling laws declaring whether a food was derived from a biotech-improved crop. UK supermarkets subsequently pulled biotech products from the shelves, lest they lose even a tiny percentage of their customers to the fear campaigns.

News reports suggest UK consumers are now less-informed about their food choices and paying more to boot.

The UK’s food labeling regime, designed to give consumers “choice,” actually degrades the underlying consumer protection principles of their former safety- and content-based system. These consumer protection principles, on which the United States’ current system is based, were established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1861 to stop false and misleading marketing by unscrupulous snake-oil salesmen. Today, modern-day snake-oil salesmen marketing “GMO-free,” “all-natural,” and “organic” products have been cited by both U.S. and U.K. regulators for false and misleading marketing, making unfounded claims about the risks of biotechnology-produced foods, and making false claims about the benefits of foods sold as “GMO-free” or “organic.” The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has gone so far as to bar organic marketers from making any claims of increased safety, nutrition, or taste.

According to the Wall Street Journal Europe, the institution of GMO labeling in Europe has left consumers more confused with fewer choices.

Farmers are similarly denied choice when they are restricted from using safe technologies in the cultivation of a crop or the production of milk. Once a technology is tested, reviewed and approved by the competent regulatory agency, farmers deserve the choice as to whether they want to use it. When that choice is restricted, farmers are put at a disadvantage - a disadvantage that will only increase as additional restrictions are placed on how they farm.

The choices of food manufacturers and retailers are also restricted by these campaigns and demands. Generally, these businesses make decisions on hard data. Actual data about volume, margins, carrying costs and shelf life are factored into the choices retailers make about the products they sell. If consumers do not want a certain product and, consequently do not buy it, all of the information necessary for a retailer or a manufacturer to make a choice about that product is quantifiable. If manufacturers or retailers start basing their choices on the perceived preferences of the consumer rather than the quantified data, the grocery stores’ shelves would look quite different than they do today.

On October 10, 2002 an Associated Press story from Bozeman, Montana, “Hormone-free milk not setting sales records, Darigold says,” stated “The regional cooperative reported that half-gallon cartons of their milk, which now are all labeled as coming from cows that were not supplemented with recombinant bovine somatotropin, are not selling quite as well as the half-gallons did before the label was added. Darigold began adding the label more than a year ago to satisfy customer demand, said Keith Nye, Darigold’s CEO.” It may be that the true customer demand was not as it was portrayed to be. Consumer research supports this finding - these misleading “absence” claims are not what consumers are looking for to inform their dairy purchasing. These claims create confusion and can upset consumers greatly when they found they’ve been misled. The research shows these labels also harm dairy farmers.

Additionally, the “hormone-free” claim, whether on labels, Web sites or other marketing materials, is simply false and also puts the producer, bottler and retailer selling the product at risk of regulatory wrath from the Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration and state authorities. Not only are these people at risk, according to the FTC their advertising and public relations agencies, Web designers and others involved in promoting these false claims can also be prosecuted.

The greatest concern, however, is what will happen to agriculture and food production when all choices are dictated by those whose ethical or political motivations are the driving factor and who are not involved with the cultivation of an agricultural commodity or the manufacture or sale of a food product. If a form-letter campaign can cause the USDA to prohibit production methods or move a food retailer to exclude all milk produced with the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin, what would it take to have all non-free range chicken products removed from the store shelves?

Absurd? Not really. The question is: Where do we draw the line? There are issues throughout our world where reasonable people do differ on the acceptability and desirability of specific technologies. The use of air conditioning refrigerants and their potential impacts on the ozone layer have long been the subjects of consumer and scientific concern. These concerns are real. The negatives could never be proven prospectively. But consumers of these technologies have made a choice to use them with appropriate safeguards and, more importantly, had the opportunity to make that choice. Consider whether the removal of all potentially ozone depleting materials based on a letter and telephone campaign would be a viable option for a grocery store as it exists today.

Bottom line, everyone should have the choice to operate their lives and their businesses as they wish within the laws of their country. Total discrimination against products of modern biotechnology based solely on a vocal so-called public interest group with a dubious and self-serving agenda will deny farmers, food manufacturers, food retailers and consumers the opportunity to make a choice about biotechnology. Retailers are also at risk when they carry or promote these products and claims, as regulators and litigators have demonstrated their willingness to punish those engaged in these practices.

Be cautious about giving away this freedom of choice - it is a hard freedom to regain once gone. And remember, milk is milk.

Mailbag: Complaints and Double Standards Apparently somebody is listening

Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

Apparently people are listening and taking notice. Since launching this Blog just two short weeks ago we’ve had thousands of visitors from across the globe check out my musings. Here at CGFI we’re already hearing a range of reviews - mostly supportive - from dairy farmers, animal scientists and concerned consumers. Journalists and dairy trade reporters appear to be taking notice as well. FoodNavigatorUSA.com reported on our stories exposing false and misleading marketing by Horizon, Organic Valley and Stonyfield Yogurt.

Another “journalist” contacted us regarding our inaugural Blog on Steve Wilson and Jane Akre - but apparently he wasn’t interested in writing about this. Well, to be honest, that “journalist” was an angry Steve Wilson - but when he called he didn’t want to say who he was. Hmm, an interesting approach for a journalist who demands transparency while criticizing the integrity of his “investigative” reporting targets - he wanted to remain “anonymous.” Can you say double standards? I’m beginning to see why Akre & Wilson’s former boss WTVT news director Phil Metlin labeled them “two desperate journalists who hide behind their shield of ethics in journalism…”

Steve was one angry pup and demanded to know if some nefarious source was behind our Milk is Milk education campaign - the answer is no. He also wanted to defend his claims that milk was dangerous. Unfortunately, he had to admit the milk was “the same” and then he declined to answer any questions about who was funding his campaign attacking the safety of milk - you know that somebody has to be paying for Steve and Jane to travel across the globe to attend the activist trainings and rallies at which they are headlined and applauded. But he wasn’t talking.

Steve said he’d get back to me with the evidence supporting his attacks on the safety of milk - claims which the American Medical Association, World Health Organization and just about everybody else that matters discredit. I still haven’t heard back from Steve and I’m guessing I won’t hear anything too soon. To see the details of my conversation with Steve Wilson, click here.

As for Horizon, Stonyfield and Organic Valley - we’ve been writing these guys and sending letters to regulators about their marketing practices for a couple of years now without a peep back from them in response. However, they did respond to inquiries from news reporter Phillipa Nuttall who read our Blog. Horizon and Organic Valley, it appears, aren’t happy about what we’re disclosing regarding their black marketing practices and are a little defensive. Methinks they doth protest too much, and actually their protests reveal some serious problems they have with broadly acknowledged scientific facts, as well as well-published rules and regulations regarding what constitute false and misleading marketing.

Ms. Nuttall reported that Theresa Marquez, the chief marketing executive for Organic Valley actually said: “We are not talking about natural hormones, but hormones that are added to the milk. We produce our milk without hormones.” It is beyond rational perception how someone vested with the responsibility for marketing dairy products for a company with annual sales in excess of $150 million: 1. lacks even a basic understanding of dairy animal science; 2. fails to understand the production practices of her own company and suppliers; and 3. ignores U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines for marketing claims about dairy products and hormones. Folks, these are very basic things which should be in the job requirements for someone in this position. Heck, false and misleading marketing, advertising and labeling of food products can cost a company millions of dollars in court damages and fines, and even put you out business.

But let’s get back to Ms. Marquez’s statements, couching her defense by adding, “we’ll continue to tell our story in the most ethical way possible.” Theresa, the most ethical way would be to tell the truth. First, the only hormone that is “added to milk” is Vitamin D3 - a hormone which Organic Valley does add to their milk. Second, farmers who supplement their cows aren’t adding anything to the milk - they are giving their cow a supplement, which helps the cow produce more of the exact same milk. Third, all dairy cows require these naturally occurring hormones - there are over 25 hormones naturally found in dairy products - to produce milk. It’s part of their natural chemistry.

Supplemental bST is not “artificial” - it is the same naturally occurring hormone found in cows. Supplements simply help the cows maintain normal peak levels which occur at the beginning of a milking cycle over a slightly longer period of time. So the cows receiving this supplement produce more milk. More milk from fewer cows is good for the environment, good for consumers and good for the dairy farmer’s pocketbook. But for some reason - perhaps because consumers would stop paying $2 to $3 more per gallon for “organic” milk if they weren’t being scared away from the less expensive conventional brands - the likes of Ms. Marquez and Organic Valley appear ready to fight to keep making these false statements about hormones, antibiotics and pesticides.

Ms. Marquez continues to ignore the admitted practice of Organic Valley farmers (as do Horizon and Stonyfield) to use artificial insemination (which includes antibiotics), to use reproductive health hormones like oxytocin, and the use of organic pesticides - which are toxic. Defenders of these organic dairy companies claim the antibiotic residues are minor and that not all organic producers use reproductive hormones - but you cannot have it both ways. If you use antibiotics, hormones and toxic pesticides you simply shouldn’t be able to make marketing claims and label your products as antibiotic-free, hormone-free and pesticide-free.

Horizon’s comments were not quite as poorly worded as Ms. Marquez’ - at least they admitted that all cows’ milk contains hormones. I wonder if that means they’ll change their labels and advertising to remove the “no hormones” claim now? Don’t hold your breath. But, according to the news report Horizon “said that it is committed to providing consumers with certified organic foods produced without the use of antibiotics, added hormones or dangerous pesticides and that it labels its products with this information so all consumers can make educated choices about the food they buy.” Like Organic Valley, Horizon simply isn’t telling the truth and they don’t seem to care. Horizon does use pesticides (organic ones, but they are dangerous and toxic – just read their labels), Horizon does use hormones - Vitamin D3 and the reproductive health hormones allowed by organic standards, and Horizon milk suppliers do use antibiotic-embedded artificial insemination products.

The bottom line here is that Organic Valley, Horizon, Stonyfield, et al… just don’t seem to realize the harm they are doing to the dairy industry. Their black marketing, and unabashed defense of these false and misleading claims, simply turns people away from milk and dairy products. One European industry analyst commented in the publication Dairy Farmer that “promoting organic produce by denigrating conventional is despicable, self-defeating and profoundly damaging” adding that “Promotion of all product must concentrate on the positives and let consumers know that they are the winners through having a wider choice.”

That’s sound advice. Are you listening Ms. Marquez? Milk is milk.

Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery:What’s the deal with soy milk and some of the people promoting it? First of all, it’s not milk - but soy juice sounds kinda yucky, so don’t expect to see it labeled as such anytime soon. Does this stuff really belong in the supermarket dairy case or part of your kids’ school lunch as a replacement to wholesome, real milk?

MSN’s Slate Magazine conducted a taste test of the various soy “milks” available on the market and even the best-known product was characterized by taste-testers as “I would feed this to a cat I didn’t like” and “actually makes the cookie taste worse.” Their conclusions, “Non-milk products didn’t taste like milk, and they didn’t taste good. Soy milk looks like eggnog and unfortunately tastes like what it is - soy juice.” Hmmm, that’s going to go well along side of the Sloppy Joes at the local elementary school cafeteria.OK, so it doesn’t look, taste or feel like milk. By definition (a white nutritious liquid secreted by mammals) it’s a stretch to call it milk - versus “milk-like.” Resolved: We have a plastic-tasting, milk-like juice made from a vegetable known for it’s oil and forage qualities — not milk.This brings me to the point of my Blog today, one of the biggest promoters of soy juice is the “Not Milk” man - a.k.a. Robert Cohen. Cohen is prolific in his rants attacking milk and dairy products. He’s a darling of the radical animal rights movement (which

opposes dairy products because of the subjugation of cows which they claim is immoral because it exploits animals) and various other alternative health nuts who help to amplify Cohen’s various claims - which range from falsely linking milk to cancer to asserting that milk is bad for your bones.The Not Milk Man (I’ll dub him Soy Boy), his buddies at PETA and their front group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine are lobbying to replace cows milk with soy products in school lunch programs. Soy Boy goes as far as to claim that inner-city violence is due to the serving of free milk to poor kids at public schools. What’s with all these nut jobs and fear profiteers? Cohen even attacks “commercially prepared” soy milk as being “as dangerous as cows milk!” Only Soy Boy’s natural, fresh soy milk production method apparently is good enough… as he claims other soy milk has added “acids” which are the same chemicals used to de-ice airplanes and which “can strip the skin off your hands…” Yum! As a result, the commercial soy juice industry has enlisted the support of some of the vegetarian activist groups they help fund to call Cohen a “fraud” and a “charlatan.” Watch out when the vegetarian activists get you in their sights (something I’m a little familiar with), because they can be mean and vicious with those who cross or disagree with them.They claim Soy Boy Cohen “has a propensity for fabricating scientific data which has time and again been shown to be not only worthless, but potentially dangerous. His character and background make him highly unsuited to be an advocate for a dairy-free or vegetarian lifestyle — or anything else, for that matter.” Geez, how bad must you be to be called dangerous and unsuitable by groups

which support terrorism to promote their extremist views? Here are few of the links they provide claiming Cohen is even too nuts for them:Robert Cohen and Integrity by Steven Kaufman MD Honest Advocacy by Syd Baumel Dangerous Disinformation by Stephen Walsh PhD Spinning Out of Control: Vegans Say No to Extreme “notmilk” Spin by Syd Baumel The Sad Truth About Robert Cohen (definitive & exhaustive article) Using Fake College Degrees to Sell Books by Jeff Nelson Bashing White Wave & Selling Soymilk Makers Using Animal Studies Cohen Defends His White Wave Attack Of course, other more rational outside observers consider this battle between Soy Boy and extremist vegetarian opponents a “battle of wits between disarmed opponents.“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t oppose soy or any use of it - it’s a great source of protein and grown by thousands of outstanding family farmers. However, these farmers aren’t out there irresponsibly bashing milk like Soy Boy is doing to sell his soy juice extractor, or the extremists who want us to abandon all forms of animal agriculture and give cows the right to sue people.

Milk and other dairy products from cows are an important part of a responsible, healthy and nutritious diet - especially for growing children. Don’t let people like Cohen scare you or your kids away from good-tasting, good-for-you milk. And, please don’t let him or anyone else take nutritious, affordable milk out of our school lunch programs. Remember, milk is milk, soy is not.

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Big money organic dairies are creating and profiting from fear

Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

It has been bothering me for quite some time now, but it wasn’t until I received some mail from an organic dairy recently that I decided to say anything about it. Every time I visit my local grocery dairy case and see in-store displays and package labeling for Horizon Organic Milk and Stonyfield Yogurt next to the other dairy products it makes me wince. The labels and marketing materials for these products scream out at me with claims of “No Yucky Stuff!” and “No toxic chemicals,’ clearly implying that the less expensive milk and yogurt stacked next to them is yucky and toxic. Most of the time I just think nobody in his right mind is going to believe this malarkey and pay 100% or more of a premium on top of it, so I just keep moving.

However, while preparing for a new baby, my wife and I started to receive copies of new parent and baby magazines and referrals by friends to various Web sites to help guide us on such important issues as nutrition and health for children. And there they were again, alongside the ads for diapers and ointments. Scary admonitions from these same two companies suggesting that milk and dairy products posed dangers for children. Stonyfield had full-page ads in Parenting Magazine for its “Yobaby” products, reminding us that we all care about our kids’ health, and suggesting that we buy their yogurt because “pediatricians recommend milk, milk that doesn’t come from cows treated with synthetic bovine growth hormone.” As if the warning were not clear enough, the text appeared beneath a cow’s skull proclaiming “Synthetic Bovine Growth Hormone. Your Baby Doesn’t Want It.” Another ad in the same series headlines, “Very few recipes call for antibiotics and toxic persistent pesticides.”

Yet, milk from cows supplemented with bovine growth hormone is the exact same milk - there is no difference. That’s the opinion of the American Medical Association and the Journal of Pediatrics. So what pediatricians are Stonyfield using to make their claim? And nobody adds toxic persistent pesticides to yogurt or other dairy products. It’s also worth repeating that organic farmers have a long list of highly toxic pesticides they are allowed to use; ergo, the pesticide claim is misleading at best if not downright false. As for antibiotics, all milk is tested to ensure it is free from any antibiotics. Just like other organic dairies, even Stonyfield farmers practice artificial insemination, a practice which includes the use of antibiotic-embedded semen straws. So the antibiotic references are equally false.

Horizon’s Web site, in the Question and Answer section, definitively states regarding artificial insemination, “No. Our cows are impregnated naturally by bulls.” However, when one of our researchers spoke with a quality control employee at Straus Family Creamery, Inc. in Northern California, he scoffed at the notion that Horizon could make such a claim given that they buy organic milk from hundreds of farms across the country. Straus, one of the self-proclaimed pioneers and leaders in the organic dairy farming industry, does use artificial insemination to impregnate their cows. Even more ironically, according to the quality control expert interviewed, Straus supplies milk to Horizon!

Horizon’s black marketing, preying on the fears of new parents and children, is no different. Horizon’s labels, advertising and marketing materials frequently proclaim their milk is “without hormones, antibiotics or toxic chemicals.” In one Horizon consumer newsletter focusing on children’s health they go so far as to suggest a cancer link to non-Horizon milk. Horizon uses for proof of this claim a citation to a study conducted by Yale epidemiologist Dr. Herbert Yu. When presented with Horizon’s use of his research in this manner, Dr. Yu replied:

“In our JNCI review published in 2000 (the study cited by Horizon), we did not mention anything about milk and dairy products. It would be improper to cite our paper with this respect”. Herbert Yu, MD, PH.D. Department of Epidemiology and Public HealthYale University School of Medicine.

With more than a quarter of a billion dollars in annual sales, you’d think Horizon would have checked these sources when suggesting to parents that they were putting their children at risk of cancer when drinking their competitors’ milk. In fact, the American Cancer Society and every other respected health authority which has reviewed these claims calls these links to cancer suggested by Horizon completely baseless.

As for Horizon’s “hormone-free” claims - Horizon’s whole cancer scare is linked to their non-use of supplemental bovine growth hormones - they too are not quite true. All, all, all milk naturally contains hormones; cows can’t produce milk without it. And Horizon and their suppliers, like other organic dairies, are allowed to use a range of reproductive hormones not prohibited by organic standards. Prostaglandin, estrogen, oxytocin, gonadotropin and other hormone products are used throughout the dairy industry. These products, such as LUTALYSE, carry “extreme caution” warning labels noting that women of child-bearing age, asthmatics, and persons with bronchial and other respiratory problems should not handle this product as it is readily absorbed through the skin and can cause abortion. Yet dairies claiming to be “hormone-free” can use these hormones and still think that it’s OK to make hormone-free claims?

Both Horizon and Stonyfield are making a range of health and nutrition claims online, in their advertising and throughout the marketing of their products aimed at children. These two companies, and there are many others making similar claims, are huge corporations. Horizon has sales of more than $250 million each year, Stonyfield adds another $140 million, and both are growing. They are growing by promoting false fears to new parents and their children through misleading statements, labels and advertising about hormones, pesticides and antibiotics. Where are the watchdogs and regulators to protect us?

Last year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters to four small dairies for making hormone-free claims. Neither Horizon nor Stonyfield got one of these letters. How did the FDA miss the two biggest players in the industry with more “hormone-free” and related claims than anyone else? You cannot walk into a dairy case in any major supermarket today and not see one of these brands with their hormone claims. Even without a vigilant FDA, you’d think Horizon and Stonyfield would have gotten the message and cleaned up their act before they too were held accountable for these marketing abuses.

Well, what are we to do if the regulators aren’t doing their jobs and the fear profiteers aren’t stopping? One, don’t buy their products. There are plenty of good, local and affordable dairy products in most stores. Two, call the regulators at FDA and ask them why they’re letting Horizon, Stonyfield and Organic Valley off the hook. Three, complain to your local supermarket for allowing their dairy case to be used in this unethical and possibly illegal manner. Consumers have the power to make informed choices - and they have the power to choose not to buy from those who would profit from their fear.

Milk is milk Blog by Alex Avery:

The unruly, nasty and just-plain-mean people at PETA (that’s People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and not the parody group People Eating Tasty Animals) have lost a lawsuit in California over what makes a cow happy, and who gets to say so. I have to characterize PETA for who they really are, people-haters, first because… because hold your breath… I sorta agree with them on this one.

I only go so far as to agree that marketing milk by claiming your cows are happy is plain B.S. and it has nothing to do with whether or not PETA believes cows to be unfairly subjugated by humans who steal their milk. However, suggesting some cows are happier than others, at least for the reasons we see in some dairy advertising these days, as a way to sell milk for a higher price is bogus.

Milk from happy cows, by rational economic and production standards, should be cheaper. You see “happy cows” are high-producing cows and the more milk produced per cow means more affordable milk for consumers and higher profits for farmers. Oddly, those making claims about happy cows are most often organic marketers, like Horizon which has trademarked the phrase “happy cow.” Yet research shows organic dairy cows produce 40% less milk than conventional cows. If happy cows produce more milk, then how can cows producing nearly half as much be all that happy?

A few years back I heard one organic dairy company claim that “our cows are sooooo happy, they run out to the pasture to graze after being milked.” This was part of a marketing scheme painting a bucolic picture of a solitary cow gamboling about the fields that had to be thought up on Madison Avenue, because no dairy farmer would tell such a fib. In fact, one of my colleagues asked one of the country’s leading dairy animal scientists Dr. Dale Bauman at Cornell about this claim and it made him laugh. As he explained it, the only way to get a dairy cow to race into a pasture to graze would be if it were starving. That doesn’t sound happy to me.

Cows are herd animals and research shows cows are most contented (there are actually people who monitor animal heart rates and other vitals which can show their stress levels in different situations) when they are with other cows, chewing their cuds or eating feed in the shade of a well-ventilated feed barn. Apparently part of a cow’s natural instincts out in an open field away from the protections of a well-designed feeding space and their other cow pals (i.e., the herd) is to fear predators. This results in stress which can negatively impact milk production.

A happy or rather a “contented cow” does produce more milk. How do you make a cow contented? First by milking it (something PETA doesn’t want us to do at all), and milking it often. Three times a day milking is one great way to make a cow happy. Think about it, if you were filled with 50+ pounds of liquid wouldn’t you want relief more than once or twice a day? A healthy, well-fed cow, free from stress and heat is going to make for a contented cow.

There are lots of other ways to make a cow contented, and thus become a long-lived, high-producer. This is what would make me happy if I were a cow. The more productive I was over a nice long life would keep me away from my second career - can you say Big Mac? What the people marketing “happy cows,” like Horizon, won’t tell you, is their “cull rate.” That’s because most research shows little or no difference in the ages of organic or conventional cows culled (put out to that final pasture, so to speak) when they are no longer economically productive milk producers.

Here at the Center for Global Food Issues, we have developed a certification program to help dairy farmers generate higher yields while conserving more land and resources for nature. Unlike organic, free-range, humane-farmed or other similar marketing seals of approval - our Earth-Friendly/Farm Friendly certification program is based solely on science-proven methods that help farmers produce more while using less. And, adopting some of our recommended practices can help keep cows productive longer (read alive and away from the butcher shop) which should make for happier cows overall. We call it high-yield conservation, and it has the support of Nobel Prize winners, environmentalists and leading political figures around the world.

While working with dairies to adopt standards which would help them generate high yields while protecting scarce natural resources - we like to say, “growing more per acre, leaves more room for nature” - I had the pleasure of visiting a dairy farm in Indiana that is an excellent model for those looking for contented cows. Fair Oaks Dairy, which also offers a great tour and learning experience for school children, is a model of efficiency, animal care and productivity. As a result, they have some really happy cows. But you don’t see them trying to compete for business by trashing their competitors with claims that their animals are any happier or that their milk is somehow different. They are just trying to be the best dairy farmers they can be, using the best tools and technology and taking care of their most important resources - their healthy, happy cows. That’s what most dairy farmers care about, doing a good job and treating their cows well.

While the California “Happy Cow” campaign is relatively harmless, there are some who seek to use animal-welfare and related claims to sell higher-priced milk. Others, like PETA, want to stop animal agriculture all together. Misleading advertising, labels and marketing campaigns suggesting the milk comes from happier cows may make you feel better about paying high prices, but your purchase is probably harming a decent, hard-working, honest dairy producer somewhere with happy cows who doesn’t go around smearing his competitors. Ethical and responsible marketing of dairy products means not misleading consumers about the realities of farming and animal science. Milk is milk.

Milk is milk blog from Alex Avery.

It came in the mail the other day, my “concerned parent toolkit” from the nice-looking people at Organic Valley. It made for compelling reading. Did I care about nutrition issues and safe food choices for children? Was I concerned about such childhood diseases as obesity, diabetes, and cancer? Heck yes!

My wife and I have recently become new parents so I take issues affecting my child’s safety very, very seriously. But what did Organic Valley want to do? Scare me about the safety of non-organic milk and demand that it not be served to school kids!

Why would Organic Valley - family farmers, they claim to be - want to do such a thing? Because Organic Valley sells over $150 million worth of milk, cheese, butter and other products each year, much of which costs 50 to 100 percent more than their conventional competitors. Organic marketers admit that in order to get consumers to pay these hefty premiums they have to believe the products are better for them - or, to believe that other, more affordable products are somehow bad. The problem is, using organic production methods over conventional methods doesn’t alter the milk one bit. It’s not more nutritious and it’s not safer. That’s a fact according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and even the Organic Trade Association.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

USA Today accurately reported that “USDA carefully points out that it makes no claim that organically produced food is safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food… a point often misunderstood by consumers. Some people mistakenly construe (organic food) to be safer or more nutritious, or even that it’s entirely pesticide-free… It’s not.” The Los Angeles Times recently noted that organic claims of superiority are growing… but “scientists, policy analysts and some consumers have begun to ask for proof. Where’s the evidence, they ask, for the widespread belief that organic foods are safer and more nutritious than those raised by conventional farming methods? The short answer, food safety and nutrition scientists say, is that such proof does not exist. Indeed, by one well-established measure of healthfulness–contamination with fecal matter and potentially harmful bacteria–some organic foods may pose greater risks to consumers.”

Organic Valley wants me to lobby my local school officials to dump the affordable, nutritious, safe conventionally-produced milk currently served in our schools. Yet, unlike the pricey organic milk we find in our local markets, conventional milk is more likely to be local, fresh (the only thing which might influence a slight nutritional difference in one bottle of milk over another) and affordable. Check out the labels next time you visit the dairy case where you shop - notice the expiration dates on the packages of organic milk and look for the words “ultra-pasteurized.” More often than not you’ll see that expensive organic milk has a shelf life much longer than the affordable local store brands. That’s because this organic milk is often shipped to the store from operations thousands of miles away and due to the higher price requires longer shelf life waiting for those deep pocketed customers. In fact, many of these ultra-pasteurized dairy products don’t even require refrigeration - but most of us wouldn’t buy milk for our kids that we found stuck somewhere on a shelf next to cocktail olives and detergent. (For good food safety, please always keep any dairy product - especially if the package has been opened - refrigerated.)

But let’s not forget about the price difference. Affordable milk is important for many reasons, not the least of which is that school lunch programs are funded by our tax dollars to ensure that all kids, regardless of their ability to pay, have access to a nutritious meal at least once a day during the school year. Hungry kids don’t learn very well, making them less likely to succeed later in life, thus exacerbating the cycles of poverty which caused them to be hungry in the first place. So, if we’re paying twice as much for the milk, that means less money (from a pretty small pot to begin with) to purchase the rest of their meal - which Organic Valley also wants to be all-organic eventually as well. Starting with milk is their way of getting Joe Camel’s nose under the tent.

Organic Valley wants my kids to grow up fearing dairy products - at least those produced conventionally by the local farmer (simply be trying to make an honest living with his or her local family dairy farm). I guess they figure if my kids become paying consumers they’ll be predisposed to buy their higher-priced products down the line (sounds a little like the charges made against tobacco companies). Right after receiving Organic Valley’s alarming parents’ toolkit, I received their “kids activity kit” with comics and posters proclaiming “Pesticides, hormones and drugs, oh my! Get pure… Pesticides, artificial hormones and drugs are three things you’ll never find in Organic Valley milk…” and “It’s Healthy! Organic valley milk gives your growing body Vitamins A and D…” and “It’s pure milk, made without hormones, antibiotics or pesticides…”

Yikes, hormones in milk? Heavens to Betsy, or Bessie! But wait, all milk naturally contains hormones; Bessie can’t produce milk without them. Ooooh, Organic Valley must mean no “added” hormones. But wait again, Organic Valley adds Vitamin D to their milk - they even promote it next to their no hormone claim. The Vitamin D added to milk is a hormone. And Organic Valley, along with everyone else in the milk industry knows it. But, it puts a kink in your marketing of “hormone-free” dairy products to promote that little piece of knowledge.

What about the other claims: no pesticides, no drugs? The truth is nobody puts pesticides or drugs in milk, and all milk is tested to ensure it’s free from any antibiotic residues before it reaches the supermarket. And organic producers do use pesticides: the list of “allowed” pesticides in organic food production but still highly toxic (they wouldn’t be pesticides if they didn’t kill something) products is long. As for drugs, those allowed are larger in number than those not allowed in organic farming. In fact, many organic dairy farmers use antibiotic embedded artificial insemination and the reproductive hormone prostaglandin, both allowed by organic standards. Organic dairy farmers also inoculate and vaccinate their animals against a range of diseases. Vaccines are drugs last time I checked. Hmmm, sounds like hormones, pesticides and drugs to me.

Why do state and federal regulators responsible for protecting consumers, especially children, from false and misleading claims like this - especially on something as important as milk - let this stuff go unchecked? Why don’t organic trade and professional groups demand higher ethical standards for marketing to protect their producers? Organic Trade Association Director Katherine DiMatteo has publicly stated that, “Organic agriculture is not a food safety claim. That’s not what our standards are about.” So why do they allow, and apparently encourage, their members to market products in this manner?

Heck, there are some nasty class action law firms out there just looking to represent tens of thousands of consumers bilked out of millions of dollars spent on an organic food product because of false advertising claims and misleading labels - that alone should scare these guys away from these tactics. And what about the harm this causes to the non-organic, local family dairy farmers just trying to compete fairly and by the rules? Perhaps these farmers might also have a case to press against this unfair competition.

Look, if you want to adhere to the organic philosophy of production, feel free - just don’t scare others into it with false and misleading claims. And please, please, don’t use fear-based marketing to children or scare parents about their kids’ health to make a buck. Unfortunately, the money hungry marketing machine for the multi-billion organic food industry doesn’t feel the same way I do on this matter. You see, this isn’t just a story about one bad apple Organic Valley. The other big guns in the organic dairy business at Stonyfield Organic Yogurt and Horizon Organic have increasingly been targeting advertising, public relations and marketing to parents and children with the same types of fear-laced claims. We’ll look at them next, but today why don’t you take a minute to call Organic Valley at: 888-444-6455 or email them at: organic@organicvalley.com to let ‘em know what you think about their tactics and ask them if their milk is safer or more nutritious, or how their milk is magically made without hormones. Then tell them to keep their money-grubbing, bullying hands away from our kids’ lunch money.

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Milk is milk home.

Next, Stonyfield Farms and Horizon Organic - more examples of despicable black marketing targeting parents and children…