US policy promoted milk to people who could not digest it from 1946 onward

Evidence

Prior to this, Americans assumed that if drinking cow’s milk was good for “our” (European-descent) children it must be good for everyone’s children. In 1946, the National School Lunch program required that fluid milk be part of any student lunch funded by the program. Despite the growing scientific literature, government efforts continued to promote milk drinking for everyone into the 1990s. As late as 1998, the then Secretary of Health and Human Services even appeared in the well-known Got Milk? commercials. Over the years, many of the famous sports and music stars who appeared in these commercials donning milk moustaches were not, in all likelihood, actually able to digest the very beverage they were promoting. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 300

Categorization

• SHARE: Send to anyone interested in nutrition policy or food history — the Got Milk? celebrities who probably couldn’t digest milk.
• CANDY: Light, tweetable: the Secretary of HHS hawked Got Milk? while very likely lactose intolerant.
• XREF: connects to: Cultural evolution can create selection pressures stronger than natural ones — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 282; Postwar American consumption was politically constructed — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1721; Cultural adaptation enabled people to eventually drink cows’ milk without illness. — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 167 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Postwar American consumption was politically constructed #exemplifies (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1721
• Cultural adaptation enabled people to eventually drink cows’ milk without illness. #complicates (0.70) — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 167