Free school meals should be tasty, but nutrition is more important. New USDA guidelines should keep this in mind.Good for Williamson to challenge the long-standing rules that unfairly protect the nation’s dairy industry from competition. Williamson, 17, believes the USDA rules prioritize an industry’s profits over students’ health considering that many students are lactose-intolerant, a digestive condition that causes bloating, diarrhea, nausea and other symptoms.
Williamson was an intern last summer at the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, where she learned how the farming industry negatively affects people of color, including the higher likelihood of lactose intolerance among those groups. In October, administrators at her school gave her permission to set up a table during lunch to hand out samples of oat milk and pea protein milk while discussing the benefits of nondairy milk.
She wanted to hold a similar event in April, but since the October event she found out about the USDA’s dairy milk provision. Williamson, who is due to graduate this year from the International Baccalaureate academic program, didn’t want to get in trouble so she specifically sought assurance that her event would not violate the provision.
The courts will have to decide whether Williamson’s 1st Amendment rights were violated, but it doesn’t take a judge to understand that these rules were created to benefit a specific industry and not necessarily to promote children’s health. Even if it’s not unconstitutional, it’s a rule that doesn’t make sense at a time when many people prefer plant-based milk over cow‘s milk for health and personal reasons.