Guardian: School milk subsidies to end
Date: 2006-01-10
An article in the Guardian contains the fabulous quote: But health experts agreed that the subsidies were no longer appropriate. Mike Rayner, the director of the British Heart Foundation's health promotion group, said: "I think the milk subsidy should have been abandoned a long time ago. For some children, lower-fat dairy products provide an important source of calcium, but they are not the only source and it would be better for health to subsidise fruit or even bread."
The Vegan Society is planning to respond
.
Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation response:
Drop All Subsidies for 'Unhealthy' Milk, says Charity A leading health charity has backed the proposal to scrap subsidies for school milk. The Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation urges an end to subsidies for school milk not because they are inefficient and ineffective but because cow's milk is bad for children. It claims that the diets of today's children are a national disgrace and an evolutionary disaster. Most are malnourished and many face the prospect of dying before their parents, says the VVF, and milk is part of the reason.
Dr Justine Butler, the VVF's health campaigner, says: "Despite the dairy industry's claims that milk is healthy and necessary, the opposite is true. A considerable volume of scientific research shows that milk and other dairy foods are linked to a wide range of diseases, including teenage acne, certain cancers, including breast, ovarian, prostate and colorectal cancer, Crohn's disease, type 1 diabetes, gallstones, osteoporosis and childhood allergies. In fact cow's milk is the most common source of food allergy amongst children and is the main cause of childhood iron deficiency anaemia because of allergic intestinal bleeding.
"The Food Standards Agency reports that most of our dietary calcium (57%) comes from plant sources, which is where the majority of the world's population obtain their calcium, given that over 70 per cent of people in the world are lactose intolerant. On a global scale, not drinking milk is the norm. Improving children's diets by increasing plant food intake will not only provide all the calcium they need but have other major health benefits. We are the only species to drink milk after weaning - and the milk of another species at that. The only creatures for whom cow's milk is natural and healthy are calves".
In 2000, the Government's National Diet & Nutrition Survey produced the shocking fact that more than three-quarters of Britain's children are malnourished. Their diet is based around processed meat, dairy products and junk food. Many lack iron, calcium, zinc, magnesium and vital vitamins and cholesterol levels are already too high in one in 10. Children are developing adult diseases for the first time in our evolution and the current epidemic of degenerative diseases is set to get worse as children enter adulthood. Milk is part of the problem, maintains Dr Butler, not the cure.
"In 1990, the World Health Organisation investigated the cause of degenerative diseases (Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases) and came to the conclusion that foods of animal origin were the main culprits," adds Dr Butler. "It called for an end to large scale dairy production, called upon governments to reconsider subsidies and urged them to instigate policies geared to growing plant foods instead. The opposite has happened and our children are the victims. It is time we started looking at the evidence rather than listening to dairy industry propaganda."
For further information contact Dr Justine Butler or Tony Wardle at the VVF on 0117 970 5190.
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Guardian: School milk subsidies to end
An article in the Guardian contains the fabulous quote: But health experts agreed that the subsidies were no longer appropriate. Mike Rayner, the director of the British Heart Foundation's health promotion group, said: "I think the milk subsidy should have been abandoned a long time ago. For some children, lower-fat dairy products provide an important source of calcium, but they are not the only source and it would be better for health to subsidise fruit or even bread."
The Vegan Society is planning to respond
.
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