3/22/09

Can you meet with your Member of Congress?

Sign up to attend a district meeting.

March 20, 2009

Can you meet with your member of Congress to ask them for better school milk?

Last week on National "Know Your Milk" Day, you and fellow activists made over one thousand calls to Congress. We've already heard that this made a huge impact and now members of Congress are ready to listen. Can you meet with your member of Congress to help get better milk into the National School Lunch Program?

From April 6-17, members of Congress are going to be in their home districts for Easter recess. This is the perfect opportunity for you to meet with your member of Congress to ask them in person to support better school milk.

Attending a district meeting is easy and important. We know that milk that has been produced using the artificial hormone rBGH makes its way into the School Lunch Program every year. About one out of five pints of milk distributed through the school nutrition programs in fiscal year 2005-2006 may have been from rBGH-treated cows.

Kids deserve the best nutrition, parents deserve a say in what their kids are fed, and schools need the tools to be able to purchase the best food for their students. Can you ask for a district meeting with your member of Congress?

The more meetings we have, the better chance we'll have to get healthy milk for schools.

Thanks for taking action,
Sarah, Noelle, Alex and The Food Team
Food & Water Watch
goodfood(at)fwwatch.org

3/16/09

Got rbST?

Companies cut synthetic hormone from dairy products
USA TODAY March 15, 2009 By Bruce Horovitz
Got rbST? That's not the latest space critter in a George Lucas film. It's a synthetic growth hormone (recombinant bovine somatotropin) used to spur cows to produce more milk. Many dairies and retailers - including General Mills (GIS) , Dannon and Wal-Mart (WMT) - are nixing it from dairy products in a world of rising food fears....

3/13/09

Hospital Leaders Help Shift Dairy Market

Yoplait, Dannon, & Cabot announce their move to eliminate hormone rBGH
Across the country nurses, hospital food service directors, and administrators have sent letters to dairy producers asking them to eliminate rBGH from the dairy supply chain. The supply chain is beginning to respond.

The controversial industrial animal hormone (rBGH) also called rBST is known to cause adverse health effects in cows leading to the increased use of antibiotics and the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria according to the recent statement released by the American Cancer Society in February 2009. Healthcare systems across the country have been switching their dairy products away from those produced with rBST due to these implications. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all 27 countries of the European Union have banned its use.

New England's largest dairy cooperative, Agri-Mark , has officially banned rBST from its products setting a cut-off date of August 1, 2009. One of its most popular brands Cabot, is local to Vermont. Nationally, big dairy brands Yoplait and Dannon both announced their intentions to provide only dairy products produced without rBGH.


If your facility is interested in this issue, you can use the Purchasers Guide to Dairy Produced Without rBGH

3/9/09

General Mills announces No rBGH in Yogurt

Yoplait goes rBGH free! We did it!

Job Opportunity

General Mills announced that they are taking the rBGH dairy out of Yoplait yogurt, something that just four months ago they assured us was impossible.

Congratulations and thank you to everyone who wrote General Mills, made a contribution or took any action to support this effort.

See BCA's press release.


Dannon follows suit! No rBGH by 2010

Two weeks after General Mills announced they were going rBGH free, Dannon responded to public pressure and made the same promise to consumers.

These two companies represent two-thirds of America's dairy products and their policy change shows a cultural shift.

This is a tremendous acknowledgment of grassroots activism and a victory for all of us.