McDonald's and the Dairy Industry: BFFs

(Alternate title: McDonald's, the Dairy Industry, and Well-Meaning Vegetarians: BFFs)

McDonald's and other chains, restaurants, and food suppliers already love the dairy industry. It's where they get not only their cheese and milk of course, but also much of their cheap "beef" for hamburgers. But now the love affair is growing. The two are scratching each other's backs with McDonald's new McCafe line. The drinks are apparently quite heavy on cows' milk, so the dairy industry is helping promote the pus, hormone, and cruelty-packed concoctions. Straight from the dairy folks (emphasis mine):

McDonald’s new McCafe specialty coffee drinks — which consist of up to 80 percent milk — have officially launched at the chain’s nearly 14,000 restaurants nationwide. Dairy producers, through their checkoff investment, are partnering with McDonald’s to increase milk sales through the new beverages.

“The dairy checkoff’s long-standing partnership with McDonald’s — the world’s largest quick-serve restaurant chain — helped increase single-serve milk sales among kids and adults,” says Paul Rovey, Arizona dairy producer and chair of Dairy Management Inc., which manages the national dairy checkoff. “We are now growing this relationship to focus on short- and long-term innovation to help develop specialty coffees, a market that relies heavily on fluid milk and has grown 84 percent over the past five years, according to NPD CREST”. . . .

Dairy producers, through the dairy checkoff, supported the McCafe launch by:
•         Providing consumer data and insights on milk and specialty coffee.
•         Assisting McDonald’s on the introduction of specialty coffees and nationwide sampling efforts to build local awareness of McCafe espresso beverages

“This is just the beginning,” Rovey says. “The dairy checkoff is entering into a longer-term agreement with McDonald’s that could lead to new milk and dairy menu options, including yogurt smoothies, espresso drinks, new cheeseburgers and new single-serve, flavored milk options.”

In other words, the dairy industry and McDonald's are teaming up to offer adults and especially children even more unhealthy, cruel options than they already have. The practice of consuming cows' milk isn't natural or necessary for anyone but the calves for whom it's intended but whom we slaughter so that we can have it, and it's certainly not humane. And even people who aren't concerned about the animals abused and killed for dairy know that humans already consume way too much flesh and dairy; the last thing people need is another line of cheeseburgers. But this, of course, is about profit.

And it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that the dairy industry would partner so proudly with a company such as McDonald's. The dairy and meat industries are one and the same; they're part of the same system; the dairy industry is a meat industry--a veal and hamburger industry. And I hope the vegetarians out there are paying attention to situations such as this. Everyone's smart enough to connect the dots here, so I'll try to be brief. When they stop eating flesh for ethical reasons, many vegetarians replace it with increased consumption of cheese and eggs (as did I; oh yes, I recall my cheese-heavy vegetarian days), but without realizing that they're actually just exchanging one set of cruelties for another, even more terrible set of cruelties. And their dollars fund not only the extraordinary cruelties perpetuated against animals for dairy and eggs, but also the very meat industry they think they've stepped away from--vegetarians' dairy cows become omnivores' hamburgers after they're sent, tired, broken, and "spent," to the same awful slaughter that made so many vegetarians become vegetarians. In terms of the end results for cows and calves, there's arguably even more cruelty and death involved in a vegetarian's milkshake than there is in an omnivore's hamburger.

So it's darkly fascinating then how this all works out for animal agriculture and the food industry: even people who think they're making an ethical choice, who proudly and sincerely hold to the stance that they don't want animals to be tortured and killed on their behalf, are actually funneling their dollars straight to the cruelest of animal agriculture's practices, including the slaughter practices they so abhor, and then to the promotion of abominations like McDonald's.

Has anyone done research and calculations into what the effects would be on the system of animal ag if even 50% of current vegetarians went vegan? That's some information I'd be interested to see.