Goodbaker’s Blog

The USDA and the Dairy Industry have been forced to halt misleading weight-loss ads after the  Physicians Group for Responsible Medicine lobbied the Federal Trade Commission. They have been forced to stop claiming that dairy products help with weight loss because such claims are not supported by existing scientific research, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced. The decision, which comes in response to an FTC petition filed by PCRM, will end misleading claims made in the “Milk Your Diet. Lose Weight” and 3-A-Day. Burn More Fat, Lose Weight” promotions. The FTC agreed that the ads in question were false and misleading.

The PCRM wants people to know that cheese and milk are actually likely to cause weight gain. The campaigns were based on basic research done on the effect of calcium supplementation on metabolism. The Dairy Council then extrapolated study results to dairy products, claiming that because dairy products contain calcium, they would cause weight loss. They conveniently ignored the facts that the calcium found in dairy is far less bio-available than the calcium found in leafy greens, vegetables and fruits, meaning that you absorb less usable calcium from dairy. And that the calcium in dairy is accompanied by calories — as opposed to a calcium supplement which gives you calcium with no added calories. Also, in order to process dairy, your body consumes calcium in order to neutralize the acids formed when the dairy protein is metabolized. There is actually strong evidence that consuming dairy results in a loss of calcium, as proven by the high rates of osteoporosis in countries that consume the highest amounts of dairy, and the near-zero rates of osteoporosis in countries where dairy is not part of the normal diet. When you consume foods that make your body acidic (excessive amounts of protein and processed sugar, for example), your body removes calcium from your bones to help neutralize the excess acidity. When your body is alkaline, (when you are eating a diet high in vegetables and fruits, for example), your body is able to replace the lost calcium, but only to a limited extent. Your bones act like a checking account, with constant calcium withdrawals and deposits. The standard American diet results in a calcium deficit over time.

Anyway, I was always appalled that the Dairy Council was able to get away with this for so long, and I’m thrilled that these campaigns have finally been halted.
References:
<a title=”PCRM news release” target=”_blank” href=”http://www.pcrm.org/news/release070511.html”>http://www.pcrm.org/news/release070511.html </a>

“Dairy Council to End Ad Campaign That Linked Drinking Milk With Weight Loss” New York Times article
Misleading Dairy Council Weight-Loss Ads Removed
2007-05-19

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 10:36 pm and is filed under vegan news. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.