Dairy: Perfect Food?

For 150 years milk was considered the perfect food. The halo effect extended to all the dairy products that flowed from milk. One researcher has suggested that the American canonization of this food has much to do with the Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage of the first settlers. Milk symbolized a perfection of class, race, and religion. As the political voice shifted from rural dairy farmers to urban consumers, even more perfection was demanded of milk, which, it was thought, should be supplied on demand. In the 1960s, dairy products fell from grace for health reasons and because of fear of the unknown effects of biotechnological boosters. Recombinant bovine growth hormone, the first biotechnology product to be approved in this country, stimulated a strong and powerful consumer backlash that demanded once again that milk be perfect. In its organic version, directed toward the elite purchaser, its image and status have been restored in part for those who can afford it. Some people even receive deliveries to their homes in vintage 1950s glass bottles. Nostalgia for “pure” milk and the right to access seem to be enduring American food issues.