Last year we noticed some “attacks” on plant milks from the global market. It´s not strange, because we know about the economic power and media influence that the big transnational dairy companies have.

Almond milk is not very nutritious and it´s not ecological,

Rice milk is poisonous to children

The term “vegetable milk” leads to confusion and should be banned

We don´t want to stoke the fire or enter the war between animal and vegetable milk, neither demonise animal milk. But we want to show you that veggie milks have unfair treatment from our governments.

Some examples of advertising campaigns and nutritional pyramids from different institutions help us to explain the reason why they are treating veggie milks as if they don´t exist. Let´s go!

Subway of Madrid. Spring 2014

This is an advertising campaign from the spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Health and Environment with the National Dairy Federation that has just been posted in the Subway of Madrid (Spain). Big adds claiming “ Dairy products, irreplaceable”. Without the slightest mention to the “fine print” that 60% of the worlds population suffer from lactose intolerance, neither the potential carcinogenic hormonally modified industrial milk nor the abused and unhappy cows.

The same slogan that European and North-American governments used in the 60´s,70´s and 80´s: “Cow milk is good for everybody”. Do you remember? At that time, governments sent tons of milk powder to Africa to eradicate hunger. The African population was lactose intolerant, but they didn´t mind, they had to sell the cow milk surplus that they had at that moment.

Another example are the food pyramids. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) recommends in it´s official pyramid (called “My Plate”) drinking 3 cups of milk per day, 1 cup more than their own recommendation in 2004.

Similar to the British government´s recommendation in it´s pyramid the “Eat Well Plate” .

In face of these facts, the Harvard School of Public Health explicitly advised the health ministries of both countries to “Limit the consumption of animal milk.” Both governments totally ignored this recommendation, and in response, Harvard drew their own food pyramid called “Healthy Eating Plate” that you can see below.

It is to emphasize that at least in the USDA “Dietary Guidelines for 2010-2014 USA”, unlike in Spain´s “Guide for Families”, it does mention the “Allergy to lactose” and strongly recommend:

“Drinking cow milk without lactose or soy beverage, because it is very similar in nutrients.”

(Did you know that many of the multinationals that sell cow milk are tucked right into the multibillion-dollar soy milk business?!)

In Europe, each country has the power to make it´s own nutritional pyramids and cow milk almost always has a privileged mention. It is logical that governments would want to help farmers and ranchers in the marketing of their products, but governments shouldn´t be involved in the dairy lobbies.

Well, as you can see, you have to drink a lot of cow’s milk because veggie milk does not exist. Ha, ha, ha!!

As we shall see in the next article, such is the pressure of the industrial cow milk organizations on the governments, which in Europe has already banned the use of the term “vegetable milk” as milk can only be used to refer to an animal-based milk. The U.S.A´s government is considering passing the same law to “avoid confusion”. We are still investigating …