Dairy’s Deception Game: From School Milk Propaganda to Factory Farming’s New Frontier | Rising Anxieties

'cause I, I mentioned this, well I was actually asked about the podcast the other day by somebody who's vegan, totally vegan, like not a crazy person or anything, and just who said, No, I couldn't listen to that 'cause it's all too upsetting.

And I just wanna say I really appreciate those of you who do listen 'cause it is upsetting. And you know it upsets me too, obviously, and it probably upsets you , you know, when we try to keep it light and we try to make fun of them, but it doesn't, I don't always manage to pull that off. So thanks for being there.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that before we started, um, and also the thing I'm supposed to say before we start, don't forget we're a podcast and we're on YouTube. Please subscribe and hit like wherever you listen. Now, let's get into it. What I, what do I have for you here? Oh yeah, this one's bad. So annoying. This is from Ag Daily and it's by Michelle Miller, The Farm Babe. Uh, I'm not gonna make fun of that title because I do it every time. Um, alright. And she's talking about animal care isn't always what people think, isn't always what people think. This is from Ag Daily, and this is how she starts off. Many people's first thoughts when they think of animal care are often the care of pets kept in warm houses with cozy beds and getting treats for no particular reason. Uh, yeah, I think that is, I think she's right. When their next thought is that of livestock, which, not who, which live outside, no matter what the temperature and often eat only one food. The feeling isn't always warm and fuzzy.

No, Michelle, it's not. I would not describe the feeling I get what I think of livestock, which are outside as warm and fuzzy. But, she says, there are very good reasons for why livestock animals are cared for in the way they are. Good care for animals looks very different for livestock and pets. Yes, it does. Which could lead to some misunderstandings. Uh, yes it does. I think most of the misunderstanding is on your part, but, you know, whatever. First off, livestock animals aren't pets. Well, I mean, have we kind of like, uh, collapsed the, the, the whole issue there? They should be treated like pets 'cause they aren't pets.

Um, and they can't be treated like they are. This isn't because farmers and ranchers don't care about their animals, but because they have different roles and needs as the pets that often live in our homes. Well, I would agree they have different roles. Their roles is to be abused and then eaten, and the role of pets is to be loved and, and cared for.

But, uh, their needs are pretty much the same. Like, like, so that doesn't really answer the question. Um, she talks about how the real concern in handling livestock is the good of the herd. Well, you know, the individuals are kind of members of the herd, so the good of the herd does involve the care of the individuals, I would think, I don't know.

They aren't wired in the same way as dogs or cats. Yes, they are. They're actually wired pretty much the same. Um, they are prey animals. Uh, that's probably true. This means they have a lot more fear, so they don't like to be handled excessively. I don't know about that. Um, livestock animals thrive with calm, consistent handling, uh, not individual attention. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive.

In fact, many livestock animals dislike being around people Well, what do you know? Why would that be? I just can't even imagine. Um, some, some care practices might look harsh. Yes, indeed, Michelle, they do. Such as hoof trimming, dehorning, sheep shearing, and castrating. Oh god. Oh, castrating. That's no big deal.

Um, all of these are done to help animals in the future, which is, you know, an odd thing to say since their future mostly involves like getting their throat slit, but whatever. Um, you know, horns, it's true that if they have their horns, they, they can um, they can go gouge each other 'cause they're too, they're too close together. I, I suppose that's true. It's also a concern for humans.

Yeah. How did humans come into this? I thought we were talking about animals. Um, shearing sheep prevents them from getting mad at wool, which they get because they're bred to produce way, way, way more wool than, uh, they're supposed to. Castrating keeps intact male animals from growing up, which can be another big safety concern. Growing up really is a safety concern. Like for humans. It's a huge safety concern. Um, for example, bulls can injure or kill people. Oh, again, like we're, you know, are, are we worrying about the animals here or the people?

All these procedures are done for specific reasons, I bet they are, and are guided by welfare standards. And who wrote those welfare standards, Michelle? And sometimes veterinary recommendations. Yeah, who's paying those veterinarians, Michelle? She talks about biosecurity always, you know, important when you're keeping gazillions of animals in a small space.

Livestock animals don't bond with people like pets do. Yeah, well that's the truth. Uh, again, I wonder why. It's a misconception that farmers don't care about their animals. They absolutely do, it just shows up in different ways than it does for pets.

Yeah. It's kind of like abusive partners. They care for their partners. It's just, you know, in a different way than caring partners do it, but they care.

Some of the myths surrounding animal ag and, and the disconnect between farms and the public are due to the idea that livestock animals are like pets. I would say, uh, that it is true that, that there is, um, an idea that livestock animals, uh, are like pets because livestock animals are like pets and maybe we should start recognizing that.

The type of care that works for a pet would not work for farm animals for good reason. The distinction is what allows farmers to care for their animals as good as they possibly can. That's a rather odd use of grammar, um, yeah, whatever. I'll, I'll shut up now. Like what's the point?

You could just read that article and it would have the exact same impact as, uh, me, blathering on about it. Alright. I have a couple of articles. They're both from Hordes Dairyman about, uh, they're, the dairy is super excited about the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. Um, and. They're all in and basically it means, well, I'll go through what it means, but, um, there's this first article, Moving the Needle, Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. What it means for schools and dairy farmers. Obviously it means for dairy farmers like the possibility of selling more milk. It's an exciting time for dairy farmers with the official signing of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, um, and talk, they talk about there apparently have been 80 studies that highlight the role of whole milk and whole dairy products.

Um. Okay. I'm sure, I'm sure there are, and I'm sure they're bought and paid for. Uh, whole milk. Wow. Did you know that, that there is a limit on saturated, uh, fat that can be in, um, a school lunch? Uh, they do have, uh, but one of the provisions of the whole milk and whatever it is, act, is that you don't have to count the saturated fat in milk to meet that threshold.

So you can, you can put, you could probably put like serve butter sandwiches. Well, maybe you do have to count the saturated fat in, in butter, I don't know. But not in whole milk. So it just doesn't count apparently. Like how could it possibly hurt you? Um, and, uh. They, so they're hard at work at this. They think this is gonna be good for them.

I'm really not sure why they think, because the other thing about this, um, law, which is really good, is that while you don't have to count the saturated fat in whole milk towards, uh, the, the amount of saturated fat that can be in the child's, uh, lunch, you do have to count the calories. So that's, and, and the schools are still allowed to sell, uh, skim milk and 1% they're just, what now they're allowed to do is to also sell 2% and whole milk. And, uh, you know, I think that, that there are other calories that they're used to working with, they're used to putting in there and they might prefer than, than wasting all these calories on giving these kids whole milk.

So I feel like maybe kids aren't used to it, though I think people do buy it for their homes pretty a lot, at least half. Um, so, uh, this article suggests all these things that the industry is doing. Promotionals in school cafeterias, um, promoting flavors. Apparently over 60% of the milk drunken schools is flavored.

Yeah. Kids just love milk. Um, so hot chocolate, smoothies, lattes, well that sounds healthy. I never was able to get a latte when I was in school. Um, they hadn't invented latte? Well, I guess the Italians had, but you know, we hadn't found out about them when I was in school. Um, working with appropriate state level authorities.

Yeah, I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are. Especially states like the one I live in. That's a big dairy state. Um, and, uh, they want farmers to go out and also do promotions and, and talk about how great it is. The kids have this choice.

Alright, this other article, Whole Milk Anticipated Impact, just also points out that most of the milk in school is flavored, as I mentioned, 68%, um, and skim. And this article thinks that consumption in schools is probably going to stay pretty tilted towards skim and 1%, so I hope that's right. But the dairy industry hopes that by offering higher fat, better tasting milk, it all tastes bad, will lead to more lifelong dairy consumption.

They want people addicted to that creamy flavor. Um, but you know what, these articles don't mention is the fact that they have made it a lot easier for kids to get, uh, non-dairy milks or non-dairy beverages as they like to call them. Um, and you know, this, uh, I think this could have more impact than, than their stupid milk thing.

And, um. All right, so this is the thing I, I wasn't really sure how it worked, so I actually did look it up. Looking at the FDA site, um, if they choose, if a school choose, and this is a huge opportunity for activism, especially if you have a kid in school. If, if the school food authority chooses to offer non-dairy beverages, they have to meet certain standards, which is fine. Um, you know, they have to have certain nutrients, which is fine. I mean, I'm sure everybody will be, will be catering to those standards. Offering non-dairy beverages to all students to meet the fluid milk requirement at lunch is an option, not a requirement. So they don't have to offer non-dairy milk, but if they want to, they can offer it to everybody, they don't have to let... you know, I mean, you used to have to get a doctor's note and then, um, they, uh, you know, they, they changed that a bit and, and, but now if the school chooses to, it doesn't have to, but if it chooses to, so that's a huge opportunity for activism, um, they can offer it to everybody. They can just put it out with the other milk. And, and even if they don't, if a parent, um, requests, it has to be in writing, requesting, um, a nutritionally equivalent fluid milk substitute, they have to offer it to that student.

So that's pretty good. I don't know why they're not more upset about this. I really, I mean, I'm not the most cheerful person in the world, as you may have noticed, but I really think there's huge opportunities here. I mean, milk is the one thing that people really do, you know, really do accept the idea of, of plant-based substitutes.

All right, another article from Hordes Dairyman, they were, uh, very prolific this week. Who cares? And she, they're talking about, who cares about animal welfare. There's not a lot in here, but they did this survey, um, of people who consume dairy products. They're actually worried about it. Obviously the survey had nothing real in it, but what they were trying to find out it was that they, it was whether people minded that, um, that, that companies might be treating their animals better.

But they were just talking about cow handling. It was probably a very, they don't say what it was about specifically, but it's probably pretty limited. If the people mind whether they, whether they improve their cow handling just for their public relations or whether they, um, they also care about the animals and, and on average consumers indicated that they strongly believed that the company launched this program because they cared about improving cow's lives, which, you know, coordinates with what, what people generally think.

People generally think that these farming interests, particularly dairy, probably, I would say, uh, you know, are benign and care about their animals. So that's not really that surprising. It is surprising a little that the industry is trying to figure out whether if, if people think that they have any self-interest, uh, that, that, that interferes with that. Um, and no, uh, it doesn't, which doesn't surprise me at all. And, and, uh, the thing that's really important to remember is that they're worried. This article points out, dairy farming is an exception to the, uh, to the concept that most jobs are not very interesting conversation to the people who don't do them.

Everyone eats and many people love animals. You know, this is one of those article that makes... I really think that they believe it. I really do. People are fucked up. This means that what happens on, on farms is something that lots of people care about even if they have never been on a farm. They, they, they think that's true.

I mean, I know sometimes we don't think it's true because it doesn't seem true. Um, not everyone cares about all the fine details of animal care, and that is certainly true. People don't wanna know the details, they just want like, some kind of, kind of assurance that it's okay. And that's exactly what they're trying to provide here. Um, so the details include the way the cattle are housed, managed and handled, but many consumers, this is the key, want assurance that farmers care about their animals and prioritize doing what's in their best interest. So that's the illusion. That they not only probably believe themselves, but do they? I don't know.

I, I, I can't figure it out. And there's this, um, this program, uh, the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Animal Care program, and they set minimal expectations for animal care practices. And that's what they're trying to promote here, the use of that. And I bet they're very minimal. What do you think?

Uh, another or a dairy article, but not from, from the same publication. This is from Dairy Herd, The Beef on Dairy Revolution. How black calves and AI are reshaping the dairy profit and loss. This is, this is really bad. Uh, there's no way to, to make this any better 'cause this, I mean, I've talked about it before, this Beef on Dairy Revolution, they're trying to turn, um, beef, the beef industry into factory farming, which, you know, they now have factory farming in the feedlots. But the first two years of the, of the calves lives are spent out on the range, by and large, or at least with some level of freedom. And that's just, you know, not sustainable and expensive. And that's gotta go.

So the dairy industry is gonna take over and they, the dairy industry, this article starts out, is currently undergoing a structural transformation. What was once a singular focus on milk production has evolved into a multifaceted agribusiness model. As Kansas Dairy producer Greg Behar puts it, we might be more ranchers than we are dairymen than now, because the uterus has more value than the mammary gland.

Don't you just wanna kill him? I mean, ooh!! All right, the revenue generated from cross-breeding dairy cows with high quality beef genetics has upended the traditional profit and loss for dairy. We have cows spitting out $1,400 calves now, it has changed the math for the entire operation. This is the kind of article that makes you think, well, they actually don't care about the animals at all.

Of course, the, the other is just delusion. I don't know why I still get sucked into it. Um, so yeah, this is bad news. This is bad news because it works. Uh, they can turn, you know, and they don't have to raise veal, which, you know, we actually succeeded in, in, in characterizing veal harshly enough so that, so that it, it's much less popular than it used to be, but now they just raise them until they're older and then they kill them.

Sustainability also, the other, another aspect, has become a revenue center rather than a cost because of methane digesters. Toll's digester projects now produce enough gas to heat 6,000 houses per year. In Idaho, this other guy is focusing on innovative manure management, working with scientists to extract micronutrients from manure to create new value added products.

I wonder what that's going to be. Like they're taking stuff out of shit and they're gonna be selling it. God knows. I'm not sure I want to, that'll be another thing that we, we get to keep track of as vegans. Like what products have are made out of cow shit? Alright, enough of that. Let's move on to something, um, something happier. Enterococcus cecorum found everywhere in poultry houses.

Um, this is, uh, this is my, my update on disease, the weekly update on disease. It's from Modern Poultry. Um, and this is about a, a pathogen enterococcus cecorum, probably pronouncing that wrong. It's, it's a growing problem on broiler farms and infection extends beyond bird to bird contact to the farm environment.

This is not something that people catch. It's a problem for the birds and for the people who wanna make money off of their bodies. Um, so the birds get things like osteomyelitis, arthritis, polyserositis, and, but the point that this article is trying to make is that once it's there, it's there. It, it, it just spreads across the same premises and becomes a recurring source of disease.

So that's just a, a cheery little update on, on disease. And we have a, you know, another update on a disease that we're much more used to and that's bird flu. And I bet you haven't heard a lot about it unless you're reading Sentient Media, which I am, in this article by Seth Milstein. Bird Flu cases are surging in 2026. What does it mean? Millions of birds have been exposed to the avian flu virus since the beginning of January alone. Yet it is out there. It is huge. Nobody's talking about it anymore.

Um, it's been in 28 US states just since the beginning of the year. Um. Affecting about half as many birds as it did in three months during the fall of last year. So that's like in a, in a month and a half. Uh, the governor of Colorado has declared a disaster in the state, and it's, it, it's basically according to this guy, Maurice Peteski an associate professor and expert in poultry disease, uh, it's endemic, which means that you don't get rid of it, you just learn to live with it.

A disease is considered endemic when it persists indefinitely at a baseline level, even when no new infections are brought in from other places. Though, you know, of course it does really expand during, um, migratory seasons. And when, when bird flu is detected, um, the entire flock is slaughtered. They say slaughter here. They're not really slaughtered, they're suffocated is my understanding.

And, um, and they will, according to this article, they will all die. I mean, so they might as well kill them. Uh, but, you know, don't worry about them too much because of course, uh, they receive indemnity payments from your tax dollars, um, to compensate them for their losses. And so, you know, they're okay. And, uh, but it's all fine.

Um, one of the Biden era pro... they, the Biden, the administration is, has some, some policies in place. It's a five point plan. And one of the Biden era programs that it's extending is called wildlife biosecurity assessments, and this involves sending USDA staff paid for by your tax dollars to egg laying facilities to identify any wildlife living on the premises and suggest strategies to remove them.

Like can't these places like find wildlife living on their premises themselves? They need the government to come and find the, the, I don't know, the mice, the rats, the raccoons, whatever it is, and tell them how to get rid of them? Like really? Like this is a business, you're supposed to know how to run it.

These assessments are provided free of charge to producers. So you know, don't worry too much. It's all fine. They'll be fine. All right. Oh, just to, just to finish up, I have a little article from Plant-Based News on our favorite person, RFK Junior. RFK Junior reveals carnivore diet saying he only eats quote meat and ferments.

I've never heard this term ferment. Like I've obviously him, and he means fermented foods, like, have you ever called, heard them, called ferments? He was talking about bringing, um, yogurt to a, a Super Bowl party. He's a fun guy. Um, RFK Jr revealed that he follows a carnivore diet exactly one month after publishing the new meat heavy US dietary guidelines.

Gee, I wonder if that could have influenced it in any way. And, um, he also said that people can eat what they want. Oh, thank you, RFK Junior. Um, people can even eat buffalo wings. But you should check the ingredients. If there's a lot of seed oils, if there is corn syrup in it, if there's artificial flavors, you probably shouldn't be doing it.

You shouldn't be eating bird's wings for about a million reasons. You know, he, he picks out the things that are basically, not that I'm saying that corn syrup is good for you, but that are made outta plants and those are the things you shouldn't have. It's, it's insane. It's just insane, like, uh, thing, how do keep things, things keep getting worse?

Do you think that he's such a freak that at some point people are gonna notice he's such a freak, and this is actually... can we, can we take a, like a long-term view of this and think that, you know, ultimately when people start absorbing like how crazy he is that this will actually have a boomerang effect and everybody will wanna eat spinach?

Maybe. I dunno. Probably not. All right, that's all I got. Thanks again for, for tuning in and for sticking with me. Even though I know I'm depressing, but I, I try not to be. don't forget to subscribe, like, and comment, uh, either on your favorite pod catcher or on YouTube. And don't forget to tune into The Hen Report and the Our Hen House interview. and I'll see you next time.

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