7/23/2023 0 Comments Us stockpile of cheeseHowever, it’s a concerning pattern for both environmental and health outcomes.ĭairy farming contributes to emissions and the worsening climate crisis as its farting, burping cows belch out the potent greenhouse gas methane, and while getting food to hungry families is a worthy endeavor, the decision to promote cheese products to a population where 41.9 percent of people are obese seems short-sighted from a human health perspective.įor now, the domestic reserve of cheddar, Swiss, and American cheese endures while dairy farmers continue to search for innovative ways to boost the purchase and use of cheese, and it seems anything’s on the table. The consistent overproduction of the dairy industry driven by seasonal surges in milk and dips in purchases is driving the necessity for cheese caves, as turning the excess product into something storable with a long shelf-life is a means of reducing waste. It was, however, arguably a better solution than that of a USDA official who told the Washington Post: “Probably the cheapest and most practical thing would be to dump it in the ocean." The solution was far from ideal, not just because of the cheese’s questionable suitability for human consumption but also because it began to disrupt sales for the dairy industry from whence it came. While the donation was mostly moldy, it was forwarded on to hungry people. The bitter taste left in the mouths of the American people would soon be replaced with something between Velveeta and cheese singles, as the Special Dairy Distribution Program enacted by President Ronald Reagan shelled out 14 million kilograms (30 million pounds) of cheese to nonprofit organizations. At a time when families were relying on food stamps, here sat mountains of uneaten dairy that was beginning to rot. The great gluts of dairy were stored in more than 150 warehouses across 35 states, anthropologist Bradley N Jones writes in The Oxford Companion to Cheese, and it wasn’t long until the press caught whiff of a scandal. Cheese was of particular interest as it would be better suited for storage, and by the early '80s, the government found themselves with around 227 million kilograms (500 million pounds) of cheese on their hands. A sizable cash injection of $2 billion in federal funds worked (if anything, too well) as the dairy workers churned (pun intended) out as much product as they could, safe in the knowledge that any excess would be bought up by the government.
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