There’s a special urge to drink milk that sets it apart from other foods. This desire came from the belief that milk not only benefits health but is also considered “nature’s perfect food.” Although growing environmental and health issues are starting to shake our unwavering faith in milk, this perception has dominated American consumer thought for generations. So how did milk manage to hold onto such a strong grip? The answer lies in the carefully crafted image surrounding it.
The way we view milk isn’t just a static identity made by marketing experts; it’s a collective sentiment shaped by various players since the 1840s, each with their unique goals. These players include dairy farmers, industry groups, politicians, journalists, and reformers. Their efforts have added depth to milk’s image, making it a persistent element of American culture while adapting to the times.
The notion of “unquestionable purity” has long been linked to milk, but it wasn’t enough on its own to drive Americans to the levels of consumption they eventually achieved. There were additional qualities needed to enhance its image. One was the idea of “specialness,” where milk was seen as having distinct yet not necessarily real “properties” that addressed prevalent health concerns. Another aspect was its implicit link to a desirable identity associated with vitality, success, and whiteness. These factors helped transform milk from a minor dietary component before the 1840s into a staple by the mid-1900s, with adults consuming an average of 45 gallons annually—more than the volume of an oil barrel—by 1945.
The modern perception of milk began in the bustling urban landscape of mid-19th century New York City, where overcrowded tenements suffered from malnutrition and illness. The early appeal of milk as a symbol of pure goodness met the communities’ needs.
Robert Hartley was among the first to suggest that milk was nature’s “perfect food,” linking its pure wholesomeness to a moral lifestyle during the Second Great Awakening and his advocacy for temperance. He presented milk—something that was relatively unpopular at the time—as a virtuous alternative to alcohol and a remedy for the malnutrition affecting poor urban kids. His push for milk consumption eventually evolved into a campaign for pure milk after he discovered the dire state of the city’s milk supply.
In his 1842 piece, An Essay on Milk, Hartley argued that city-produced milk was impure due to contaminants like formaldehyde and because it came from urban swill sheds, which were filthy dairies connected to distilleries housing unhealthy cows. Hartley believed that shutting down these sheds would tackle both the issue of tainted milk and the alcohol problem simultaneously.
While he didn’t achieve his goals, Hartley successfully reshaped milk’s image. Early investigative reporters and social reformers recognized the ongoing need for clean, wholesome milk, despite the rising rates of milk-related deaths among children in cities during the mid-1800s. These journalists often operated out of NYC, addressing what Catherine McNeur referred to as the city’s overwhelming growth and ineffective government services. The crisis surrounding milk became a representation of the city’s broader issues and a focal point for advocating change.
Members of the New York Academy of Medicine and investigative writers gathered solid evidence about swill milk, documenting conditions of swill cows and specific locations of swill sheds as well as highlighting the negative effects of swill milk on children. They set up a committee to investigate swill milk led by Dr. Augustus Gardner, though the committee’s troubling findings went unaddressed.
Investigative reporters brought the issue to the public eye. In 1853, Mullaly published The Milk Trade in New York and Vicinity, suggesting new sanitation measures for swill milk. Frank Leslie followed up in 1858 with an illustrated exposé titled Our Exposure of the Swill Milk Trade, stirring public outcry through shocking revelations combined with graphic depictions of the poor state of urban milk. Their coverage didn’t discourage milk consumption but rather emphasized its necessity for kids facing prevalent diseases in America’s cities, arguing for its protection from exploitative urban producers, visually captured in Currier and Ives’ satirical artwork “Swill Milk for Hungry Suckers.”
By the late 1850s, newspapers critiqued the government’s failure to act amid approximately eight thousand milk-related fatalities annually, as reported by the New York Times in 1858. Journalists called for comprehensive food safety reforms, but government responses were sluggish; it wasn’t until the early 20th century that federal authorities finally established the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Given the lack of government action, reformers saw importing milk from rural dairies as the next best move. This approach appealed to affluent New Yorkers eager to push agricultural production out of the city as they opposed urban farming. It also resonated with consumers who associated milk purity with peaceful countryside settings and traditional ways of life. Unfortunately, this rural sourcing often fell short. Rural dairies struggled with production limits and sanitation issues. Back then, packaging and transport methods weren’t sufficient to prevent contamination, and people had trouble distinguishing genuine rural milk from numerous urban counterparts.
Since even rural sourcing didn’t yield the level of purity that the popular image demanded, milk itself underwent changes, beginning with its handling and distribution via closed containers and refrigerated railroad cars. While these innovations didn’t guarantee pure milk, they did reshape the American milk landscape, populated increasingly by larger-scale dairies producing milk year-round.
Milk consumption surged leading into both world wars, hitting a peak in the mid-1940s. Advances in bacteriology prompted further transformations in milk, shifting its image towards hygienic production practices instead of idealized country pastures. Small rural dairies turned into the new villains linked with impure milk, while better-resourced milk industrialists emerged as heroes, bolstered by industry consolidation and medical professionals, including those in pediatrics. Together, they advocated for and established hygienic production and distribution practices.
Henry Coit, a pediatrician from Newark, along with the New Jersey Medical Society, promoted the hygienic ideal through a voluntary certification process for dairies administered by a medical commission that applied uniform nutritional, spoilage, and bacteria count standards. About eighty similar commissions popped up soon after, as certified milk became synonymous with purity, although raw milk still remained susceptible to pathogens. Uncertified milk persisted in the market, as smaller dairies often lacked the resources to meet the new benchmarks, while some consumers sought affordable options.
To ensure the delivery of safe milk at reasonable prices, industrial milk producers and health professionals eventually turned to pasteurization. This method pushed milk closer to what Wiley described as a quintessentially modern, artificial product. The debate around pasteurization centered on whether this process altered milk’s natural wholesomeness by overheating important nutrients. Philanthropist Nathan Straus supported pasteurization as the sole means to achieve purity, while Coit argued that certification alone could guarantee milk’s wholesomeness. This disagreement delayed the widespread adoption of pasteurization for years after news of the European purification technique reached the U.S. in the 1880s.
Once pasteurization finally provided the promised purity, the milk industry needed to find ways to encourage mothers to serve even more milk to their families. They shifted the focus of milk’s image from hygiene to health, claiming that it provided unique growth benefits and vitality, enabling children to meet physical ideals and middle-class aspirations. Industry leaders and government officials employed advertisements featuring healthy, happy—and predominantly white—children alongside medical professionals and athletes touting milk’s nutritional benefits.
Discoveries in nutrition science, from vitamin and mineral breakthroughs in the 1920s to USDA dietary guidelines initiated in 1894, allowed the milk industry to promote this health narrative further by suggesting that inadequate childhood consumption led to harmful calcium deficiencies. The USDA’s Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) and other government-supported dairy promotions amplified these claims. However, milk couldn’t fulfill its vitamin-based promises on its own; it required Vitamin D fortification, which became standard practice by the 1930s.
During the periods leading into both world wars, milk consumption soared, reaching its peak in the mid-1940s. Production struggled to keep up with demand, initially lagging behind but ultimately exceeding it by the 1970s. Complicating matters was milk’s nature as a flow commodity, meaning its output can’t be rapidly adjusted (since cows produce milk daily), and surplus can’t be easily stored due to its short shelf life. Dairies scaled their production based on anticipated high consumption rates to avoid falling short, which inevitably led to an oversupply. Producers lobbied the government to buy surplus and incentivize dairies to cut back on production, but overproduction continued. This issue became critical when demand plummeted in the 1980s and 90s, as new sodas, flavored teas, juices, and energy drinks flooded the beverage market, leaving milk feeling outdated and less appealing to consumers.
Milk advocates needed to revive the image of its “specialness.” By this time, they had professionalized organizations dedicated to defending and promoting milk. These started as local cooperatives or processor boards, such as Chicago’s Milk Producers’ Association, and evolved into robust regional processor associations like the California Milk Processor Board, along with special interest groups like MilkPEP, which aimed to advocate for dairy products.
These organizations rolled out various promotions, with the most notable being the California Milk Processor Board’s “Got Milk?” campaign, launched in 1993 and later taken over by MilkPEP. Crafted by advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein, & Partners, the campaign combined familiar health messaging with celebrity endorsements, featuring stars like Taylor Swift and Serena and Venus Williams sporting quirky milk mustaches. The underlying message was clear: drinking milk leads to all kinds of success.
Even though the mustache concept gained nationwide attention and the phrase “Got Milk?” became a brand in its own right, the campaign failed to reverse the decline in milk consumption, which saw Americans drinking less than half a cup per day by its conclusion in 2014.
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Milk’s Wholesome Weight Loss Image
Industry groups realized they needed to refocus milk’s image on the pressing health issue of the 2000s: weight loss. This concern was sparked by the Surgeon General’s 2001 Call to Action aimed at combating obesity and the USDA’s 2005 warning on trans fats.
New campaigns began associating milk with strong growth and slim figures. In 2006, MilkPEP expanded the “Got Milk?” slogan to include “Body by Milk,” showcasing mustachioed athlete-celebrities like David Beckham. This version specifically targeted teens, claiming milk could help them achieve a strong yet lean physique. Additionally, the National Dairy Council introduced the “3-A-Day” campaign, promoting three servings of dairy daily to strengthen bones while aiding weight loss.
However, the “3-A-Day” campaign faced backlash from health and consumer advocates who felt it was too closely tied to the industry’s push for the USDA to raise recommended dairy servings to three cups. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine even challenged the validity of the campaign’s claims with the US government, involving both the USDA and the Federal Trade Commission.
Critiques of milk’s claims of pure wholesomeness emerged as well. First, there were questions about whether milk was truly the ultimate source of calcium necessary for bone health, given studies that disassociated milk from bone strength. Complaints also arose regarding the industry and government’s oversight of lactose intolerance and the contradiction between milk’s supposed naturalness and its extensive processing (such as using synthetic bovine growth hormone to increase milk production) as well as its environmental impact.
The Fate of Milk Today
Today, milk’s image is at a critical point, with consumption steadily declining from its high of 45 gallons per adult per year in 1945 to around 11 gallons by 2019. While the milk industry has successfully revived its image in the past, the current associations leading this effort seem to be reacting rather than proactively finding new ways to align milk with Americans’ health concerns. Their strategy includes parody PSAs from MilkPEP that take jabs at criticism in “Milk Shaming,” featuring Queen Latifah, and at milk alternatives in “Wood Milk,” starring Aubrey Plaza.
Americans are no longer convinced that beverages resembling milk in taste, texture, and promise are worth drinking in large amounts. Milk associations are also battling against alternatives that aim to co-opt milk’s attributes. These substitutes use the term “milk” or variations like “mylk” in their branding, mimicking its flavor, texture, and color while appearing in advertisements featuring young celebrities sporting “Silk ‘staches.” They also assert health benefits and a reduced environmental footprint compared to traditional dairy.
Organizations like the National Milk Producers Federation are filing complaints with the FDA about these alternatives’ use of the term “milk” while lobbying Congress to protect the term through legislation like the Senate’s 2017 “Dairy Pride Act.” Individual and collective dairy bodies are pursuing lawsuits, such as the class-action case against Trader Joe’s soymilk that concluded in 2015, alleging that certain alternatives mislead consumers by using the word “milk.”
This battle over terminology makes sense initially since alternatives from soymilk to precision-fermented dairy have drained about two gallons per household per year from dairy milk sales. However, this decrease isn’t solely responsible for the significant drop in milk consumption. The greater issue is that Americans no longer feel that drinks like milk offer enough appeal to warrant consuming them in bulk. With the pressure off to drink milk, consumers are opting for more exciting choices, consuming nearly as much soda in 2013 as they had milk in 1945. While this terminology conflict might breathe some life back into the image of milk, it probably won’t enhance the standing of anything remotely resembling milk in the competitive beverage landscape.
