Real People Drink Real Milk!

Submitted by Arden Tewksbury

(May 2014) Despite false claims being made by the companies that manufacture imitation milk, nearly all American consumers are still using regular cow milk, not the imitation drink that is being labeled as various kinds of milk.

Actually, in my opinion, this imitation milk should be labeled as a drink, not as milk.

According to Webster’s dictionary, milk comes from mammals. I don’t see where Webster claims that milk comes from plants.

I really don’t see how these imitators get away with calling their drinks milk. Certainly one would agree that in a free economy like we have in the United States, anyone should be able to manufacture any product that is safe and properly labeled. It’s proper time that the organizations that collect a large sum of money from all dairy farmers fight back against these false claims that are airing across the airways concerning regular milk.

During the mid-60s, some milk bottlers including dairy co-operatives, were making imitation milk; usually identified as “filled milk.” It took a lot of work to combat these imitation people, whoops, I mean, these imitation products; however, I think the advertising campaigns that are being carried on today against real milk could turn out to be more serious than what transpired back then.

And you know what? The present administration in Washington, D.C., is not helping the cause with the irresponsible guidelines they have established that forces schools across the United States to serve low fat or nonfat milk to our school children. It’s not regular milk that is causing obesity in our students (wherever obesity might exist); it’s the lack of sufficient exercise coupled with poor nutritional consumption.

I certainly was glad to see the milk moustache ad eliminated. It certainly was not increasing milk sales. In addition, to illustrate the nutritional value of milk, efforts should be put forth to illustrate the safety of milk. Consumers must be made aware that a sample of milk is taken of the milk before it leaves the farm, and a sample is taken at the milk plant before tank loads of milk are unloaded.

I don’t know of any other food that is as safe for consumers to consume as milk.

Yes, one more time milk is being unfairly challenged by different methods. It’s up to our dairy farmers to demand that our advertising agencies do everything possible to illustrate the nutritional value of milk and also inform consumers that milk and milk products are the safest food to consume; I’m tired of the imitation products receiving favorable news items over our nutritional milk and milk products.

When we visited the Olympic site at Lake Placid a few years ago, we were informed that when our athletes finished training, the trainers encouraged the athletes to drink real chocolate milk.

Yes, it is sad to think that our real dairy milk is being victimized by the ads of the imitation milk. These ads are certainly spinning off from the long-standing notoriety of real dairy milk and dairy products.

Recently, I received a call from a dairy farmer in Iowa concerning our suggested supply management program. His concern was penalizing a dairy farmer for over-producing milk when it was not needed, while at the same time, imports of dairy products were causing the potential surplus problem.

The Federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act that was introduced by the late Senator Arlen Specter and Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA) was very clear on this potential problem, and the Act said the Secretary of Agriculture could not implement a milk supply management program if the imports of dairy products superseded the amount of dairy products that were being exported.

Arden Tewksbury is manager for Progressive Agriculture.