CanadaNews’ Reporter Notes

Seventy percent of African-Americans have moderate to severe problems with dairy products.  This percentage of the African-American population are lactose intolerance. That means they have a decline in the level of lactase [it’s an enzyme needed for proper metabolization of lactose (a sugar that is a constituent of milk and other dairy products)].   An estimated 70% of adult humans are considered lactose intolerant and therefore, from a world view, lactose intolerance can be regarded as “normal” for adult humans whereas lactose tolerance may be considered a form of  neoteny.

The federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans purport to provide nutritional advice to keep Americans healthy. Some believe though ostensibly written for all Americans, the guidelines ignore the unique health needs and traditional food customs of racial minorities; primarily African-Americans.

The federal government currently recommends that all U.S. children drink milk every day - including the 70 percent of African Americans, 95 percent of Native Americans, 60 percent of Hispanic Americans, and 90 percent of Asian-Americans who are lactose intolerant.

Federal guidelines continue to advocate dairy products as the primary source of calcium, ignoring the fact that most people of color experience nausea, intestinal gas, bloating, abdominal cramps and diarrhea when they eat milk, cheese, or other dairy products. This benefits the dairy industry, but it is an injustice to people of color, who are not told that there are many other foods (including green leafy vegetables, soy milk, and tofu) that are excellent sources of calcium. These calcium-rich non-dairy foods are high in many other nutrients as well, and do not contain the cholesterol, sodium, and animal proteins that can hinder calcium absorption.

Seeking to remedy the USDA’s unintentional racial bias, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said: “Although the majority of African, Hispanic, Native, and Asian Americans are lactose intolerant, federal policy recommends that all Americans over the age of two should have dairy products every day. Despite the fact that minorities have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and prostate cancer than Caucasians, federal food policy does not promote diets low enough in fat and rich enough in plant products to help reduce their risk of these conditions.”

The United States has long been a multi-ethnic “melting pot” of different races, and has undergone racial change throughout its history - but never before at a pace and manner such as today. Within the next fifty years, whites as a share of the total population are expected to decline from 75 percent to under 50 percent. In many localities already, so-called minorities are now in the majority. Few things are more important today than that we wake up together to the negative consequences of the injustice and racial disparities which still pervade our society, and be willing to take individual as well as collective action to bring our lives and our country closer to our ideals of equality and justice.