“So that’s what I was for—there to handle cheese.”
July 25, 2017 9:31 AM   Subscribe

Americans are drinking less milk than ever before, but fast food restaurants are saving the dairy industry by coming out with tons of new menu items featuring dairy products, especially cheese. A look at how a government-backed dairy industry group teamed up with Taco Bell to create the Quesalupa and convinced McDonald's to switch from margarine to butter.

Don't miss the chart where the restaurant with the highest percentage of menu items explicitly mentioning cheese is somehow Dunkin' Donuts.
posted by Copronymus (80 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's weird that Dairy Queen is second on that list, too. Isn't the only thing they have with cheese in it their cheeseburger? Have they added some sort of cheddar buster parf-- Oh. Right. Cheesecake Blizzard. So that's two. And Dairy Queen's menu isn't huge, so that's probably fairly close to the stated 34% already. Percentage probably wasn't the best way to go; menu size becomes a big factor.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:44 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I, for one, welcome our new cheese and butter overlords
posted by smidgen at 9:44 AM on July 25, 2017 [14 favorites]


Honestly, that's not that surprising, given that Dunkin' Donuts sells bagels and breakfast sandwiches.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:45 AM on July 25, 2017


The Dunkin' Donuts percentage has to be because they have fewer overall items on their menu, right?

Speaking of items on menus:

In a usual year, Taco Bell juggles about 4,000 new menu ideas. A dozen, maybe, will ever see the light of day.

The thousands that don't make the cut will haunt my imagination for years. What horrible wonders am I missing just because I get the fried chicken taco shell of the Naked Chicken Chalupa or the lacking-structural-integrity Doritos Loco. Is there a shell that is only fried cheese that the mad scientists haven't quite perfected? Will humanity make itself go extinct before we've reached this pinnacle? Only time will tell.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:47 AM on July 25, 2017 [34 favorites]


On that chart, I wanted the footnote to say "* not real restaurants"
posted by aubilenon at 9:47 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


(Most of that is anti-fast-food snobbery, but also Domino's Pizza literally is not a restaurant)
posted by aubilenon at 9:48 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Cheesecake Blizzard. So that's two.

The chart excludes beverages and desserts. Presumably a Cheesecake Blizzard is at least one of those.

The thousands that don't make the cut will haunt my imagination for years. What horrible wonders am I missing just because I get the fried chicken taco shell of the Naked Chicken Chalupa or the lacking-structural-integrity Doritos Loco. Is there a shell that is only fried cheese that the mad scientists haven't quite perfected? Will humanity make itself go extinct before we've reached this pinnacle? Only time will tell.

As Taco Bell unveiled the Triple-Layer Tacrorita Crunch Diablo, overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
posted by jedicus at 9:49 AM on July 25, 2017 [25 favorites]


Goddammit, all this time I thought I've been eating more butternut squash.
posted by gwint at 9:50 AM on July 25, 2017 [77 favorites]


If you really want to drive yourself mad with sublimated desire for questionable tex-mex that will never be, spend some time at the Taco Bell Food Name Generator.
posted by jedicus at 9:51 AM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Is there a shell that is only fried cheese

Today, I have found my purpose.
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:55 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


What horrible wonders am I missing

Chicken-Fried Pepsi Quesadilla
Funyuns Iced Latte
Nacho Cheese Loco Maggot Taco Gordo Supremo Grande
Lard Salad Bowl
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:56 AM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


She applied her doctorate in chemistry to the cheese filling

I studied chemistry, I worked in chemistry, I taught chemistry, I got an advanced degree in chemistry from a good school before finally moving on to other non-chemistry things. And never has it been so clear to me how badly our education system failed me as when I realized today that in all those long years, no one once ever told me that Cheese Chemist was a career option.

Isn't the only thing they have with cheese in it their cheeseburger?

Did you mean their Deluxe Cheeseburger, Bacon Cheeseburger, Double with Cheese, Bacon Cheese Grillburger, Cheese Grillburger, Original Double Cheeseburger, or Cheeseburger?
posted by solotoro at 10:00 AM on July 25, 2017 [10 favorites]


The chart excludes beverages and desserts.

Oh. So it likely is just their cheeseburger then. That chart is meaningless.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:00 AM on July 25, 2017


Is there a shell that is only fried cheese?

Today, I have found my purpose.


Behold!
posted by ShawnString at 10:02 AM on July 25, 2017 [6 favorites]


Sounds like a Taco Bell menu via neural network, It's Raining Florence Henderson. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if a neural network was buried deep within the bowels of Taco Bell HQ, churning out menu item ideas. I imagine it goes something like this:

Neural network: Chicken-Fried Pepsi Quesadilla
Man in labcoat with clipboard: Hmm, yes, yes. Promising. Send it to R&D.
Mad chef scientist in R&D: You fool! You expect me to chicken fry Pepsi?!? You know not what you unleash. But very well. It will be done.
Focus group of stoned interns/dudes from the marketing department: I mean, maybe. Needs more cheese and salt.
posted by yasaman at 10:03 AM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


The Chupaqueso: "You will need a good teflon skillet, a fairly sharp teflon spatula, some sharp cheddar, some fresh parmesan, and some Monterey Jack cheese."
posted by Etrigan at 10:06 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


MCMikeNamara: What horrible wonders am I missing

If you're looking for horrible food wonders, there's Burger King's Mac N' Cheetos, which is exactly what it sounds like (Ashlee Kieler, Consumerist, June 22, 2016)
If you’ve ever looked at a plate of glowing, orange-ish mac and cheese and thought, “Hey, this looks a bit like a Cheeto… they should put mac and cheese inside of huge Cheetos… where’s my shoe?” then Burger King has apparently been reading your mind, announcing the test of, what else, “Mac n’ Cheetos.”
Because I also try terrible wonderful food, I have eaten this thing. You do not need to eat this thing. As my wife pointed out, when the teenage boy who works at Burger King says it's not very good, take him at his word.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:10 AM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


Funny how those anti big government libertarian farmers that voted for Trump have a largely unknown government agency dedicated to selling more of the products. That seems like something any real libertarian would be against.
posted by COD at 10:13 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Horrible food wonders II, the Burgrito. A mutant hybrid of the cheeseburger (with fries!) and burrito.
posted by Zedcaster at 10:17 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh. So it likely is just their cheeseburger then. That chart is meaningless.

As noted, they have a variety of cheeseburgers with distinct names. Does the Mushroom and Swiss Burger count? Pretzel with Queso? The chili cheese dog and cheese curds certainly do. I doubt the two Melts they have count, though arguably they could.

Given that all of these items are listed separately on the menu, taking up real estate, I'd say the chart has meaning--a limited meaning, but there.
posted by Four Ds at 10:20 AM on July 25, 2017


Cheese steak wrap burrito Quesadilla taco burger bowl supreme.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:20 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Roll a flour tortilla length-wise, then width-wise, then sandwich it between another two flour tortillas and smash it flat, chop it into a taco, smash it again and sprinkle it on a burger, chop that into a bowl and add 3 squirts of Imo and a handful of wilted lettuce. Flash fry it. Add 2 slivers of STEAK-UMM® and a dollup of Nacho cheese spread.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:26 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


no one once ever told me that Cheese Chemist was a career option.

There is plenty of fascinating cheese science out there.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:26 AM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


I tried to look at Dunkin Donut's online menu and ran into methodological questions.

Sandwich and Wrap section has 10 items, with 5 hits...but one of the others comes in 3 varieties, each of which does have cheese in the name. So either 5/10 or 8/12.

In the Bakery and Snacks section, you've got a definite hit for Bagel with Cream Cheese, but does Muffin count as 1 or 6 (for each variety)? No hits either way. Classic Bakery subsection has 3/6 due to three types of Cheese Danish.

Of course, the elephant in the room is the Donut. Disqualified as dessertish? Counted as a single item? 14 for the most common varieties listed?
posted by Four Ds at 10:28 AM on July 25, 2017


Metafilter: Having this fabulous taco with melty cheese in every single bite was something we started dreaming about 10 years ago
posted by mama casserole at 10:30 AM on July 25, 2017


Oh. So it likely is just their cheeseburger then. That chart is meaningless.

Or you could do a minimal amount of research instead of accusing bad faith.

9 kinds of cheeseburgers, chicken melts, chili cheese dogs, potato skins with cheese, pretzel sticks with cheese, & cheese curds are just the easy targets on that menu.
posted by mayonnaises at 10:30 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I wanna munch!
posted by drezdn at 10:40 AM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


"WHAT IS MY PURPOSE?"
"You pass butter."
posted by BungaDunga at 10:42 AM on July 25, 2017 [10 favorites]


SQUAD!
posted by yasaman at 10:44 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]




Lard Salad Bowl

You kid, but this is exactly the kind of thing that hungry, jaded chefs get up to sometimes.

In this case is was pork belly... salad. Like some kind of unholy combination of pork belly cubes and a potato salad. He made like four or five gallons of the stuff. We even put it out on special at the cafe. It was extremely popular with our coworkers with labor intensive or outdoor jobs.

And it was actually insanely delicious. It was just incredibly heavy and dense.

Needless to say it didn't sell out and I ended up taking home what must have been a half gallon of the stuff on top of the small mountain of it that I ate at work. It was actually really good, but if you tried to eat more than a half a cup to a cup at a time you'd succumb to gravity and get stuck to the floor and run the risk of exploding.

For caloric reference I have eaten most of a stick of butter on what was most of a crusty sourdough loaf slabbed into toast in a single sitting. This was worse. I think the only thing I've ever eaten with more fat/calories per cubic centimeter was traditional home made pemmican. The only thing I can think of that's more dense is maybe whale blubber.

God, my mouth is watering just thinking about it it was that good. I'll probably never see anything like it again, and that's probably ok.

This is the same chef that once came up to me after a really long day and asked if I was hungry, and when I replied in the affirmative he asked me "Do you you want me to hurt you?" and I again said yes, but with a justifiable note of fear.

He proceeded to make plates duck fat poutine. Well, they weren't plates, really, but oversized pie tins piled with mountains of duck fat fried french fries. On top of this went a good pound and a half of cheese curds, a solid cup of duckfat gravy and then just drizzled in duck fat for good measure. Each plate must have weighed nearly three pounds.

When he set it down we each took a bite and then just put the plates down, already making small noises of defeat. I think I managed two more bites before I had to walk away for a little while because my tastebuds were exploding. Keep in mind we were both ravenously hungry after working with food all day in a busy, tourist season 10+ hour shift.

I had to take the whole thing home where I blazed a bit to work up an appetite and give it another go. I think I got three or four more bites into it before I fell into a food-induced coma. It took me over 24 hours to finish the thing, and even after it had cooled and congealed it was still just... this incredible thing because the duck fat had left the fries still crunchy, not mealy and soggy and by God I was going to conquer it.

He was still eating his poutine for breakfast in his van before work the next morning. I saw him still nibbling on it at lunch, too.
posted by loquacious at 11:05 AM on July 25, 2017 [36 favorites]




>Funyuns Iced Latte

Now I'm all hungry, or thirsty, or something.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 11:12 AM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


I can't eat dairy and I miss cheese, I miss cheeeeese sooooo much and now I hate you all.
posted by theora55 at 11:15 AM on July 25, 2017


and convinced McDonald's to switch from margarine to butter.

Praise the Lord hallelujah!
posted by Melismata at 11:25 AM on July 25, 2017


Domino's Pizza literally is not a restaurant

You can literally walk into a Domino's, order a pizza for "carryout," and sit and eat it there. How is it less a restaurant than Taco Bell?

I know I'm supposed to resent this agency, but how can I be mad at anyone pushing margarine out of the market? That stuff is nasty.

IIRC, it was milk oversupply back in the early 1980s that led to the phenomenon of "government cheese." If you grew up in the city in that time period, whether or not you regularly and unironically consumed government cheese is a pretty good marker of whether you were poor or not.
posted by praemunire at 11:27 AM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


When I'm slow on the draw and I need somethin' to chaw...

Hey, man, careful with the weaponized memetic material. I clicked on that link and the next thing I knew I woke up gibbering in the corner.
posted by loquacious at 11:29 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I heard via a food service rep that almost every Tex-Mex place in Texas appears to use the same "performance" cheese: Land O'Lakes Extra Melt...
posted by jim in austin at 11:40 AM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Oooh that is relevant to my interests. (I love actual Mexican food, and high-end Tex-Mex, but sometimes what I want is cheap nasty Tex-Mex, and Velveeta isn't the same as restaurant-bought. And now I think I know why!)
posted by restless_nomad at 11:45 AM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Oooh that is relevant to my interests.

Mine too, so I just looked it up. Unfortunately, it looks impossible to buy in anything less than full restaurant quantities. Back to the drawing board... (and probably Taco Bell at some point).
posted by mordax at 12:02 PM on July 25, 2017


The thing is, cheese is an easy way to add salt and fat to something, and salt and fat are the cheapest ways to make savory food taste good.

The weird cultural moment of having a glass of milk with lunch or dinner certainly seems to be over now -- I can't imagine doing it -- but that has nothing to do with how I feel about cheese.

There are lots of terrible governmental/industrial farming abuses like tax subsidies for corporate agriculture, patenting seeds, relaxing standards for pesticide use -- even the legal standards for the way animals are kept. Those things really bother me, this thing does not.
posted by mrmurbles at 12:05 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


restless_nomad: You may be able to get something similar from a deli counter. Just make sure it says only "pasteurized process cheese". No "cheese food" or "cheese product" since those contain less than 100% real cheese, sometimes considerably less as with Velveeta. The FDA has some rather strict definitions...
posted by jim in austin at 12:07 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


You can literally walk into a Domino's, order a pizza for "carryout," and sit and eat it there. How is it less a restaurant than Taco Bell?

At Taco Bell you can order food "for here", and they have seating and napkins and a restroom.

I couldn't enumerate all of my criteria, but the restaurant continuum in my head looks something like this:

Post office
Hardware store
Drug store
Grocery store
Domino's Pizza
Airplane
Movie theater
"Upscale" grocery store
Food truck
Taco Bell
Food court
Olive Garden

(note: this is sorted solely by restaurantiness, and not by personal preference)
posted by aubilenon at 12:13 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


IIRC, it was milk oversupply back in the early 1980s that led to the phenomenon of "government cheese." If you grew up in the city in that time period, whether or not you regularly and unironically consumed government cheese is a pretty good marker of whether you were poor or not.

We also got government cheese in our school lunches. They cut it into chunks the size and shape of thick carrot sticks, and there would be a couple of them on your lunch tray at least twice a week.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:35 PM on July 25, 2017


Now, if you're baked
And you don't know what the Hell to make
Why not pure atherosclerosis:
Poutine on a Ritz!

Ladle on the duckfat gravy
Curds and more fat make it heavy
It's the shits!:
Poutine on a Ritz!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:38 PM on July 25, 2017 [22 favorites]


At Taco Bell you can order food "for here", and they have seating and napkins and a restroom.

I just got back from a cross-country drive. At one point we saw a billboard for a Domino's with dine-in seating, so there is apparently some amount of variation. (Admittedly, my response to seeing it was, "Why?")
posted by Four Ds at 12:49 PM on July 25, 2017


I feel like, even at a Domino's with seating, it would be like eating at the one folding table in the takeout Chinese place.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:51 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


You can literally walk into a Domino's, order a pizza for "carryout," and sit and eat it there. How is it less a restaurant than Taco Bell?

You can? I'm thinking of the Domino's in places I've lived recently and none of them would allow you to eat your pizza there, unless you crouched on the floor and did it. They don't have tables or chairs, just a counter and the space you stand to wait at the counter.

Now, personally, I don't think it's really important to distinguish between carry-outs and restaurants really, but my experience of Domino's does not include seats. Pizza Hut as well, even though that used to be a full-fledged restaurant.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:52 PM on July 25, 2017


You can literally walk into a Domino's, order a pizza for "carryout," and sit and eat it there. How is it less a restaurant than Taco Bell?

You know where else you can order a Domino's pizza and sit and eat it there? That's right: Taco Bell.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:55 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


You know where else you can order a Domino's pizza and sit and eat it there? That's right: Taco Bell.

I think you're thinking of Pizza Hut.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:57 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Poutine on a Ritz!

OH MY GOD GET OUT
posted by loquacious at 12:57 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


I have seen many Dominos with dine-in seating. This was in both California and Texas. Sometimes they will have televisions and little arcade or pinball games. I believe that the majority of Dominos locations are a franchise so whether or not Dominos has a dine-in section may depend on the franchise owner.

I have seen more Pizza Huts with a dine in section than I have seen without one.
posted by muddgirl at 12:58 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think you're thinking of Pizza Hut.

Well, yeah - I've seen the combo restaurants. But I was thinking more along the lines of walking into a Taco Bell, having a seat, and calling in an order for Dominos delivery.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:00 PM on July 25, 2017


(I was being flip)
posted by uncleozzy at 1:01 PM on July 25, 2017


I know. ;-) I thought about the combo restaurants like 2 seconds after I wrote my comment. We live in weird times.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:03 PM on July 25, 2017


Is there a shell that is only fried cheese?

Today, I have found my purpose.

Behold!


Come on, they've been doing that for years in Mexico.
posted by omegar at 1:06 PM on July 25, 2017


I'm at the Pizza Hut. I'm at the Taco Bell. I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:47 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


You can? I'm thinking of the Domino's in places I've lived recently and none of them would allow you to eat your pizza there, unless you crouched on the floor and did it. They don't have tables or chairs, just a counter and the space you stand to wait at the counter.

Yes, yes, you can. You can see the seating in the exterior shots.
posted by praemunire at 1:56 PM on July 25, 2017


There's a Domino's one block from my house with interior tables and chairs and everything. It's nowhere near as spacious or inviting as the Pizza Hut a block in the other direction, but it's certainly there and usable. Central Washington state, for regional comparison.

(Why I should want to do that is still a mystery, but it's definitely allowed.)
posted by mordax at 1:59 PM on July 25, 2017


I think you're thinking of Pizza Hut

"The combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" was the location on my profile for a long time.
posted by Room 641-A at 2:05 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


Aw man, going to the pizza place with my brother and my dad after the afterschool activities, ordering two medium pies, getting those glass shakers of cheese and crushed red pepper. The pizza comes out on a legitimate metal baking tray and you don't have to deal with those damned pizza boxes that can't be recycled because they're all greasy. What's not to love?

Of course as a kid we had those Round Table Pizza parlors that still had the King Arthur theming, so that was probably a large part of it, too.
posted by muddgirl at 2:06 PM on July 25, 2017


How many huge out of context numbers can you fit in one paragraph?

"Americans eat 35 pounds of cheese per year on average—a record amount, more than double the quantity consumed in 1975. And yet that demand doesn’t come close to meeting U.S. supply: The cheese glut is so massive (1.3 billion pounds in cold storage as of May 31) that on two separate occasions, in August and October of last year, the federal government announced it would bail out dairy farmers by purchasing $20 million worth of surplus for distribution to food pantries. Add to that a global drop in demand for dairy, plus technology that’s making cows more prolific, and you have the lowest milk prices since the Great Recession ended in 2009. Farmers poured out almost 50 million gallons of unsold milk last year—actually poured it out, into holes in the ground—according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. In an August 2016 letter, the National Milk Producers Federation begged the USDA for a $150 million bailout."

35 lbs/year! Oh, that's 1.5 ounces a day

1.3 billion pounds! But total cheese production is about 12 billion pounds, so that 1.3 billion is a little more than a month's supply.

$20 million worth of surplus purchased! Don't know what the retail price of cheese is and too lazy to find out, but if it's, say $1/lb, that's 0.2 percent of cheese sales.

Poured out 50 million gallons of milk! Looks like total annual milk production is somewhere around 24 billion gallons, so that's 1/500th of milk production. (Still seems like a waste, but it's, well, a drop in the bucket.)
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 2:08 PM on July 25, 2017 [8 favorites]


What horrible wonders am I missing

Come up to Canada where for decades now our Taco Bells have served something called Fries Supreme - which comes across as some sort of texmex poutine but made with the industrial prison complex-grade cheese and meat that taco bell is famous for.
posted by thecjm at 2:24 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


mordax: "Mine too, so I just looked it up. Unfortunately, it looks impossible to buy in anything less than full restaurant quantities. Back to the drawing board... (and probably Taco Bell at some point)."

Many independent pizza places will use the same stuff and I'd bet most would be willing to sell you what ever fraction of a block you wanted. Though cheese also freezes well so if a person really liked that product just buy a whole block and cut it up into one month consumable sizes freezing the rest.
posted by Mitheral at 2:48 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Re: specialty Tex-Mex cheese--If you live in Texas you can get some at HEB. HEB sells their own brand of cheese that is similar or identical to the Land O'Lakes cheese.
posted by tofu_crouton at 4:23 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Those cheese taco shells work a lot better if you shred the cheese first, then freeze them (very) loosely packed. I use large plastic takeout bowls with the snap tops - the seal is imperfect and there is at least one small hole on the lid.

This lets the cheese dehydrate a little and you end up with a more consistent end product. Depending on your climate and your freezer, a "curing time" of a week is good, and the cheese keeps performing well for up to a few months (in my house, it never lasts that long - I only know because I forgot about a bucket of shredded cheese in my freezer one time).

Also works in a microwave (the reheat setting is fine in most systems); lay down a layer of parchment paper, then a layer of pre-frozen shredded cheese (don't need to defrost), but you need to keep an eye on it. As soon as it stops bubbling, stop the process and allow to cool.

Makes grate garnishing for potato salad, creamy polenta, mashed potatoes, &c. If you slide a circle of not-yet-completely-cooled nuked grated cheese into a muffin tray, you can easily form bowls for salads.

A bacon cup cradling a crispy cheese cup is a thing of beauty.
posted by porpoise at 5:06 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


In this case is was pork belly... salad. Like some kind of unholy combination of pork belly cubes and a potato salad. He made like four or five gallons of the stuff. We even put it out on special at the cafe. It was extremely popular with our coworkers with labor intensive or outdoor jobs.

I'm not real big on the cheesy-cheesy-cheesy-with-bacon kinds of dishes, but I would eat this like it was my job. That sounds heavenly.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:22 PM on July 25, 2017




I am hella above average; I am consuming 6 oz of cheese RIGHT NOW.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:42 AM on July 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Looks like total annual milk production is somewhere around 24 billion gallons,

*blinks*

Wow. That is US only. That is a shitload of milk.
posted by Literaryhero at 2:57 AM on July 26, 2017


There a few really, really big cows .
posted by Room 641-A at 3:06 AM on July 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Counterpoint: government-mandated animal cruelty. The advertising standards authority in the UK has just upheld an advertising campaign that states 'there is no such thing as humane milk'.

I know comments I've made in the past about animal welfare and consideration of the provenance of foodstuffs have a habit of tanking, or worse, but amongst the cheese comedy is a horrific reality of suffering.

Cheese was what stopped me going full-vegan for a long time. I was told stories about how cows would explode if they were not milked. The reality of milk extraction is bleak and depressing. Take both these links together; it's interesting to read the cheese scientists completely divorced from and willingly unaware of the reality of the material they work with.
posted by davemee at 5:56 AM on July 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Looks like total annual milk production is somewhere around 24 billion gallons,

*blinks*

Wow. That is US only. That is a shitload of milk.


Well, that's about a gallon and a half per person per week. And a gallon of milk makes a pound or two of cheese, so a third to a half of that goes to cheese.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:54 AM on July 26, 2017


Also, a lot of milk goes bad and is thrown away. By grocers, coffee shops, restaurants, and home consumers.
posted by Night_owl at 10:33 AM on July 26, 2017


Well, that's about a gallon and a half per person per week. And a gallon of milk makes a pound or two of cheese, so a third to a half of that goes to cheese.

That still kind of sounds like a lot. I don't think I drank a gallon of milk a week myself even when I was drinking it every day and also having cereal every morning. Does a family of four really go through 6 gallons of milk a week? That seems incredible to me.

Even if we convert all of that to cheese, I also don't think I'm eating 2-3 pounds of cheese every week. I'm sure I've managed to do it at some point, but keeping that pace up continuously for an entire year? That still sounds like a hell of a lot of milk or cheese.
posted by Copronymus at 10:44 AM on July 26, 2017


Also, a lot of milk goes bad and is thrown away. By grocers, coffee shops, restaurants, and home consumers.

My wife is personally responsible for at least half a million gallons a year. She asks me to smell it, and if I hesitate even a femtosecond before passing judgment, she emits a powerful EM pulse that vaporizes every carton of milk in the county. It's incredibly inefficient.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:50 AM on July 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


According to this, 20% of milk is lost to spoilage, which, surprisingly, is less than any other category of food, including grain products.
posted by aubilenon at 11:45 AM on July 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


So...it looks like Taco Bell doesn't actually currently have the much vaunted Quesalupa on the menu??? After I just read this big long article where my main takeaway was "MUST HAVE QUESALUPA?"
posted by zeusianfog at 11:54 AM on July 26, 2017


I just had a couple of open-faced cheese "sandwiches" and I must say that they in no way quelled my current appetite for cheese. Must go get a quesadilla.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:00 PM on July 26, 2017


Well, that's depressing. Anyone know of a good way to find out which fast food places don't use butter to cook in? I like to keep my food down and there's nothing like hidden dairy in a menu to quickly change that.
posted by Margalo Epps at 6:12 PM on July 29, 2017


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