OPERATION: MIND OVER MILK
DAIRY IS OPPRESSIVE TO ANIMALS, HUMANS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT — AND WE WANT IT OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS.
WHY DAIRY?
Cow’s milk is the ONLY reimbursable beverage option at over 100,000 US public schools through the National School Lunch Program. Dairy is an inherently harmful product for animals, human and non-human, and the environment. We’re facing this issue head-on with “Operation: Mind Over Milk.”
Through Operation: Mind Over Milk, Ravens are raising awareness about the horrors of the dairy industry and working to increase access to student, climate, and animal-friendly plant-milk for the 30 million students who rely upon the National School Lunch Program.
DAIRY IS A COLLECTIVE LIBERATION ISSUE.
THE NSLP ONLY EXISTS FOR THE GOV’T’S MONETARY BENEFIT.
The National School Lunch Program was founded specifically to boost declining milk sales in the US by creating a market in public school children. TLDR: They’re using our students for profit, at the cost of their health.
THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T WANT STUDENTS DRINKING PLANT-BASED MILK.
Legally, a plant-based milk alternative is ONLY required if a student has a doctor’s note proving they are unable to digest lactose. This option is often inaccessible to marginalized students who need it.
Without that, schools are not required to provide the alternative, even with a parent’s note. Schools aren’t even allowed to offer any other beverage as an alternative to milk.
THIS IS AN ISSUE OF DIETARY RACISM.
About 70% of the students who receive their lunch through the NSLP are Black, Indigenous, and People of the Global Majority. These populations are far more likely to be lactose normal than their white counterparts. Meaning they have a normal inability to digest the milk of another mammal. Head here for more information on the term “lactose normal”, courtesy of our friends at The Food Empowerment Project.
DAIRY IS A WASTE.
As much as 45 million gallons of cow’s milk were wasted in US schools in 2019 alone, at a cost of 300 million in taxpayer dollars. Learn more.
A PANDEMIC WORSE THAN COVID?
Bird flu is a virus that normally only affects birds but has been mutating and spreading across other mammals including humans.
Where is it popping up in the states? Dairy farms.
While cases are low and spread between people is difficult at the moment, there is a very real possibility that all of this could change.
And bird flu is no joke. It currently boasts a case fatality rate around 50%, which while not the same as the likelihood of death considering potential undiagnosed cases, is still frightening and very much dangerous. Remember, Covid only has a mortality rate of roughly 1%.
We have the ability to stop this before it gets too late. Dairy needs to go.
DAIRY MILK IS A COLONIAL PROJECT.
Dairy milk wasn’t in the Americas until the colonists brought it here — and they used it as a tool of oppression against native peoples. Milk marketing has a history of associating dairy milk with whiteness and “purity.”
DAIRY IS SYNONYMOUS WITH RAPE, MURDER AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE.
Dairy cows are artificially inseminated and forced to repeatedly give birth to babies who are immediately taken away so that humans can drink their milk instead. Male calves are typically sold to the veal industry and slaughtered soon after. Female calves usually suffer the same fate as their mothers.
SCARY DAIRY IN THE SQUARE
In 2023, your donation dollars helped us dream up and host Scary Dairy in the Square, a Halloween-party-turned-activism-hub and vegan food paradise at Pioneer Square in the heart of Portland, Oregon. The event featured animal sanctuaries and vegan food vendors alike, guest speakers (including our own Ravens), and gifts for all attendees sponsored by Oatly and Lush.
DAIRY IS LIQUID OPPRESSION.
In early 2023, we teamed up with Portland-based Bridge City Media to produce these hard-hitting Operation: Mind Over Milk PSAs. They demonstrate the harrowing impact of compulsory dairy on nonhuman animals, students, and the environment.
All students, regardless of race, deserve a school lunch that will give them nutrients — not a stomachache. The National School Lunch Program’s enforcement of dairy is a perfect example of structural dietary racism — disproportionately, BIPOC students can’t digest milk. And especially when you factor in that many low-income students rely on the NSLP as their main source of food, it’s important our schools are serving them something they can actually eat.
The dairy industry is notorious for animal abuse. Producing milk means raping a cow, stealing her babies (and sending them to slaughter if they’re male), and repeating the process until she’s “spent” — and then killed. All animals deserve bodily autonomy and all animals deserve to live.
Dairy is also incredibly harmful to the environment, producing greenhouse gases, contributing to mass amounts of deforestation and land degradation, and ultimately accelerating us toward climate death.
DC RALLY
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: kids deserve access to plant milk in their schools. In the summer of 2023, Ravens from across the country took flight to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC to say just that. We rallied behind the ADD SOY Act – a federal bill that would make plant milk accessible in all schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program.
We made our voices heard. We spoke directly to our lawmakers at the Rayburn Congressional Offices and dispersed over 1,000 leaflets about the ADD SOY Act in front of the main USDA building.
Our advocacy for the ADD SOY Act didn’t stop there. Throughout 2023, we phone-banked, wrote to our Congressional members, collected hundreds of postcards from supporters which were hand-delivered to our legislators, made guest appearances on podcasts, and completed press interviews (see our Media page for more). So many ways to say the same thing: KIDS DESERVE ACCESS TO PLANT MILK AT SCHOOL.
GRASSROOTS GAMES
In 2023, we launched “Grassroots Games,” an accessible and fun way for folks to get active with Operation: Mind Over Milk on the ground. Activists ordered free Op: MOM advocacy toolkits (we mailed over 1200 across the country!) with everything needed to participate in the games. The Grassroots Games included:
Stickering Showdown - Players used our custom-made bingo cards (full of strategic stickering locations) and Op: MOM QR code stickers to play. Every time you put a sticker somewhere, players snapped a photo, marked their bingo card, and DMed us each time they got a bingo. Each bingo = an entry for the grand prize.
Postcard Palooza - Players sent Op: MOM postcards to five of the most influential people they could think of (city/state/federal lawmakers, school administrators, school board members, etc.), including facts about how compulsory dairy hurts animals, students, and our natural world. The objective: ask the postcard recipients to support access to plant-milk in US schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program. Photo evidence of completed postcards = entry for the grand prize.
Bumper Brawl - Dairy is liquid oppression, and the world has to know. In this game, players found THE most high-traffic, creative place to put our Op: MOM bumper sticker, and snapped a photo for another grand prize entry.
What was the grand prize, you ask? An Almond Cow Plant Milk Maker! Because nothing screams anti-dairy quite like making your own plant-based milk. For many who participated, this was their first experience with street activism – and certainly not their last.
SCARY DAIRY 2022
Operation: Mind Over Milk was born in January of 2022. The goal: to raise awareness about the horrors of the dairy industry and increase access to plant-based alternatives in school cafeterias. After months of organizing and strategizing, it all came to a head on Halloween for our first Scary Dairy Day of Action. Over a hundred Ravens took action across the country. Ravens tabled at their schools fully stocked with free samples of non dairy Oatly and Ripple milk cartons and educational materials about the dairy industry. Grist reported on our nationwide day of action, which was also the catalyst for a 1st amendment lawsuit on behalf of Raven, Marielle Williamson.
