Got Milk?

It's bad enough that CAFO Dairies are the norm in our society. Gone are the cows grazing in a bucolic setting. The reality is that dairy cows are fed a carefully formulated diet of grains with added antibiotics to keep them producing milk. The hard working cows live crammed together in cess pools of their own manure.
Now the  International Dairy Foods Association and the National Milk Producers Federation (herein known as Big Business Dairy-BBD) want to throw some of that manure our way. They want to change the meaning of 'milk'.
To accomplish their underhanded plan, these groups petitioned the FDA. They want to add artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose, both comprised of nasty chemicals, to our milk. And they want to do it without alerting the public! That's correct... the BBD wants to add sweetening chemicals to our milk, sans the bother of adding this little bit of knowledge to the labels on the packaging. After all, what the consumer doesn't know, can't hurt her... and it's all in the push to encourage the public to purchase more milk products for a healthier life. And to fatten the fat cat companies who own these enormous, out of control dairies.
The BBD would also like to include yogurt, whipping cream, half & half, sour cream, egg nog... in all a total of 17 dairy products.
The worst part is that the FDA is CONSIDERING this!! 
Apparently the FDA asked consumers last week to submit their comments about this change.
Odd that I knew nothing about this... Did you??

What could the BBD possibly argue to persuade the FDA to change the meaning of 'milk' as we know it?

Part of their petition states "that nutrient content claims such as "reduced calorie" are not attractive to children and maintain that consumers can more easily identify the overall nutritional value of milk products that are flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners if the labels do not include such claims. Further, the petitioners assert that consumers do not recognize milk—including flavored milk—as necessarily containing sugar. Accordingly, the petitioners state that milk flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners should be labeled as milk without further claims so that consumers can "more easily identify its overall nutritional value."

It's not enough that the FDA has done all they can to eliminate fresh, raw milk from a consumer's choice of milk, cracking down on raw milk farmers as if they were members of the drug cartel. Now they want to tamper with one of Nature's most perfect foods. 

Tell the FDA what you think about this matter. Changing the definition of milk so that the FDA's own labeling laws can be ignored is deception at its worst.

• Dair