Check Off Program

Check Off Program

In internal documents uncovered by Dr. Greger, the USDA admitted that eggs cannot legally be called nutritious, low fat, part of a balanced diet, low calorie, healthful, healthy, can't say it's good for you or, even safe. Yet they still promote these products to the American people through federal checkoff programs. If you ask somebody if they have heard of a checkoff program, the odds are they haven't, although daily, they are seeing the messaging that these programs produce.  So, checkoff programs are responsible for the messages that we see on TV, on the Internet, on buzz billboards and magazines that say things like, "Milk, it does a body good," or "milk life.  Beef, it's what's for dinner.  Pork, be inspired.  The incredible edible egg."

Wikipedia definition:   

In the United States, a commodity checkoff program collects funds through a checkoff mechanism, sometimes called checkoff dollars, from producers of a particular agricultural commodity and uses these funds to promote and do research on that particular commodity. The organizations must promote their commodity in a generic way, without reference to a particular producer. Checkoff programs attempt to improve the market position of the covered commodity by expanding markets, increasing demand, and developing new uses and markets. Checkoff programs amount to $750 million per year.

The United States Department of Agriculture is responsible for overseeing the formation of checkoff organizations under the authority of the Commodity, Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996.

The dairy checkoff program gave $12 million to Domino's to just market cheese-heavy product.  And this is the USDA, this is the government.  If you've seen those ads for the Pizza Hut pizza, the stuffed crust or a pound of cheese.  Those are all government advertising schemes for the industry.  How can we put more cheese on beef?  How can we put more milk in a coffee?  Things like that to just drive consumption of these just  unbelievably unhealthful products.  So, McDonald's, for instance, has six people staffed full-time, according to records we found, whose salaries are paid for by this government program but, funded by the producers who are regulated by it.  And these six people sit there at McDonald's headquarters and just come up with ideas.  You don't think of it on a day-to-day basis that these are government programs.  The Wendy's Bacon Double Cheeseburger.  Government program.  The steak fajita at Dunkin' Donuts.  Government program.  You would just never think that this just pure garbage from a food standpoint,  is coming from a federally-funded program.  That's one of the things that makes checkoffs so incredibly creepy, is that it is our government telling us eat more beef, drink more milk, eat more cheese, eat more pork.  I am sure the Healthcare Industry is very grateful....  

One of the very effective ways that the dairy industry promotes its products is to reach children because kids are impressionable, they're gonna be consumers for their entire lives, and you might as well get ‘em while they're young.  So, dairy spends at least $50 million promoting its products in public schools throughout the country with posters, with people with milk mustaches and messages like "Milk, it does the body good," or "milk life."  Pretty catchy, huh? Targeting young people, like the tobacco industry had to keep replacing their customers who were dying with new customers. Meat industry knows they have to target young people.  That's why we have these foods in schools and marketing messages at a younger and younger age for kids to get hooked on all the wrong kinds of foods.  This just seems to be some kind of child abuse to me. 

So, there's all kinds of parallels.  School districts where processed meats are all over the place, maybe it's gonna be bacon on the menu, sausage, hotdogs or pepperoni pizza.  Any of those things are processed meats, and those are pretty much the worst of the worst with a direct link to colon cancer.  And yet you have every day in the schools meal items with processed meats.  If the surgeon general puts warning labels on tobacco because of their cancer risk, why aren't the same warning labels on meat?  Based on the publicly available data, we know they spend at least $557 million promoting their goods through checkoff programs.  We know that they spend at least $138 million lobbying Congress.  We expect that they spend a good deal more than that in figures that simply aren't publicly disclosed.  God Save The Children!

The industry's lobbying power is so strong that they can create laws and push through legislation that doesn't benefit Americans in any way, such as ag -gag laws that criminalize whistle-blowing or photographing abuses by this industry.   Now, think about that, why would they not want you to see? Activists in the US can be charged as terrorists for disrupting the profits of any business that uses animals, under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, to the even more ridiculous ones like cheeseburger laws.  Yes, a cheeseburger law!  A cheeseburger law is a law that says a plaintiff cannot recover against a manufacturer, distributor or, retailer, on the theory that the food made the plaintiff obese or caused an obesity related disease.  Cheeseburger laws are a direct response to a problem that the tobacco industry has had.  Big Tobacco has paid $400 billion to state Medicaid programs.  Cheeseburger laws proponents say, “We don't want to see the same kind of thing happen “to the meat and dairy industries." They sell you this crap, then they want to make sure you can't sue them.  Ok, I get it, we are suppose to be educated and responsible for what we eat.  But most people are just manipulated, confused and just simply don't have the time to research. 

The fact that these laws are based on a model template called a Commonsense Consumption Act is actually ironic because what they're saying is you, the consumer, should have the common sense to know that our food is bad for you.  I've often typified the meat industry to people who maybe don't understand its power and reach, as it's got all the money of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, and it has the personality of the National Rifle Association.  So, any little thing that comes up, man, they beat it to death.

These people don't care about your health, it's all about selling the product, MONEY.  It's our responsibility to weed through are the garbage information, the propaganda, the manipulation and decide what is right to eat for our health.  Nobody else is looking out for you.  It's a choice, live long with a good quality of health or live shorter lives and miserable in the process with many chronic illnesses/diseases.  Get off the merry-go-round!

Disclaimer:  Most if not all of this is copied from "What The Health" video.  You guys really need to watch these videos if you haven't already.