What is in this article?:
- Dairy Management campaign gives new meaning to the phrase ‘government cheese’
- $140 million for cheese; $6.5 million for nutrition
- Cheese isn't inherently bad
With a budget approaching nearly $140 million, the USDA's Dairy Management group appears to be taking its cheese business very seriously. One has to wonder, however, how seriously the USDA takes its job of promoting and enabling healthier eating in a country that could see its national obesity rate top 40 percent in the next 40 years.
Cheese lovers likely jumped for joy after reading the New York Times’ Nov. 6 article about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s campaign to encourage Americans to eat more cheddar, gouda and other cheese. Run by the USDA’s Dairy Management group, the campaign spurred increased cheese consumption by convincing Domino’s Pizza, Taco Bell and other fast food restaurants to add more cheese to their menu items. The result? The average American consumes about 33 pounds of cheese a year—nearly triple the amount eaten in 1970, the New York Times reported.
Of course, as the newspaper also reported, all of this comes at the same time as the ballooning obesity epidemic in the United States and is being championed (and funded) by the government group that is supposed to serve as the country’s nutrition police.
