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Plant Milk Is Better For Us and the Climate. So Why Do We Subsidize Dairy?
(www.motherjones.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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My personal theory is that we subsidize dairy not for the milk, but for the cheese. As far as I'm aware you can't make cheese out of plant milks, and we've gotten pretty reliant on cheese as a source of protein and other nutrients in our American diets - especially among children and lower income diets.
You can make plant-based cheeses. And some of them are pretty good. But they lack all of the same properties. Like, you can get a cheese that that when hot will stretch a little bit like the cheese on a pizza, but as it cools off it loses all of that elasticity and is not great for lukewarm pizza. You can get cheese that is pretty decent for lukewarm and hot pizza, but it doesn't have that stretch. It more just rips apart. And you definitely don't have the span of "flavors" of cheese or whatever you'd call it. Some of the big ones, sure, but again, they don't have all the same physical properties.
I don't mind the loss of those properties, but many people do.
Cheese isn't a great source for protein compared to beans in regards to price though.
Honestly, I think we subsidize the dairy industry simply because they've been lobbying so long. Meat is subsidized too. It's the one market that the conservatives are fine with ignoring the mantra of "free market" and support regulating the hell out of it in whatever way supports the "farmers" (big farm is nothing like the labeling suggests and is all headed by big guys in suits who likely never have been on a farm in their life).
Beans can taste amazing when prepared by a competent chef, but often taste like shit when prepared wrong.
Cheese, on the other hand, is much more forgiving of poor preparation. Eat it straight out of the package, sliced and on bread or crackers, melt it into sauces, or grill it, or any number of other uses.
Simply put, cheese is fast and easy, and can elevate almost any other food.
Also, try to get kids to eat beans. It can happen. But not easily, and often you have to do it in the form of chili, with loads of cheese.
You're just describing American children raised in a poor diet. Beans are a staple food among not of the world population, including their children. They're super easy to prepare as well. Talking about the extremely fatty and unhealthy cheese like that is probably one of the many reasons the US is obese and unhealthy.
Cheese is not a healthy part of a diet in any quantity where it provides a significant protein of the person's protein needs.
This. First of all, very few people are ever going to be deficient in protein, at least in the U.S. Secondly, cheese seems like one of the very worst sources. Animal sources in general are bad, of course.
I think it depends on context and how you are raised. I was given exposure to a broad array of vegetables and beans as a kid, and liked most of them, even as a kid. I think its a cultural thing - if you (or TV, or peers, or media) tell kids that "kids don't like X", well, they probably won't.
Both meat and dairy are subsidized because they consume huge amounts of corn, and the corn industry is an even bigger lobby.
I seem to recall people are working on bacteria-produced casein, and so that may, if it could be done at scale, solve the ethical and environmental problems, but I wonder if casein in that form will be just as bad as dairy is in its "natural" form.
Look up: cheese caves. 👍
In short: There is so much excess cheese out there that the US government is literally storing billions of pounds of it in underground caves.
https://www.farmlinkproject.org/stories-and-features/cheese-caves-and-food-surpluses-why-the-u-s-government-currently-stores-1-4-billion-lbs-of-cheese
Let's raid. They can't stop us all!!!
What the fuck
Soy cheese is called tofu.
Government cheese has been a thing since at least the great depression.
Cheese was one of our main obstacles toward cutting out dairy. I came across a vegan cheese sauce recipe that utilizes blended steamed potatoes & carrots for the texture and nutritional yeast and other spices for the flavor. Been using it for a few years now and haven't looked back yet.
It's hard to find good nutritional yeast though. Since they are quite expensive, it is not easy to try around until you find one, that does not taste like garbage.
Yes it's an expensive purchase, but I buy it once every 6 months or so. It goes a long way and I use little (⅓ cup) at a time.
Some of my family think we're living large because we can "afford" cashew nuts, which we use for many purposes, but don't think twice about spending 3 times more on meat every single week.
Yeah, once you found a brand, that tastes well, it's not an issue anymore. But paying a lot just to notice, that it tastes disgusting, kinda sucks.
Unsure if you're talking about cow milk, plant based milk, cashews or nutritional yeast 🤷♂️
Nutritional yeast
Protein can be found in much better food sources than dairy. It's a shame the protein myth prevails in this country even into the 2020s...