A common refrain heard at election rallies this year was government is out of control. Often in angry tones, rally goers would point to the recent health care bill or corporate bailouts and say government must be stopped. Never mind that many of the politicians playing to these crowds played loose with the facts, the theme sold and swept many new people into office. But, before you dismiss the anti-government crowd entirely, you need consider government cheese. Yep, government cheese. That recurring comedic punch line is an excellent example of why the government, specifically the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gives these naysayers strong ground on which to stand.
In a front-page story this morning, the New York Times reports on Dairy Management, a $140 million marketing creation of the Department of Agriculture to get the American people to eat more cheese. Dairy Management’s revenue comes largely from a government-mandated fee (I still call that a tax) and is supplemented by several additional million from the Department itself. Through a series of confidential (yes, confidential) agreements, Dairy Management has induced companies like Domino’s Pizza and Taco Bell to stuff their products with cheese to get fat Americans to eat even more of the gelatinous goo.
The struggling pizza chain, Domino’s, is the benefactor of a $12 million all-expense-paid marketing campaign. All Domino’s had to do was introduce a line of pizzas with 40% more cheese. One slice of this pizza has two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended saturated fat all while the Department is bending over backwards to tout its $6.5 million Center for Nutritional Policy and Promotion effort to promote a healthy diet. ($140 million to eat more cheese to $6.5 million to eat healthier, hmmmmm?)
Dairy Management cooed in one report about how its agreement with Taco Bell had created a new quesadilla that used eight times more cheese than any other of its menu items. The steak quesadilla with cheddar, pepper jack mozzarella and a creamy sauce (everybody knows three kinds of cheese is best enjoyed with a creamy sauce) is a win for Dairy Management as it rings in with more than three-quarters of the daily-recommended level of both saturated fat and sodium. (Whoo-hoo, way to go, government!)
Dairy Management is one example of a government program started with good intentions that has run amuck. During the Depression, the Agriculture Department bought the cheese industry’s excess product and gave it to those in need, helping to save family farms and feed people in difficult times. The Depression ended, but the program has continued to grow. By 1983, the government had a stockpile of $4 billion in cheese stored in Missouri caves. (I am not making that up!) Today, Dairy Management is focused on trying to get Americans to eat even more of the stuff, even though our consumption has skyrocketed from over ten pounds a year in the 1970’s to 33 pounds a year today. Cheese is the largest source of saturated fat adding to Americans’ waistlines, clogged arteries and overall fine physiques. And, Dairy Management is a bloated example of why government may just be out of control.
There is something wrong with a government that colludes with an industry to increase the sales of a product that its people do not need and is actually contributing to obesity and its related health problems. Dairy Management spent $136 million domestically last year and an additional $5.6 million of Department money to promote dairy sales overseas. Next time you go to a Tea Party, you might want to ask your host to hold the cheese, lest you want to be seen as a tool of the run-away government you decry.
(In the interest of self-disclosure, the writer of this piece loves cheese and he firmly believes he would even if the government wasn’t marketing it to him.)
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(Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com)
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.
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