Drink your milk

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My ma, she tells me to drink milk,
My pa, he says so, too.
My teacher says a quart a day
Is not too much for you. 

Such were the memorable lyrics of a song we sang in third grade, part of a "Good Health" class extravaganza that we presented for the benefit of lowly first and second graders.  The verse was sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.  

A quart a day of milk.  The recognized amount needed for good health.  No one would ever have questioned it.  And a quart a day would amount to 91¼ gallons of milk per capita per annum.  Although our budding third grade math skills weren't yet quite up to that calculation.

A quart a day was the amount required by kids.  I suppose most adults drank less, although my mother, at least, drank the same amount as her children -- in addition to her coffee.  But times have changed.   In 2018, Americans consumed just 17 gallons per capita.  That had fallen from 24 gallons in 1996, and from about 28 gallons in 1975.

Why?  A spokesman for the milk industry says that -- for children at least -- the responsibility falls on the lack of concern by "gatekeeper moms."

Now there's so much choice in the marketplace. You have all kinds of different waters and sports beverages and energy drinks, so there's just a lot of choice out there. It's a culture of choice."

I still do my part.  Milk on my breakfast cereal.  Milk at lunch.  Milk at dinner.  Often, milk with snacks.  I'm part of a rapidly dying breed, however.

Some dairymen are going with the flow.  The Seattle Times carried an A.P. story this morning about two brothers who operate a dairy farm in Vermont, a farm that has been in the family for 150 years.  They're switching from cows to goats -- as are a growing number of other dairy farms.  So what does this mean?  Have kids and their parents, after turning up their noses at cows' milk -- in favor of Cokes, juice, and Red Bull -- not to mention coffee --  suddenly developed a taste for goat's milk?

Not really.  The milk is used primarily for making goat's cheese, which is acquiring a growing following among America's consumers.  Cheese is also a good source of calcium and other nutrients, of course, but I'm not sure that the kids who skip their daily milk are now nibbling on goat cheese.  It's more likely to be consumed by their parents, accompanying their evening glass of wine -- another milk competitor.

Goat dairymen seem pleased enough with the change, judging by the reaction of one such farmer:

The goats have a lot more personality than cows do, that's for sure.  Very curious," Brian Jones said, adding that they always wanted to nibble on something.

I have no problems with the production of goat cheese, but I lament the decline of Elsie the Cow and her friends.  Drinking milk just seems more, well, American, than eating goat cheese.  Even more American than owning an assault rifle.

I think I'll mull over the situation with a glass of milk and a couple of Oreos.