Have we been milked by the dairy industry?
Milk is unhealthy, unnecessary, bad for the planet—even racist? Welcome to the new food war.
Anne Kingston
If you produce or market a manufactured beverage, you really don’t want to find out Alissa Hamilton has written about it. Her 2009 book Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice exposed the political and economic forces that paved way to processed OJ becoming a breakfast staple. It also revealed the industry that markets its product as “pure” and “natural” uses chemically engineered “flavour packs” to keep it “fresh” for years, a finding that triggered a flurry of ongoing false-advertising, class-action lawsuits in the U.S.
Now, in Got Milked: What You Don’t Know About Dairy, the Truth About Calcium, and Why You’ll Thrive Without Milk, Hamilton examines the opaque white liquid institutionalized in the North American diet—and what she sees as bovine thinking about it. The Canada Food Guide lists “milk and its alternatives” as one of four food groups and calls for two daily servings for young children and adults, more for anyone over 50. Elementary school milk programs exist on the belief that growing bodies require dairy milk.