Switch4Good Pushes Forward with the ADD SOY Act
Switch4Good is campaigning for the ADD SOY Act, a bill to bring non-dairy milk into U.S. schools, and criticizes members of Congress who ignore the widespread lactose intolerance among school children.
Los Angeles, December 14th, 2023 — Switch4Good, a nonprofit that seeks to alert consumers to the dangers of dairy, expressed disappointment that the House Rules Committee denied a vote on an amendment filed to the Whole Milk Bill this week to address the massive lactose intolerance among school children.
While the amendment was blocked, Switch4Good tells UnchainedTV that the ADD SOY Act itself (H.R. 1619/S 2943, the Addressing Digestive Distress in Stomachs of Our Youth Act) “…is still very much alive.” The bill seeks to bring soy milk and other plant-based milks, already recognized by the USDA dietary guidelines as nutritionally equivalent to cow’s milk, into schools across the United States.
BIPOC Demand for Dairy-Free Milk
The House Rules Committee denied the vote on the amendment despite the fact that leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian and Pacific Islander Caucus backed it because it addresses the widespread lactose intolerance among children who participate in the National School Lunch Program. According to the Center for a Humane Economy, “Between 70 and 95 percent of Black, Pacific Islander and Asian, Native American, and Latino individuals are lactose intolerant.”
Switch4Good President Dotsie Bausch reacted with disappointment to the amendment’s failure saying, “The federal government supports allowing mothers to give kids a healthy plant-based milk through the WIC program, but when the kids go to school at the age of five, they cannot get that same kind of milk in the lunchroom. That’s an insult to families and kids, with a handful of lawmakers disregarding the peer-reviewed science revealing widespread lactose intolerance, especially among communities of color, and denying them a nutritious beverage that doesn’t make them ill.” Bausch cautioned not to count out the ADD SOY Act itself, saying proponent of plant-based milks are forging ahead and making headway in the halls of Congress where they are presenting other lawmakers with the often overlooked statistics on lactose intolerance.
Switch4Good’s Bausch and Jason Wrobel are leaders in the national campaign to get the U.S. government to provide plant-based milks to school kids. They spoke with UnchainedTV’s Jane Velez-Mitchell about the measure. They also shared their gutsy — and often outrageous — campaigns designed to get people come to terms with the fact that dairy is the breast milk of a cow. You can watch the entire interview here:
Challenging Dairy Myths & Mustaches
Dotsie Bausch is an Olympian. Her prolific professional cycling career includes a medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games, eight U.S. national championships, two Pan American gold medals and a world record. Those achievements have enabled her to become a powerful influencer, one who recommends a plant-based diet for peak athletic performance. Named one of the top 20 most influential vegans in the world by VegNews magazine, she uses her soapbox, and her degree in plant-based nutrition, to advocate for dietary justice, planet earth and animals. Never one to shy away from facing staggering odds, she founded the nonprofit Switch4Good, an evidence-based organization that challenges what she calls dairy disinformation campaigns.
“As an Olympian, we had dairy highly pushed on us because the dairy industry was a sponsor of the US Olympic team. I was experiencing that, which I thought was weird, even before I went plant-based.” — Dotsie Bausch, founder of Switch4Good
Switch4Good was launched in 2018 with a television commercial featuring six Olympians from four different countries who prove that cow’s milk is not part of a high-performance diet by winning without it. She explains how she came up with her provocative campaign style:
“We’re just taking a couple of pages out of Big Dairy’s playbook… They are certainly very edgy in their style, in that they do not like to tell the truth. So, we’re using their style, but – instead – telling the truth, because people have responded to ‘Got Milk’, they responded to a lot of the milk mustaches and things like that – so we’re also making it attractive, sexy, and edgy, but telling the truth.”
To get the full scope of their edgy anti-dairy campaigns, check out Switch4Good’s channel on UnchainedTV. Just below is their new AI generated anti-dairy ad, featuring former President Ronald Reagan.
Reimbursable is the Keyword
Jason Wrobel is one of the world’s most recognizable experts on plant-based cooking and functional nutrition. He is the Globe & Mail bestselling author of the Hay House cookbook and lifestyle guide, Eaternity. He was the first plant-based chef to have landed his own primetime television series. His groundbreaking show How to Live to 100 on The Cooking Channel and Food Network Canada taught millions of people worldwide how to prepare delicious, organic, and healthy meals at home. He infuses his video content, and digital courses with a lighthearted, humorous approach to optimal health and wellness. Wrobel also has his own channel on UnchainedTV. Since 2021 he has served as the President of Persuasion at Switch4Good. He explains why the ADD SOY Act is absolutely crucial to the health of the nation.
“There’s a key word here: reimbursable. Right now, schools could choose of their own volition to supply soy milk, or non-dairy milk, and provide it to their students, but they simply don’t have the budgets to do so; it would bankrupt them. So, one of the key components of our Add Soy Act is to not only offer dairy-free soy milk to these students — a large majority of whom are lactose intolerant — who don’t have a choice currently, but it’s to make sure that it’s offered the same reimbursement rate as cow’s milk.”
While we don’t know exactly when or how the ADD SOY Act will cycle forward to a vote in Congress, we can be sure that one Olympic cyclist and her team are already in the race.
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