11 ms·

America Is Drowning in Milk Nobody Wants

95 points by prostoalex 8y ago

thaumasiotes 8y ago
> For decades, yogurt was runny and high in sugar. “Then Chobani comes onto the scene and changes the idea of what yogurt can be.” Um... Plain yogurt from Chobani: serving size 150g, of which 15g sugar. ( https://www.chobani.com/products/greek/plain/non-fat-plain/ https://www.chobani.com/products/greek/plain/non-fat-plain/ ) Cookies-and-cream flavored yogurt from Yoplait: serving size 170g, of which 19g sugar. (All yogurt in the same product line has the same amount of sugar, but it's more fun to quote it for cookies-and-cream. https://www.yoplait.com/product/regular-original-cookies-cream https://www.yoplait.com/product/regular-original-cookies-cre... ) Chobani didn't change the idea that yogurt is high in sugar. What was that comment about?
- credit_guy 8y ago
  There's a chance that is lactose, which, per the FDA [1] counts as sugar for nutrition labelling purposes. [1] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/interactivenutritionfactslabel/factsheets/sugars.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/interactivenutritionf... [2]https://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/johannah-sakimura-nutrition-sleuth/dont-sweat-over-sugar-in-plain-dairy/ https://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/johannah-sakimura-nut...
  - masklinn 8y ago
    > There's a chance that is lactose, which, per the FDA [1] counts as sugar for nutrition labelling purposes. I'd expect most sugar in yogurt to not be lactose: part of the point and advantage of yogurt and other fermented dairy (and they're commonly consumed in places with low to no lactase persistence) is the cultures break down much of the milk's lactose into simpler sugars. In fact, the chobani nutrition section quotes 6g carbs, 4g sugars, less than 5% lactose. More to the point, unsweetened yogurt should contain about the same sugar ratio as milk (4~6% by weight on average), >10% (the yoplait one) is way above the upper end and indicates added sugars. GP misread the chobani's nutrition label though, they quote 6g carbs (4g sugars) per 5.3oz (150g) not 15g.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago
  15g protein. Only 4g sugar.
- empath75 8y ago
  I think you read that wrong. It doesn’t have 15g of sugar. Greek yogurt is regular yogurt that has been strained— the whey that they discard has a lot of the sugar content. Its closer to a soft cheese than a traditional yogurt.
  - grenoire 8y ago
    Traditional? You must realise that Greek yoghurt is the closest you can get to the historical origins of it.
    - matthewmacleod 8y ago
      And you must realise that different regions have different traditional concepts of food products.
      - Moru 8y ago
        And ofcourse everything that we think of as traditional whatever is all but traditionally manufactured nowadays
- DanBC 8y ago
  What's the amount of added sugar?
  - masklinn 8y ago
    None in the chobani (GP misread the nutrition information, it lists 6g carbs of which 4g sugars), a ton in the yoplait (sugars is the second ingredient in the list).
- masklinn 8y ago
  > Plain yogurt from Chobani: serving size 150g, of which 15g sugar. ( https://www.chobani.com/products/greek/plain/non-fat-plain/ https://www.chobani.com/products/greek/plain/non-fat-plain/ ) Not sure where you've read that, the page lists 6g carbs (4g sugars), roughly in line with cow milk. > Cookies-and-cream flavored yogurt from Yoplait: serving size 170g, of which 19g sugar. "Sugars" is literally the second ingredient in the list, right behind low-fat milk.
- torstenvl 8y ago
  Please cite your sources accurately. The Yoplait has more than four times the amount of sugar as the Chobani, almost twice the calories, and less than half the protein. Total Fat 0g 0% Saturated Fat 0g 0% Trans Fat 0g - Cholesterol 10mg 3% Potassium 210mg 6% Sodium 55mg 2% Total Carbs 6g 2% Dietary Fiber 0g 0% Sugars 4g - Protein 15g
mratzloff 8y ago
I'm sure with falling prices the market will correct itself. I was going to make a snarky comment about US dairy subsidies, but aside from a billion dollar giveaway in 2009, those are almost nothing today. $370,000 in 2017.
- lprubin 8y ago
  It sounds like these dairy subsidies fluctuate greatly. In 2016, the dairy industry asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for a staggering $150 million to buy their excess cheese. A spokesperson for the National Farmers Union said they were disappointed to receive “only” $20 million. [0] And according to this 600 page Canadian report, indirect subsidies are also a huge factor and contribute to 73 percent of producer returns coming from subsidies. [1] The American government contributed around $22.2 billion in direct and indirect subsidies to the dairy sector in 2015. [0] https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/377406-dairy-industry-doesnt-deserve-american-taxpayer-bailout https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/377406-dairy-... [1] https://www.realagriculture.com/2018/02/u-s-dairy-subsidies-equal-73-percent-of-producer-returns-says-new-report/ https://www.realagriculture.com/2018/02/u-s-dairy-subsidies-...
  - kylek 8y ago
    If you're interested in this you can dig deeper at https://farm.ewg.org https://farm.ewg.org
Symbiote 8y ago
The first graph, "New York's Shrinking Dairy Herd Starts To Grow Again", has a Y-axis starting at 610,000 and a maximum of about 627,000. I expect Bloomberg to represent a 2.5% change more honestly.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tmoertel 8y ago
  It's common in financial publications, and in other publications with numerically literate audiences, to focus statistical graphics on the region of interest (except in bar charts, in which bars are expected to sit on a baseline of zero). For example, stock charts, one of the most common plots in financial publications, follow this practice: http://google.com/search?q=GOOG http://google.com/search?q=GOOG
srgpqt 8y ago
Excess milk? Make cheese curds and sell poutine. Never understood why it hasn’t caught on much in the USA.
- alexkavon 8y ago
  I’m actually surprised as well. Totally a match for the American diet. Meanwhile in Alphabet City, NYC a restaurant sells it for $20 a pop. It might have more to do with the image of poutine. It’s gravy, cheese, and fries, it looks messy and unhealthy. I’m not sure about the messy part (forks maybe), but sprinkle some chives on top (mostly for color) and most people will be fooled.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - yostrovs 8y ago
    They're called chili cheese fries. And they're popular here and there.
    - thrower123 8y ago
      That's often different thing from real Quebecois poutine, most of the time. The cheese curds are different than queso-type cheese sauce I usually see in the US. It's only relatively recently that I've been able to regularly find curd cheese in the grocery store; when I was a kid, one of the best parts of going to Canada was getting packages of "squeaky cheese" as a road snack from little Esso stations.
      - yostrovs 8y ago
        Of course they're not exactly the same, but I'm saying you're not going to wow Americans with poutine. They'll look at it and say it's some kind of chili cheese fries. And it kind of is.
        8y ago
jacob019 8y ago
China is a massive consumer of dried milk powder. I wonder if the trump tariffs have anything to do with the changing demand for US milk.
- Taniwha 8y ago
  Bound to be, but also some competitors on the international market like New Zealand (which has no government price supports or subsidies), have free trade agreements with China. If you become insular and erect tariff walls people play where there are none and they make more money. The real problem is govt price supports, often brought in to tide people over for a year, once people start to depend on them they really stop working, you get stuck with inefficient industries when people should be growing something else, or simply be in another business. When NZ cut all farm subsidies back in the 80s farmers formed farmer cooperatives, in the dairy industry they now own most of the back end milk processing infrastructure, they're big enough that they are big players on the world markets, and the profits go back to their owners
douglaswlance 8y ago
We just opened up the Canadian market.
- 1over137 8y ago
  (Not sure who 'we' is but,) in the recent renegotiation of NAFTA, Canada did surrender some additional access to their domestic dairy market. The USA was demanding 100% access, but got only a couple of % more. But CETA, CPTPP, and USMCA combined get only 10% total of the total Canadian market. Basically, Canada prefers to have its supply management system, and the USA prefers have its massive subsidies.
  - BareNakedCoder 8y ago
    Canadian here. Although my personal politics tends to be CENTRE-right (note the capitalization) and favouring market forces, I do see some merit in supply management to avoid the extreme pain being experienced by the American dairy farmers mentioned in the article. Yes, we mostly do prefer supply management, paid for by dairy consumers, than massive subsidies, paid for by all taxpayers and leading to wasted output. For details, read Wikipedia [0]. Some quotes: - High (tariffs) are only placed on imports above the quota, not on all the dairy products sold to Canada. - Canada's milk quota system is butterfat-based so the highest TRQ is on butter at 298.5%. - By 2018 the United States's quantitative (tariff) threshold for the import of milk products is 3% and Canada's is 10%. - designed to prevent shortages and surpluses, to ensure farmers a fair rate of return and Canadian consumer access to a high-quality, stable, and secure supply of these sensitive products. Mr T, in his incendiary speeches to his tribe, was selective with his facts. The 300% tariff does not apply to all dairy; only butter and only when exceeding USA's quota (Canadian farmers who exceed their quota cannot sell at all). The threats and beatings delivered by Mr T's negotiators did "open up" the Canadian dairy market a little, but supply management is still intact and "diversification" is now on the minds of many Canadians. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada)
    - pcc 8y ago
gerbilly 8y ago
This must be why the US wants to force Canada to get rid of it's milk supply management system. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1254398531823 https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1254398531823
lucidguppy 8y ago
Stop breeding milk cows...
- stephengillie 8y ago
  A supply side solution to a weakening demand? That's just logical enough to work.
- jaclaz 8y ago
  ... or start making more buttons ... http://plastiquarian.com/?page_id=14228 http://plastiquarian.com/?page_id=14228 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galalith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galalith
m_mueller 8y ago
Switzerland has had the exact same problem due to heavy dairy subsidies. Besides scaling back on subsidies, Fondue and Raclette was pushed heavily in marketing, which is probably why these are staples of Swiss food nowadays. I'm sometimes asking myself whether tabletop style Raclette couldn't be popular in the US. How strong is America's distaste for cooking food at the table (I'm just going by Lost in Translation here)? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raclette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raclette
- rco8786 8y ago
  Not at all. We consider it something of a luxury, in fact. (Cooking food at the table)
  - toweringgoat 8y ago
    So much this. The average Swiss person eats Fondue 1x per year, similarly Raclette.
    - m_mueller 8y ago
      I doubt your numbers. According to [1], average per capita consumption of Raclette was 1.35kg per year in 2006, and that includes infants. Gruyere was even >1.7kg per year, and I'm sure a lot of that goes into Fondues. I don't know about you, but I can't down 1.35kg of Raclette in one sitting, and I don't think Swiss have changed that much since 2006 ;). [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/record-growth-in-swiss-cheese-consumption/5174336 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/record-growth-in-swiss-cheese-c...
- sjg007 8y ago
  It was big in the 70s. I enjoy cheese fondue and raclette.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  Is this why Costco stores have so much cheap Jarlsberg Swiss?
mynegation 8y ago
“Dairy farmers are free-market guys—they don’t want to be told how much to produce,” Sounds like a contradiction - if no one else, free-market will tell you how much to produce. Does not look like farmers are listening.
- Matticus_Rex 8y ago
  And don't we have price floors for milk in the US? In a free market the price would just keep dropping, which can't happen here, so you just get a glut.
  - mynegation 8y ago
    Do you? Article says that subsidies to milk farmers are virtually non-existent these days and they dump the excess milk.
  - setr 8y ago
    At some point, the cost to package & bring the milk to the store will exceed the price of selling the milk, so you’ll hit a price floor regardless. And it becomes the same issue: you now can’t sell the excess milk but you still have all the production facilities. So you store it in your buffer and hold onto production, and eventually if you end up overflowing the buffer, you’ll have no choice but to drop production (which is expensive to bring back up, so highly avoidable)
  - sciurus 8y ago
    It seems that we don't currently have a milk price floor in the US, although farmers are lobbying for one. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/05/01/americas-dairyland-reels-low-milk-prices-destroy-family-farms/569277002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/05/01/ame...
    - tedunangst 8y ago
      Neither that article nor this one seem to even mention existing policies? https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/dairy/policy.aspx https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/dairy/policy...
homonculus1 8y ago
I wouldn't expect Bloomberg to represent anything honestly.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  I wouldn't read Washington Post for technology: I read it for politics. I don't read Bloomberg for technology news, I read it for investment news. Well, there's certainly a problem with Bloomberg's technology / cyber-attack division. But Bloomberg as a whole is one of the better investment newspapers. IMO, Bloomberg probably should just stop writing about cyber-attacks. They're clearly incompetent at that and its causing people to lose trust in the greater newspaper. But I won't go to Ars Technica to read about insider Washington politics. Its a matter of recognizing what these papers are "good" in.
  - lostmsu 8y ago
    Haven't you seen that idea, that you might know some media sucks in tech, but think is ok in other stuff, because you are an expert in tech, but not in that other stuff? E.g. Bloomberg might suck in everything, but you'd only see a problem with tech.
    - dragontamer 8y ago
      I'm not an expert in finance / investing. But I think I'm good enough to see that Bloomberg has great economic analysis and breakdowns into company financials. Here are some key quotes from the article in question that demonstrate Bloomberg's research ability into financial / investment matters. > From April 2017 to April 2018, sales of Chobani products grew only 1 percent while sales by all companies in the segment slipped 2.2 percent. > The key ratio of income-to-feed costs reveals that dairy farmers have very little margin left these days, said Bill Brooks, an economist at INTL FCStone. Feed such as alfalfa and hay are more expensive than last year, as are labor and energy expenses. > The amount of milk dumped by farmers in the U.S. Northeast reached almost 145 million pounds through July—the most in at least a decade—including 23.6 million pounds that month alone. ------- These are specific statistics. And sure, they may be available from publicly available research sources, but they contribute to the article's primary thesis. Knowing what statistics seem relevant for a particular article is what Bloomberg is good at. Besides, these individual statistics are relatively easy to check. The main benefit of Bloomberg is their ability to collate various information sources together into a singular article.
travisgriggs 8y ago
Didn’t read the article. Just saw the “Bloomberg” in parentheses and thought “ah some reporter at Bloomberg is trying to get his yearly bonus by moving the dairy market.” Which is irrational and silly. But it’s amazing the way something like the controversy around “The Big Hack” brews suspicion.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Which is irrational and silly. Not really irrational. Half of what's published is PR in one form or another.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
stevespang 8y ago
Milk is an industrially produced commodity in the US with it's own contamination problems. Most flavored Yogurt in the US is so full of sugar it's more of a health liability than a health product, I had to give it up.
stephengillie 8y ago
Chobani is mentioned so many times that this must be paid for by that company. The article is a dress that barely covers an advertisement's bare bottom.
dmritard96 8y ago
Surprised there was no mention of non dairy milk. Almond, soy and others have all taken over much of the aisles, has to leave a mark I would imagi ne.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Hm. Not in Iowa. I see them on their one shelf in the grocery Wall of Dairy. Cows milk has 6 cases.
- lprubin 8y ago
  An estimated $2.11 billion U.S. sales. I would think that has to impact milk sales. [0] In their market research of consumers, the same article found that many people are intentionally consuming less dairy. ...nearly one in five (19%) Americans claims to be consuming less dairy for health reasons. [0]http://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/article/us-non-dairy-milk-sales-reach-211-billion-2017-61-2012 http://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/article/us-non-dairy-milk-...
- lozenge 8y ago
  Keep in mind it often has a much longer shelf life so the shelf space is not a good measure.* Also, my local store has milk cart shelves on wheels that can be restocked much faster than fixed shelves. Tip: the same non dairy milk can be found a smidgen cheaper non refrigerated
  - rsynnott 8y ago
    I’ve never seen it on sale refrigerated, really. It’s generally shelf stable; why would you bother?
    - calvano915 8y ago
      At Costco, they sell box type non-dairy milk as room temp and shelf stable, while other almond and coconut milks are in half gallon form and refrigerated. Not sure whether the latter actually require refrigeration before opening.
ksec 8y ago
They could have export more milk, UHT, Cream Cheese, Butter etc. Instead they won't interested. They won't interested in completing against EU, AUS, New Zealand's dairy products. I doubt they will lose any money if they were priced competitively against it, they are just likely to have less profit margins. Actually that is not a totally fair assessment, since a few of them did complete on price, but their quality won't as good. And they blame it on their international sales staff, which has since changed hands multiple times. P.S Those companies do not include any Multinational like Nestle USA, Danone, and Kraft Heinz.
andy_ppp 8y ago
This made me think of this incredible piece of art by Mishka Henner that I saw in Edinburgh at the Scottish National Gallery: https://mishkahenner.com/Feedlots https://mishkahenner.com/Feedlots
- jacobush 8y ago
  what is that?
  - saganus 8y ago
    Massive cattle farms according to the text below the pictures.
    - jacobush 8y ago
      It looked so disconcerting I clicked it away immediately. I was so sure it was a tiled wall of some kind in a slaughter house - and a nightmarish rendition of a cross section of a heart or an animal or a clogged vein. It was all of these things
      - saganus 8y ago
        Yes. The pictures look strange indeed.
  - stevenwoo 8y ago
    Prior to slaughter, most large scale farming of animals has a finishing step where the animals are confined to limit movement to fatten them up. In and Out has said it was limiting their expansion eastward to Texas because they did not want to freeze their beef, probably not coincidentally cattle feedlots range from California to Texas, north to Colorado, that I have seen personally.
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  If you live in California, you can smell the feedlots for miles near Coalinga/Harris Ranch on I-5 while driving between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and when cattle are visible, it appears much denser than that photograph, but that may be sample bias where the cows just like to get closer to the fence for some reason, need a drone to have a better idea.
Waterluvian 8y ago
I had a thought the other day. Did we convince people that fat was bad, and then used that to water down milk so that from one harvest we could sell more watery milk and other dairy fat products?
- orev 8y ago
  Removing fat from milk does not make it “watered down”, it’s just not as rich in fat. If you’re trying to say there’s some kind of collusion going on between milk producers and other makers of high-fat foods — do you really think any of the industrial food companies care at all that people would exceed their RDA of fat?
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  They skimmed the fat so it could be sold as cheese and other dairy products, yes. Americans basically didn't even reduce their dairy fat intake, they just increased how much $$ they were spending on it across more dairy products.
danso 8y ago
Planet Money recently had a great episode about "Big Government Cheese", which covered the Carter administration's proposal to subsidize milk, which created a milk surplus so big that it had to create a bureaucracy to grade and store cheese, and then eventually, to repackage and give it away: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=643471690 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... > DUFFIN: By the early 1980s, the dairy support program was costing taxpayers around $2 billion a year. The government was buying 1 in every 4 pounds of the country's cheddar cheese. They actually had to rent out space in multiple caves. At one point, the government was storing two pounds of cheese for every single American citizen.
ccvannorman 8y ago
I found this article unreadable as Bloomberg's relentless assault (of ads) on my eyes nearly gave me a seizure. Note to self: Don't read Bloomberg.
mrfusion 8y ago
What about turning milk into a biofuel? Can yeast grow in milk and produce alcohol?
- Something1234 8y ago
  I would love to see biofuel done with surplus milk. It's full of excess fat, so it shouldn't be too hard to convert it to biodiesel or candles. I have heard of vodka made from milk[1]. I would really like to try that one. There's also milk beers[2]. Although I don't like the taste of them. [1]: https://www.blackcow.co.uk/ https://www.blackcow.co.uk/ [2]: http://allaboutbeer.com/article/milk-stout-2/ http://allaboutbeer.com/article/milk-stout-2/
  - 1over137 8y ago
    If the Earth's cows were a country, they'd be the #3 GHG emitter. Making milk to make fuel would be horribly inefficient and detrimental to the environment. We simply need less cows.
    - Something1234 8y ago
      It would be nice to get rid of the excess cows, but since that won't happen. It's better to make something out of the excess rather than let it go to waste. Especially considering that a large amount of fat is produced from skim milk. This fat just goes into making cheese, and deflating the cost of cheese. More cheese than most people would like to eat.
- orev 8y ago
  Seems like that would be awfully inefficient. We use oil (fertilizer) to grow corn and soybeans, which we then feed to cows, which then convert it to milk. Each step in the process reduces the efficiency. Why not just use the oil for fuel? Or convert the corn the ethanol if that type of oil is not useful as fuel? The efficiency of ethanol is already in question due to the use of corn.
  - 8y ago
wgerard 8y ago
I'm curious how much of this is because of demographic trends in America--Lactose intolerance for adults is relatively common among everyone except northern europeans. Would especially explain the decline in liquid milk consumption (and also part of the popularity of greek yogurt, which is pretty low in lactose content).
- burfog 8y ago
  everyone except 1. northwestern Europeans, centered around Belgium 2. The Maasai tribe, of Kenya and Tanzania
Animats 8y ago
The US dairy industry and the USDA have a large operation to promote cheese. With everything. Over half of Dunkin' Donuts offerings now include cheese, and they are rebranding to "Dunkin". Cheese filled tacos are now a thing. I recently chewed out a restaurant manager of a "natural" and "green" restaurant when they started putting cheese on a piece of plain salmon on top of fresh greens. That's a chef problem - they have to add something to justify being paid more than McDonalds.
- gurumeditations 8y ago
  You yelled at a restaurant manager for putting cheese on your salmon? Wow.
novaRom 8y ago
I found accidentally many of my digestive problems gone just after I stopped consuming milk-based products for a week. I wonder now how and why our diet has evolved in that way.
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  The ability to digest milk's lactose in adults is only retained in some Northern European and African (notably cattle raising cultures like the Maasai) descendants who traditionally drank milk as adults. It's genetic AFAIK.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
There have been dairy issues since forever. It works like this, if you just let the market decide then a few big dairy producers will drive all of the other dairies out of business and the only milk products on the market will be of lower quality than they are today. If you prop up the market with subsidies and minimum prices you force the cost of milk to rise and natural economics causes people to substitute something else that is less expensive. But if the subsidies are paid to the farmers, and not to the consumers, the farmers keep producing milk products even when the market doesn't want them at the price they are producing them. Places that would like dairy products outside the US are already protecting their own dairy farmers and so they are tariffing the heck out of milk (see the Canadian discussion as part of the USMCA proposal). Many dairy products are perishable with a short life although a big chunk of my uncle's dairy output ended up as non-fat dry milk. This makes it harder to store over periods of lower demand, and cows produce at a fairly constant rate whether you like it or not. Supply management is tough. Milk and cheese would be a good candidate for a basic income sort of scheme. Where everyone would be issued milk and cheese vouchers every month that could be exchanged for milk and cheese at the local package milk store. People who didn't want their coupons could give them to people who did. That would create a 'base layer' of milk production and consumption that would keep dairies around but take milk and cheese out of the cost of living equation. I'm sure there are other reasons why this is impractical but the whole problem is fairly intractable as it is without putting farms out of business. EDIT: One interesting thing would be to tie the price of sugared drinks to the price of milk. So it wouldn't be cheaper to give your kids soda than milk. Again, impractical but it is a challenging problem.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Milk and cheese would be a good candidate for a basic income sort of scheme Why milk? Vegetables make more sense. Milk is not a necessary foodstuff. Creating labelling standards for high-quality milk and letting the market do its job would be the most-reasonable outcome.
  - barrkel 8y ago
    That's a universal argument for industrializing all food production. No food is a necessary foodstuff. It does not follow that all our food should be industrially produced. (Free market food production will end up industrially produced, because that's how you minimize costs and maximize profits. I, for one, don't want to live in a country like that and will vote for laws that help prevent it happening.)
Invictus0 8y ago
Do farmers ever learn? Bandwagoning onto the latest food fad is the failure story that just repeats itself over and over again. Farms are firms in a perfectly competitive market: why invest oodles of capital to chase what is basically noise in the market? Why is anyone surprised when the market contracts?
hugh4life 8y ago
If I were the milk industry, I'd heavily promote meal replacements that use milk as a base. Especially in places where milk is cheap. I love Milk Fuel(formerly Schmilk) and I think it would be a good breakfast replacement for the masses. http://superbodyfuel.com/shop/milk-fuel/ http://superbodyfuel.com/shop/milk-fuel/
rootsudo 8y ago
The funny part is, in Asia, Dairy is a premium. Look at Philippines for example, stagnant production since 1995- http://www.nda.da.gov.ph/images/2017/data/Phil%20%20DAiry%20Update%202017.pdf http://www.nda.da.gov.ph/images/2017/data/Phil%20%20DAiry%20... I'm not Filipino, but, hell I would love to manufacture milk products. The thing that fuels it is A: local population isn't used to dairy. B: Yogurt and such are considered high premium -- a half kilo of yogurt at the store costs $5-7$, a kilo about $10, from Australia.
- rootsudo 8y ago
  https://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Dairy%20and%20Products%20Annual_Manila_Philippines_10-3-2017.pdf https://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Dairy... Better article.
plg 8y ago
I switched to fortified vanilla soy milk about 2 weeks ago, (from 1% milk), and holy moly what a difference. I have a big bowl of breakfast cereal and milk for breakfast, and also milk in a morning latte and a mid-day latte. Switching to soy milk: - in 2 weeks I have lost about 5 lbs (all other food, and exercise routines, stayed the same) - I feel less bloated after breakfast and after coffee Maybe I was dealing with a slight lactose intolerance, I dunno (is there such a things as a "slight" lactose intolerance??). Anyway, I'm not switching back.
- pentae 8y ago
  I've always avoided Soy as I read a long time ago that it contains plant based estrogen and can be a problem for men like gynecomastia. Of course, I have no idea if that's true or not but I'd rather not worry about it and just pick up Almond milk instead.
  - wingworks 8y ago
    Same here, I made the switch to Almond milk about a year ago and have stopped using any "real" milk or butter as prices here in New Zealand are through the roof at the moment (e.g. 500g butter is $6.30 NZD ($4.15 USD), over double what they used to be. I have no plans to go back either, I feel great these days, and I'm pretty sure it's because of the lack of milk products.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    It's not.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    Humans don't digest soy in the same way as animal models - studies found no hormonal impact on a heavy soy diet. If hormone absorption was that readily influenced digestively one should only eat meat of the same sex and athletes should be eating rocky mountain oysters and spotted hyena meat frequently as a loophole for steroids as it is just food that happens to have testerone and not drugs.
- frankydp 8y ago

95 points by prostoalex 8y ago

> For decades, yogurt was runny and high in sugar. “Then Chobani comes onto the scene and changes the idea of what yogurt can be.” Um... Plain yogurt from Chobani: serving size 150g, of which 15g sugar. ( https://www.chobani.com/products/greek/plain/non-fat-plain/ https://www.chobani.com/products/greek/plain/non-fat-plain/ ) Cookies-and-cream flavored yogurt from Yoplait: serving size 170g, of which 19g sugar. (All yogurt in the same product line has the same amount of sugar, but it's more fun to quote it for cookies-and-cream. https://www.yoplait.com/product/regular-original-cookies-cream https://www.yoplait.com/product/regular-original-cookies-cre... ) Chobani didn't change the idea that yogurt is high in sugar. What was that comment about?

credit_guy 8y ago
There's a chance that is lactose, which, per the FDA [1] counts as sugar for nutrition labelling purposes. [1] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/interactivenutritionfactslabel/factsheets/sugars.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/interactivenutritionf... [2]https://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/johannah-sakimura-nutrition-sleuth/dont-sweat-over-sugar-in-plain-dairy/ https://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/johannah-sakimura-nut...
- masklinn 8y ago
  > There's a chance that is lactose, which, per the FDA [1] counts as sugar for nutrition labelling purposes. I'd expect most sugar in yogurt to not be lactose: part of the point and advantage of yogurt and other fermented dairy (and they're commonly consumed in places with low to no lactase persistence) is the cultures break down much of the milk's lactose into simpler sugars. In fact, the chobani nutrition section quotes 6g carbs, 4g sugars, less than 5% lactose. More to the point, unsweetened yogurt should contain about the same sugar ratio as milk (4~6% by weight on average), >10% (the yoplait one) is way above the upper end and indicates added sugars. GP misread the chobani's nutrition label though, they quote 6g carbs (4g sugars) per 5.3oz (150g) not 15g.
lern_too_spel 8y ago
15g protein. Only 4g sugar.
empath75 8y ago
I think you read that wrong. It doesn’t have 15g of sugar. Greek yogurt is regular yogurt that has been strained— the whey that they discard has a lot of the sugar content. Its closer to a soft cheese than a traditional yogurt.
- grenoire 8y ago
  Traditional? You must realise that Greek yoghurt is the closest you can get to the historical origins of it.
  - matthewmacleod 8y ago
    And you must realise that different regions have different traditional concepts of food products.
    - Moru 8y ago
      And ofcourse everything that we think of as traditional whatever is all but traditionally manufactured nowadays
DanBC 8y ago
What's the amount of added sugar?
- masklinn 8y ago
  None in the chobani (GP misread the nutrition information, it lists 6g carbs of which 4g sugars), a ton in the yoplait (sugars is the second ingredient in the list).
masklinn 8y ago
> Plain yogurt from Chobani: serving size 150g, of which 15g sugar. ( https://www.chobani.com/products/greek/plain/non-fat-plain/ https://www.chobani.com/products/greek/plain/non-fat-plain/ ) Not sure where you've read that, the page lists 6g carbs (4g sugars), roughly in line with cow milk. > Cookies-and-cream flavored yogurt from Yoplait: serving size 170g, of which 19g sugar. "Sugars" is literally the second ingredient in the list, right behind low-fat milk.
torstenvl 8y ago
Please cite your sources accurately. The Yoplait has more than four times the amount of sugar as the Chobani, almost twice the calories, and less than half the protein. Total Fat 0g 0% Saturated Fat 0g 0% Trans Fat 0g - Cholesterol 10mg 3% Potassium 210mg 6% Sodium 55mg 2% Total Carbs 6g 2% Dietary Fiber 0g 0% Sugars 4g - Protein 15g

mratzloff 8y ago

I'm sure with falling prices the market will correct itself. I was going to make a snarky comment about US dairy subsidies, but aside from a billion dollar giveaway in 2009, those are almost nothing today. $370,000 in 2017.

lprubin 8y ago
It sounds like these dairy subsidies fluctuate greatly. In 2016, the dairy industry asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for a staggering $150 million to buy their excess cheese. A spokesperson for the National Farmers Union said they were disappointed to receive “only” $20 million. [0] And according to this 600 page Canadian report, indirect subsidies are also a huge factor and contribute to 73 percent of producer returns coming from subsidies. [1] The American government contributed around $22.2 billion in direct and indirect subsidies to the dairy sector in 2015. [0] https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/377406-dairy-industry-doesnt-deserve-american-taxpayer-bailout https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/377406-dairy-... [1] https://www.realagriculture.com/2018/02/u-s-dairy-subsidies-equal-73-percent-of-producer-returns-says-new-report/ https://www.realagriculture.com/2018/02/u-s-dairy-subsidies-...
- kylek 8y ago
  If you're interested in this you can dig deeper at https://farm.ewg.org https://farm.ewg.org

Symbiote 8y ago

The first graph, "New York's Shrinking Dairy Herd Starts To Grow Again", has a Y-axis starting at 610,000 and a maximum of about 627,000. I expect Bloomberg to represent a 2.5% change more honestly.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tmoertel 8y ago
It's common in financial publications, and in other publications with numerically literate audiences, to focus statistical graphics on the region of interest (except in bar charts, in which bars are expected to sit on a baseline of zero). For example, stock charts, one of the most common plots in financial publications, follow this practice: http://google.com/search?q=GOOG http://google.com/search?q=GOOG

srgpqt 8y ago

Excess milk? Make cheese curds and sell poutine. Never understood why it hasn’t caught on much in the USA.

alexkavon 8y ago
I’m actually surprised as well. Totally a match for the American diet. Meanwhile in Alphabet City, NYC a restaurant sells it for $20 a pop. It might have more to do with the image of poutine. It’s gravy, cheese, and fries, it looks messy and unhealthy. I’m not sure about the messy part (forks maybe), but sprinkle some chives on top (mostly for color) and most people will be fooled.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yostrovs 8y ago
  They're called chili cheese fries. And they're popular here and there.
  - thrower123 8y ago
    That's often different thing from real Quebecois poutine, most of the time. The cheese curds are different than queso-type cheese sauce I usually see in the US. It's only relatively recently that I've been able to regularly find curd cheese in the grocery store; when I was a kid, one of the best parts of going to Canada was getting packages of "squeaky cheese" as a road snack from little Esso stations.
    - yostrovs 8y ago
      Of course they're not exactly the same, but I'm saying you're not going to wow Americans with poutine. They'll look at it and say it's some kind of chili cheese fries. And it kind of is.
      - 8y ago

jacob019 8y ago

China is a massive consumer of dried milk powder. I wonder if the trump tariffs have anything to do with the changing demand for US milk.

Taniwha 8y ago
Bound to be, but also some competitors on the international market like New Zealand (which has no government price supports or subsidies), have free trade agreements with China. If you become insular and erect tariff walls people play where there are none and they make more money. The real problem is govt price supports, often brought in to tide people over for a year, once people start to depend on them they really stop working, you get stuck with inefficient industries when people should be growing something else, or simply be in another business. When NZ cut all farm subsidies back in the 80s farmers formed farmer cooperatives, in the dairy industry they now own most of the back end milk processing infrastructure, they're big enough that they are big players on the world markets, and the profits go back to their owners

douglaswlance 8y ago

We just opened up the Canadian market.

1over137 8y ago
(Not sure who 'we' is but,) in the recent renegotiation of NAFTA, Canada did surrender some additional access to their domestic dairy market. The USA was demanding 100% access, but got only a couple of % more. But CETA, CPTPP, and USMCA combined get only 10% total of the total Canadian market. Basically, Canada prefers to have its supply management system, and the USA prefers have its massive subsidies.
- BareNakedCoder 8y ago
  Canadian here. Although my personal politics tends to be CENTRE-right (note the capitalization) and favouring market forces, I do see some merit in supply management to avoid the extreme pain being experienced by the American dairy farmers mentioned in the article. Yes, we mostly do prefer supply management, paid for by dairy consumers, than massive subsidies, paid for by all taxpayers and leading to wasted output. For details, read Wikipedia [0]. Some quotes: - High (tariffs) are only placed on imports above the quota, not on all the dairy products sold to Canada. - Canada's milk quota system is butterfat-based so the highest TRQ is on butter at 298.5%. - By 2018 the United States's quantitative (tariff) threshold for the import of milk products is 3% and Canada's is 10%. - designed to prevent shortages and surpluses, to ensure farmers a fair rate of return and Canadian consumer access to a high-quality, stable, and secure supply of these sensitive products. Mr T, in his incendiary speeches to his tribe, was selective with his facts. The 300% tariff does not apply to all dairy; only butter and only when exceeding USA's quota (Canadian farmers who exceed their quota cannot sell at all). The threats and beatings delivered by Mr T's negotiators did "open up" the Canadian dairy market a little, but supply management is still intact and "diversification" is now on the minds of many Canadians. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_management_(Canada)
  - pcc 8y ago

gerbilly 8y ago

This must be why the US wants to force Canada to get rid of it's milk supply management system. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1254398531823 https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1254398531823

lucidguppy 8y ago

Stop breeding milk cows...

stephengillie 8y ago
A supply side solution to a weakening demand? That's just logical enough to work.
jaclaz 8y ago
... or start making more buttons ... http://plastiquarian.com/?page_id=14228 http://plastiquarian.com/?page_id=14228 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galalith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galalith

m_mueller 8y ago

Switzerland has had the exact same problem due to heavy dairy subsidies. Besides scaling back on subsidies, Fondue and Raclette was pushed heavily in marketing, which is probably why these are staples of Swiss food nowadays. I'm sometimes asking myself whether tabletop style Raclette couldn't be popular in the US. How strong is America's distaste for cooking food at the table (I'm just going by Lost in Translation here)? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raclette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raclette

rco8786 8y ago
Not at all. We consider it something of a luxury, in fact. (Cooking food at the table)
- toweringgoat 8y ago
  So much this. The average Swiss person eats Fondue 1x per year, similarly Raclette.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    I doubt your numbers. According to [1], average per capita consumption of Raclette was 1.35kg per year in 2006, and that includes infants. Gruyere was even >1.7kg per year, and I'm sure a lot of that goes into Fondues. I don't know about you, but I can't down 1.35kg of Raclette in one sitting, and I don't think Swiss have changed that much since 2006 ;). [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/record-growth-in-swiss-cheese-consumption/5174336 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/record-growth-in-swiss-cheese-c...
sjg007 8y ago
It was big in the 70s. I enjoy cheese fondue and raclette.
stephengillie 8y ago
Is this why Costco stores have so much cheap Jarlsberg Swiss?

mynegation 8y ago

“Dairy farmers are free-market guys—they don’t want to be told how much to produce,” Sounds like a contradiction - if no one else, free-market will tell you how much to produce. Does not look like farmers are listening.

Matticus_Rex 8y ago
And don't we have price floors for milk in the US? In a free market the price would just keep dropping, which can't happen here, so you just get a glut.
- mynegation 8y ago
  Do you? Article says that subsidies to milk farmers are virtually non-existent these days and they dump the excess milk.
- setr 8y ago
  At some point, the cost to package & bring the milk to the store will exceed the price of selling the milk, so you’ll hit a price floor regardless. And it becomes the same issue: you now can’t sell the excess milk but you still have all the production facilities. So you store it in your buffer and hold onto production, and eventually if you end up overflowing the buffer, you’ll have no choice but to drop production (which is expensive to bring back up, so highly avoidable)
- sciurus 8y ago
  It seems that we don't currently have a milk price floor in the US, although farmers are lobbying for one. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/05/01/americas-dairyland-reels-low-milk-prices-destroy-family-farms/569277002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/05/01/ame...
  - tedunangst 8y ago
    Neither that article nor this one seem to even mention existing policies? https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/dairy/policy.aspx https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/dairy/policy...

homonculus1 8y ago

I wouldn't expect Bloomberg to represent anything honestly.

dragontamer 8y ago
I wouldn't read Washington Post for technology: I read it for politics. I don't read Bloomberg for technology news, I read it for investment news. Well, there's certainly a problem with Bloomberg's technology / cyber-attack division. But Bloomberg as a whole is one of the better investment newspapers. IMO, Bloomberg probably should just stop writing about cyber-attacks. They're clearly incompetent at that and its causing people to lose trust in the greater newspaper. But I won't go to Ars Technica to read about insider Washington politics. Its a matter of recognizing what these papers are "good" in.
- lostmsu 8y ago
  Haven't you seen that idea, that you might know some media sucks in tech, but think is ok in other stuff, because you are an expert in tech, but not in that other stuff? E.g. Bloomberg might suck in everything, but you'd only see a problem with tech.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    I'm not an expert in finance / investing. But I think I'm good enough to see that Bloomberg has great economic analysis and breakdowns into company financials. Here are some key quotes from the article in question that demonstrate Bloomberg's research ability into financial / investment matters. > From April 2017 to April 2018, sales of Chobani products grew only 1 percent while sales by all companies in the segment slipped 2.2 percent. > The key ratio of income-to-feed costs reveals that dairy farmers have very little margin left these days, said Bill Brooks, an economist at INTL FCStone. Feed such as alfalfa and hay are more expensive than last year, as are labor and energy expenses. > The amount of milk dumped by farmers in the U.S. Northeast reached almost 145 million pounds through July—the most in at least a decade—including 23.6 million pounds that month alone. ------- These are specific statistics. And sure, they may be available from publicly available research sources, but they contribute to the article's primary thesis. Knowing what statistics seem relevant for a particular article is what Bloomberg is good at. Besides, these individual statistics are relatively easy to check. The main benefit of Bloomberg is their ability to collate various information sources together into a singular article.

travisgriggs 8y ago

Didn’t read the article. Just saw the “Bloomberg” in parentheses and thought “ah some reporter at Bloomberg is trying to get his yearly bonus by moving the dairy market.” Which is irrational and silly. But it’s amazing the way something like the controversy around “The Big Hack” brews suspicion.

coldtea 8y ago
>Which is irrational and silly. Not really irrational. Half of what's published is PR in one form or another.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

stevespang 8y ago

Milk is an industrially produced commodity in the US with it's own contamination problems. Most flavored Yogurt in the US is so full of sugar it's more of a health liability than a health product, I had to give it up.

stephengillie 8y ago

Chobani is mentioned so many times that this must be paid for by that company. The article is a dress that barely covers an advertisement's bare bottom.

dmritard96 8y ago

Surprised there was no mention of non dairy milk. Almond, soy and others have all taken over much of the aisles, has to leave a mark I would imagi ne.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Hm. Not in Iowa. I see them on their one shelf in the grocery Wall of Dairy. Cows milk has 6 cases.
lprubin 8y ago
An estimated $2.11 billion U.S. sales. I would think that has to impact milk sales. [0] In their market research of consumers, the same article found that many people are intentionally consuming less dairy. ...nearly one in five (19%) Americans claims to be consuming less dairy for health reasons. [0]http://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/article/us-non-dairy-milk-sales-reach-211-billion-2017-61-2012 http://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/article/us-non-dairy-milk-...
lozenge 8y ago
Keep in mind it often has a much longer shelf life so the shelf space is not a good measure.* Also, my local store has milk cart shelves on wheels that can be restocked much faster than fixed shelves. Tip: the same non dairy milk can be found a smidgen cheaper non refrigerated
- rsynnott 8y ago
  I’ve never seen it on sale refrigerated, really. It’s generally shelf stable; why would you bother?
  - calvano915 8y ago
    At Costco, they sell box type non-dairy milk as room temp and shelf stable, while other almond and coconut milks are in half gallon form and refrigerated. Not sure whether the latter actually require refrigeration before opening.

ksec 8y ago

They could have export more milk, UHT, Cream Cheese, Butter etc. Instead they won't interested. They won't interested in completing against EU, AUS, New Zealand's dairy products. I doubt they will lose any money if they were priced competitively against it, they are just likely to have less profit margins. Actually that is not a totally fair assessment, since a few of them did complete on price, but their quality won't as good. And they blame it on their international sales staff, which has since changed hands multiple times. P.S Those companies do not include any Multinational like Nestle USA, Danone, and Kraft Heinz.

andy_ppp 8y ago

This made me think of this incredible piece of art by Mishka Henner that I saw in Edinburgh at the Scottish National Gallery: https://mishkahenner.com/Feedlots https://mishkahenner.com/Feedlots

jacobush 8y ago
what is that?
- saganus 8y ago
  Massive cattle farms according to the text below the pictures.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    It looked so disconcerting I clicked it away immediately. I was so sure it was a tiled wall of some kind in a slaughter house - and a nightmarish rendition of a cross section of a heart or an animal or a clogged vein. It was all of these things
    - saganus 8y ago
      Yes. The pictures look strange indeed.
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  Prior to slaughter, most large scale farming of animals has a finishing step where the animals are confined to limit movement to fatten them up. In and Out has said it was limiting their expansion eastward to Texas because they did not want to freeze their beef, probably not coincidentally cattle feedlots range from California to Texas, north to Colorado, that I have seen personally.
stevenwoo 8y ago
If you live in California, you can smell the feedlots for miles near Coalinga/Harris Ranch on I-5 while driving between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and when cattle are visible, it appears much denser than that photograph, but that may be sample bias where the cows just like to get closer to the fence for some reason, need a drone to have a better idea.

Waterluvian 8y ago

I had a thought the other day. Did we convince people that fat was bad, and then used that to water down milk so that from one harvest we could sell more watery milk and other dairy fat products?

orev 8y ago
Removing fat from milk does not make it “watered down”, it’s just not as rich in fat. If you’re trying to say there’s some kind of collusion going on between milk producers and other makers of high-fat foods — do you really think any of the industrial food companies care at all that people would exceed their RDA of fat?
newnewpdro 8y ago
They skimmed the fat so it could be sold as cheese and other dairy products, yes. Americans basically didn't even reduce their dairy fat intake, they just increased how much $$ they were spending on it across more dairy products.

danso 8y ago

Planet Money recently had a great episode about "Big Government Cheese", which covered the Carter administration's proposal to subsidize milk, which created a milk surplus so big that it had to create a bureaucracy to grade and store cheese, and then eventually, to repackage and give it away: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=643471690 https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor... > DUFFIN: By the early 1980s, the dairy support program was costing taxpayers around $2 billion a year. The government was buying 1 in every 4 pounds of the country's cheddar cheese. They actually had to rent out space in multiple caves. At one point, the government was storing two pounds of cheese for every single American citizen.

ccvannorman 8y ago

I found this article unreadable as Bloomberg's relentless assault (of ads) on my eyes nearly gave me a seizure. Note to self: Don't read Bloomberg.

mrfusion 8y ago

What about turning milk into a biofuel? Can yeast grow in milk and produce alcohol?

Something1234 8y ago
I would love to see biofuel done with surplus milk. It's full of excess fat, so it shouldn't be too hard to convert it to biodiesel or candles. I have heard of vodka made from milk[1]. I would really like to try that one. There's also milk beers[2]. Although I don't like the taste of them. [1]: https://www.blackcow.co.uk/ https://www.blackcow.co.uk/ [2]: http://allaboutbeer.com/article/milk-stout-2/ http://allaboutbeer.com/article/milk-stout-2/
- 1over137 8y ago
  If the Earth's cows were a country, they'd be the #3 GHG emitter. Making milk to make fuel would be horribly inefficient and detrimental to the environment. We simply need less cows.
  - Something1234 8y ago
    It would be nice to get rid of the excess cows, but since that won't happen. It's better to make something out of the excess rather than let it go to waste. Especially considering that a large amount of fat is produced from skim milk. This fat just goes into making cheese, and deflating the cost of cheese. More cheese than most people would like to eat.
orev 8y ago
Seems like that would be awfully inefficient. We use oil (fertilizer) to grow corn and soybeans, which we then feed to cows, which then convert it to milk. Each step in the process reduces the efficiency. Why not just use the oil for fuel? Or convert the corn the ethanol if that type of oil is not useful as fuel? The efficiency of ethanol is already in question due to the use of corn.
- 8y ago

wgerard 8y ago

I'm curious how much of this is because of demographic trends in America--Lactose intolerance for adults is relatively common among everyone except northern europeans. Would especially explain the decline in liquid milk consumption (and also part of the popularity of greek yogurt, which is pretty low in lactose content).

burfog 8y ago
everyone except 1. northwestern Europeans, centered around Belgium 2. The Maasai tribe, of Kenya and Tanzania

Animats 8y ago

The US dairy industry and the USDA have a large operation to promote cheese. With everything. Over half of Dunkin' Donuts offerings now include cheese, and they are rebranding to "Dunkin". Cheese filled tacos are now a thing. I recently chewed out a restaurant manager of a "natural" and "green" restaurant when they started putting cheese on a piece of plain salmon on top of fresh greens. That's a chef problem - they have to add something to justify being paid more than McDonalds.

gurumeditations 8y ago
You yelled at a restaurant manager for putting cheese on your salmon? Wow.

novaRom 8y ago

I found accidentally many of my digestive problems gone just after I stopped consuming milk-based products for a week. I wonder now how and why our diet has evolved in that way.

stevenwoo 8y ago
The ability to digest milk's lactose in adults is only retained in some Northern European and African (notably cattle raising cultures like the Maasai) descendants who traditionally drank milk as adults. It's genetic AFAIK.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

There have been dairy issues since forever. It works like this, if you just let the market decide then a few big dairy producers will drive all of the other dairies out of business and the only milk products on the market will be of lower quality than they are today. If you prop up the market with subsidies and minimum prices you force the cost of milk to rise and natural economics causes people to substitute something else that is less expensive. But if the subsidies are paid to the farmers, and not to the consumers, the farmers keep producing milk products even when the market doesn't want them at the price they are producing them. Places that would like dairy products outside the US are already protecting their own dairy farmers and so they are tariffing the heck out of milk (see the Canadian discussion as part of the USMCA proposal). Many dairy products are perishable with a short life although a big chunk of my uncle's dairy output ended up as non-fat dry milk. This makes it harder to store over periods of lower demand, and cows produce at a fairly constant rate whether you like it or not. Supply management is tough. Milk and cheese would be a good candidate for a basic income sort of scheme. Where everyone would be issued milk and cheese vouchers every month that could be exchanged for milk and cheese at the local package milk store. People who didn't want their coupons could give them to people who did. That would create a 'base layer' of milk production and consumption that would keep dairies around but take milk and cheese out of the cost of living equation. I'm sure there are other reasons why this is impractical but the whole problem is fairly intractable as it is without putting farms out of business. EDIT: One interesting thing would be to tie the price of sugared drinks to the price of milk. So it wouldn't be cheaper to give your kids soda than milk. Again, impractical but it is a challenging problem.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Milk and cheese would be a good candidate for a basic income sort of scheme Why milk? Vegetables make more sense. Milk is not a necessary foodstuff. Creating labelling standards for high-quality milk and letting the market do its job would be the most-reasonable outcome.
- barrkel 8y ago
  That's a universal argument for industrializing all food production. No food is a necessary foodstuff. It does not follow that all our food should be industrially produced. (Free market food production will end up industrially produced, because that's how you minimize costs and maximize profits. I, for one, don't want to live in a country like that and will vote for laws that help prevent it happening.)

Invictus0 8y ago

Do farmers ever learn? Bandwagoning onto the latest food fad is the failure story that just repeats itself over and over again. Farms are firms in a perfectly competitive market: why invest oodles of capital to chase what is basically noise in the market? Why is anyone surprised when the market contracts?

hugh4life 8y ago

If I were the milk industry, I'd heavily promote meal replacements that use milk as a base. Especially in places where milk is cheap. I love Milk Fuel(formerly Schmilk) and I think it would be a good breakfast replacement for the masses. http://superbodyfuel.com/shop/milk-fuel/ http://superbodyfuel.com/shop/milk-fuel/

rootsudo 8y ago

The funny part is, in Asia, Dairy is a premium. Look at Philippines for example, stagnant production since 1995- http://www.nda.da.gov.ph/images/2017/data/Phil%20%20DAiry%20Update%202017.pdf http://www.nda.da.gov.ph/images/2017/data/Phil%20%20DAiry%20... I'm not Filipino, but, hell I would love to manufacture milk products. The thing that fuels it is A: local population isn't used to dairy. B: Yogurt and such are considered high premium -- a half kilo of yogurt at the store costs $5-7$, a kilo about $10, from Australia.

rootsudo 8y ago
https://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Dairy%20and%20Products%20Annual_Manila_Philippines_10-3-2017.pdf https://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/Dairy... Better article.

plg 8y ago

I switched to fortified vanilla soy milk about 2 weeks ago, (from 1% milk), and holy moly what a difference. I have a big bowl of breakfast cereal and milk for breakfast, and also milk in a morning latte and a mid-day latte. Switching to soy milk: - in 2 weeks I have lost about 5 lbs (all other food, and exercise routines, stayed the same) - I feel less bloated after breakfast and after coffee Maybe I was dealing with a slight lactose intolerance, I dunno (is there such a things as a "slight" lactose intolerance??). Anyway, I'm not switching back.

pentae 8y ago
I've always avoided Soy as I read a long time ago that it contains plant based estrogen and can be a problem for men like gynecomastia. Of course, I have no idea if that's true or not but I'd rather not worry about it and just pick up Almond milk instead.
- wingworks 8y ago
  Same here, I made the switch to Almond milk about a year ago and have stopped using any "real" milk or butter as prices here in New Zealand are through the roof at the moment (e.g. 500g butter is $6.30 NZD ($4.15 USD), over double what they used to be. I have no plans to go back either, I feel great these days, and I'm pretty sure it's because of the lack of milk products.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  It's not.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Humans don't digest soy in the same way as animal models - studies found no hormonal impact on a heavy soy diet. If hormone absorption was that readily influenced digestively one should only eat meat of the same sex and athletes should be eating rocky mountain oysters and spotted hyena meat frequently as a loophole for steroids as it is just food that happens to have testerone and not drugs.
frankydp 8y ago