Why 'Got Milk' was a Lie 

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The idea that fully grown adult humans need to be breast fed by cows was always weird to me.

If milk is a lie then why did my dad go to get it?

People easily accept that the government lied in the past but don't think it does it now. I always ask "when did the officials stop lying?"

I think context is crucial. Mr Harris makes some great points here but it’s worth thinking about what you’re drinking instead. Realistically its the 2nd healthiest drink after water - fruit juice and smoothies are sooo full of sugar (eating fruit let’s you take the sugar in slowly and chewing sets of a whole load of processes that prepare your body for what’s coming), refined sugar is bad and any sweetener (even ‘natural’ sweeteners) are ultra-processed, and our bodies aren’t at all adapted to deal with something that tastes like sugar (which upon tasting may for example cause the body to raise insulin levels) but actually isn’t. Best drink water, 2nd best milk, then comes everything else

When I was homeless and strung out on drugs I think milk was the only thing that kept me alive. Lol. Whole milk. Red cap. I drank it and not much else and survived.. so therefore I am greatful to milk. I don't drink it much anymore, but I'll never forget what it has done for me. ❤️

Omg, this finally explains it. When I was growing up as a kid I was always wondering “why in Hollywood movies and shows Americans drink milk all the time?”. In shops you can buy a GALLON of milk and that’s SHITLOAS of milk. Our packaging in Eastern Europe goes up to 2L which is almost half a gallon.

In my childhood I had gas so bad I thought I would explode. I was in tears and my mom consulted with experts and doctors and they said I was swallowing air when I was eating and they taught me how to blow air out when taking a spoon full of food. It turns out, it was just milk. I ate cereal and milk daily, massive amounts.

Brother, you have mastered this video essay thing. Your vids are very dense with knowledge and the way you present tells a linear story that keeps us interested and invested. Great work🎉❤

I am lactose intolerant, pasteurization also removes the digestive enzymes within the milk itself and when I was able to get a hold of unpasteurized milk for a while. I never had lactose issues with unpasteurized milk. Then when I had to return to pasteurized, the lactose issues came right back 😢.

We literally studied the "Got Milk" marking campaign in one of my Uni marketing classes in the past week and I was like I wish there was someone who's videos I like watching makes something related to milk and then bingo this man comes in clutch!!

It really was insane how hard schools pushed students to drink milk. A couple years ago, during the peak of the pandemic, I chose to go back to school in person. I should mention this was an optional choice, and most kids chose to stay virtual. Yet, it seemed like the school didn’t adjust the the amount of milk they were ordering. Grabbing a milk box became mandatory at lunchtime, I tried every day to refuse it, knowing I wouldn’t drink it and that it would be wasted. One day the lunch lady just straight up said “Look I know your lactose intolerant, just take the milk and throw it in the trash.” (I’m not even lactose intolerant but I guess she assumed I was since I kept trying to refuse the milk, I just think it’s crazy that the school was encouraging me to waste it.)

Just a thought... getting a child to drink a glass of milk to get 300mg of calcium is way easier than trying to get them to eat a 100g of almonds. I can get calcium from cabbage if I wanted to, but I'd have to eat a shitload of it to get even nearly the same amount (oxylates in cabbage bond with calcium, thus reducing the amount available for absorbtion) So yes, you can get calcium from other sources but do remember that it's the ease of ingestion as well as nutrient density that also play a major factor.

The worst thing about modern "American" (I'm Australian and we have much the same problem) milk was watching you pour the milk from the carton and seeing how thin watery and see through it is. proper milk isn't like that, but what they put in the bottle has already had most of the good stuff stripped out for cream butter and cheese production. Just like Kraft cheese is a pale imitation of proper real cheese.

Great video as always! I'm from the Netherlands the country of cheese/milk. In the 90s our schools had some sort of subscriptions that in our lunchbreak (we bring our own food) everyone at school gets milk. I always found this super odd.

During lunch as a kid I always felt sick after eating. Turns out it was the milk that was given out as the drink. Juice was also available but that always went first. Later I found out I was very lactose intolerant. I feel much better today on a day to day basis now that I avoid all things dairy.

My grandfather had 5 sons and 5 daughters. They never drink milk. They live past 80 years. The oldest one immigrated into the US when he was about 55 years old. He went to medical checkup and the doctor always said his health was good. He died at about 85 years old. All of my uncles swam and played soccer a lot when they were young and they did physical work. We are from Vietnam.

If you think this is bad now apply this same idea to the pharmaceutical industry and how they are so concerned for our health 😂

First it was breakfast. Then it was bananas. Now it’s milk. IM RUNNING OUT OF THINGS TO EAT, JOHNNY. STOP IT!

The food pyramid we all grew up with is practically the exact OPPOSITE of what our diet is supposed to be, the US government is completely untrustworthy on this stuff.

I've been binge-watching your videos, Johnny, for about 3 months. I find them very enlightening. You are an excellent journalist. A video on alcohol consumption would really be appreciated. According to the WHO, amongst legal and illegal drugs, alcohol is the one that causes most social damage. Keep up the great work!!!

One of the unfortunate truths about being a biologist that I had to learn in my undergraduate studies was where the money comes from to actually fund any proposed research. So very much of it is from groups with lots of money and an agenda and when you pitch your research idea, you have to basically sell your research potential as a product: either as a way to make of save money. The other options are government funding which is a nightmare of red tape and can completely be just as biased or charities/special interest groups like WWF (panda not smackdown) who might have much more altruistic intensions but are equally as biased. So you have to juggle skewing your pitch to be as attractive as possible and then immediately turn around and be as unbiased and analytical as possible so you can practice good science (as you always should) and not get flagged during peer review. All this while under the realization that it's a "publish or perish" job market and if you keep getting "boring" results your career will go nowhere. I'm not saying that biologists who run the studies like the "bigger rats on milk" one in the video are unscrupulous just that there is this massive "sword of Damocles" hanging over all of our heads to produce results that will let us keep doing research. This isn't to say that we are all soulless, greedy puppets who produce false narratives for our benefactors; quite the opposite. Most of the biologists I know and have worked with are people with only the best intensions who pursue knowledge for it's own sake with an almost childlike desire to simply better understand the nature of living things and how they function for the betterment of everything and everyone but are forced to navigate the maze of biased capitalism and politics. An example I like to use is from a presentation I saw from a post-grad while I was doing my undergrad. It was basically "what happens to spiders in winter" it was basic and should be easy to find out, but the honest answer is that we have no evidence based idea what happens to them. I asked afterwards why we don't know and the simple answer was because there is profit in knowing: they aren't pests, we can't make new products or medicine from knowing, and they aren't big cuddly adorable mammals with a million people ready to protest for them. Simply put- we want to know but no one will give us the money.

It's funny how, when I first tried "american cheese" (I'm foreigner, only got to try that at 17) I couldn't help thinking that was the only thing in America that looked, felt and taste like it was produced in the Soviet Union... now I know why 😂

Growing up my mother had to actually stop giving me milk within weeks of being born because they found out I was born with a milk allergy AND intolerance of it entirely. So.. Imagine growing up around all this, and having teachers trying to force me to a point my parents had to get a doctors note to say 'Hey, they have an actual allergy, DONT GIVE THEM DAIRY AT ALL'

Milk in the US is so heavily processed it's hard to digest, which makes the body leash nutrition from the bones, the nations with the highest dairy consumption are also the ones with the highest rates of osteoporosis

My friend is a food scientist who works for DMI, and was sent to Taco Bell for 10 years, she's just finished a 4 year stint at Kroeger - and her WHOLE JOB is getting more cheese into food. She is responsible for the taco bell products you love guys, a New Zealander employed by USDA and sent into places to shill for cheese. The irony is she is lactose intolerant!!!!

What REALLY pissed me off was that all the way until High School graduation, they gave us milk for free but a water bottle was $1!!Milk never quenched my thirst. Water always does even to this day.

I grew up in Finland in early 2000's and the biggest dairy producer of the country was advertising drinking milk with posters in school cafeterias. And in primary school if you didn't drink milk during school lunch, teachers would look you badly and ask why.

I just want to take a moment to appreciate your set. The colours, the symmetry, the depth, the lighting. All so perfect. Great job guys!

What i find really funny is that if you're drinking milk from an animal everything is ok but if you're drinking milk from a human everybody goes nuts.

Up to age 30 I thought it normal to have a sort of rope of mucus in the back of my throat most of the time. Then a friend told me much of what is in this video. So I stopped consuming milk except for cooking. Goodbye mucus. I was discussing this with a friend who's an opera performer and she said, "OMG, you didn't know that? It's the first thing they tell you in voice training. No milk, no smoking." Live and learn.

It fascinates me that big dairy is pushing cheese so hard but fast food places like taco bell and pizza hut seem to serve cheese-like substances that are mostly oil-based.

I still don't understand how this video is telling me that dairy is bad for us exactly? that some people are lactose intolerant?

“American Cheese” sold in the UK can’t even legally be called cheese, I’ve got a pack here and it’s labelled ‘Processed slices made using a blend of cheese, palm oil and milk proteins’ 🤔

Growing up milking cows in rural Wisconsin, I'm glad someone as high profile as you is shining some light on the absolute craziness of the dairy market. It's like no other market out there (besides maybe natural makeup syrup but they're tiny). Most Americans don't ever think about this stuff, and why would they? They just go grocery shopping like they were taught. So thank you very much 🤘

Here is a quote that I will recite here for entertainment purposes. "Make no mistake, pasteurization was never about healthier milk. It was all about flipping the business from the Milkman to the grocery store, making the sale of raw milk illegal solidified the deal... & you can take that to the bank...

You have all these superdrinks on the shelves loaded with artificial colours and flavouring but all you complain about is milk? Why? It's natural and good healthy food.

I never expected "government cheeses" to be considered a music genre but you know I want more of it.

As a Milk drinking adult Swedish man. It is kind of weird when you found out growing up everyone else doesnt really consume dairy product the way we do. We have rows upon rows in of different dairy products in Scandinavia. Stuff you never even heard of ;) Ever heard of Norwegian Röme? Its the bastard child of Cream, sour cream and creme fraiche and its delicious.

Surprised to learn about this. Growing up in the southern part of India, unsweetened (very slightly sour) Yogurt mixed with rice is a finishing item for us in every meal since a long time. There are poems which describe the love of curd (Yogurt is more in use in America) mixed with rice from as old as 11th Century CE. In fact, I only started hearing about lactose intolerance after coming onto the internet and meeting people from other parts of the world.

I found out that I have been allergic to cow's milk all my life. My doctor told me that is the reason most people get allergies later in life. Being introduced to cow's milk in the diet as a baby when the immune system isn't mature enough to handle it.

A few years back, Canada’s Food Guide removed dairy products from the pyramid and it made national news. Basically said to drink more water and get vitamins from other spaces. Personally, i never liked milk. Only get it for my coffee and my cereals. My twin sister is lactose intolerant and my brother was intolerant to bovine proteins when he was young.

I'm from Italy and when I moved to the UK I was quite shocked but the amount of milk people drink or have it as an ingredient in so many things, people drinking tea with milk/lattes/cappuccinos at any time during the day, a culture shock!!

I was born in 1972 and grew up in this milk era. Much to my parent’s chagrin I hated milk. They would push it on me constantly but it upset my stomach as did cheese. Eventually they gave up. I’m now 50, have never broken a bone despite being a very active person and don’t seem to have any health issues…other than being lactose intolerant 😂😂

Cannot thank you enough for taking the time to make such a high quality video on this subject!

I love how we’re basically watching Johnny Harris work through his childhood problems. I mean, the man is absolutely right. We were oversold on milk. It's painful to see the lie in retrospect.

I remember spending entire primary and secondary school years squirming in pain due to lactose intolerance. It was not until one day I decided to drink black coffee instead of milk coffee and felt wonderful. That was when I realized milk was not meant for me and cut down pretty much as 95% of my milk consumption since. Best decision of my life 😂

I'm Indian and we pretty much have a Milk fad much similar to that in America and most other Northern European states. Much similar to your mom my mom too kept insinuating I drink milk despite the fact that I was well past the required age to do so. I tried explaining to her that it never really had all the benefits most people think it does, but she kept reprimanding me.

Milk is one of the highest-quality protein sources available, according to the DIAAS scale, which rates protein sources according to nutritional quality. I drink gallons weekly, along with a resistance training regimen, cardio and yoga. I feel very good. I love milk!

This story is so important to more than just milk. This is happening in so many US industries: cars, airlines, and now housing. We’re often given to conspiratorial thoughts about these government interventions but just as with milk the story usually starts from a place of need and limited government action (feeding troops) but is quickly exploited by people with an agenda. This is exactly what happened after the housing collapse and is occurring now with massive conglomerates and investors gambling on the prices of homes fully expecting the government to bail them out so that people won’t go homeless. We need serious government reform of food, transportation and housing in our country and we can’t continue to be distracted by nonsense that doesn’t actually affect our lives.

I'm WAY more concerned with the corn industry and their connection to the government than the milk industry.

As a child in the 70s, it wasn't even a question: you couldn't leave the table after any meal unless you had finished your glass of milk.

13:30 : Never believe a study you haven‘t forged yourself…“ 😂

I'm so confused at why Johnny didn't even mention ice cream like did he forget it exists as a concept

I knew most of this stuff but I never realized that fast food chains and the dairy industry were in cahoots to add more cheese to their products. Wow

I absolutely LOVE it when you site your sources. The nerd in me is so happy when I see that. You should put it on all of your videos please!!! All of them. Even the ones you’ve already posted. I want to learn more and know more about where you got this information and why you think this way.❤❤❤ I love your content. Keep up the excellent work.

whos drinking milk watching this?👇

My great-grandfather had like the 3rd largest dairy farm in the state of Michigan and literally met with the governor and lt governor in his living room because he was like the president of the dairy farmers association or something... pretty crazy how much power dairy farmers had...

In health class in high school we had to build a balanced plate for a project and we had to put two sources of dairy. I’m lactose intolerant but I wasn’t allowed to not put something so my teacher made me lie on my project.

I loved when my lactose intolerant 5-year-old was told drinking milk would be great for his growth by his pediatrician, who then handed me a brochure from the National Dairy Council 😂 2 years later I’m still shook 🙄

Great video! I am so glad that we are in the "oat/almond/coconut milk era" since I also grew up in the 90's where milk was waiting in the table right before school and lactose intolerance wasn't in the dictionary.

This really hits home. My mom would give me milk every night with sugar as a kid which caused several teeth to have issues.

I'm convinced this root of a bunch of this country's problems is LIES. I was a teen during that Got Milk campaign. All the dairy companies banning together for one ad campaign made me suspicious. I stopped drinking for the most part after that, though I relapsed during pregnancy.

THIS explains why the majority of "Leave It to Beaver" episodes from the 1950s include Wally and the Beaver drinking milk AND sometimes even talking about it. Ice cream, too. There's even an episode where mom, June Cleaver, swigs down a big glass... which has always struck me as peculiar. Finally, an explanation for one of my favorite old shows! Thank you ❤🎉

Cows milk is food for baby calves.

When I came to the USA as a young adult, I was surprised to see adults drinking milk ! We had milk as children and people always had milk in tea and coffee but seeing adults drinking big glasses of milk just blew my mind - it still does ! Thanks for explaining.

It's crazy how these "invisible" forces influence so much of what we consider to be healthy or desirable food. Thanks Johnny! Do sugar next!

I always thought it was weird how milk was considered a food group with things like fruits and vegetables, and I remember my health teacher in jr. high showing us pictures of families from different cultures with the food they ate laid out in front of them and pointing out how they were missing dairy products when they ate healthier food than what the american was eating.

It doesn't take a scientist to understand that milk contains everything needed to support the growth of a new life. The ability to digest such a nutritious beverage is lucky, & I feel sorry for anyone who's lactose intolerant. It's the most delicious & nutritious drink I know. 🥛🐄

I grew up drinking raw milk in Mexico, when I came to the US I stopped drinking it because I didn't like the milk here. I discovered that I still love raw grass fed milk, I hate the "milk" they sell here. Of course in most states it's illegal for people to sell me raw grass fed milk, so I had to become part of a private club in order to buy raw grass fed milk from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania and pay a lot of money to get it sent to my house. And the government raided them trying to stop them. The dairy industry doesn't want competition from real milk.

What bothers me the most is how high milk prices can get despite all its subsidies to the industry.

Parents were from Caribbean and Central America, so they did not grow up drinking excessive amounts of milk- maybe a few cups a week from dairy GOATS. Everything else that you wanted for a smooth, unctous, fatty flavor was done using homemade coconut milk or peanut milk. I grew up only drinking milk was I was little, usually at school, and even then it was hard to get kids to drink it, so it was sweetened and flavored (chocolate and strawberry milk) I don't drink milk now, and only have cheese in dishes a couple of times a month.

This guy is right about the government setting prices. This always leads to either a surplus or shortage. In the case of milk it led to a surplus because the price they set was above the going rate. This meant that more farmers were supplying milk than consumers were demanding it. This is because the higher price incentivizes producer to produce it but disincentivizes the demand for it. Demand goes down, supply goes up = surplus, too much milk. This is always true of price controls. It’s true of minimum wage, it’s true of rent controls. All price controls wreak havoc.

Literally the only creator who's sponsors I dont skip, Johnny's story telling skills are fantastic

My mother kept making me drink this hot powdered milk every morning before going to school and it just made me feel sick 25 years ago. I thought I was the only one that hated what milk did to me

When I was in school I had free lunch, so i never had the choice to drink water because that costed money but milk was free. I did always find that odd.

I don’t feel like the question of why is milk bad was answered fully. Why is it bad? I get that there is not as much benefits as stated, but it is a good way to get vitamins and minerals, even if they add some. Only liquid better is water.

I thought people just ate/drank dairy products because they taste delicious and they don't care about health. That's what I've been doing.

Milk isnt vital for strong bones but milk has definitely helped me survive, I was born severely underweight and goat milk helped me get stronger. Milk is definitely not a poison, in fact if you dont have lactose intolerance its a great way to give your body many essential nutrients.

A couple of years ago I became obsessed with learning to make the perfect pizza. I experimented with all kinds of different crust recipes, sauces, and of course different toppings. I've ended up liking fresh Italian mozzarella the most - I've found that you don't need much of it; pizza is better when it's not drowning in cheap cheese.

My problem with this, is that people take all of this and project it to countries other than the US, even though dairy and cheese have real history and value and not this toxic American bs

What's so depressing is how horrific the dairy industry actually is so the fact that a lot has gone to waste is not fun

I was that weird kid that didn't drink milk. I got a cup of water instead of a milk carton. I only had it with cereal. I process it just fine, I just thought it was gross to drink. Cereal made sense. I'm still the same way at 37. I gave my milk away in jail when i was young & dumb. Oh, I used milk for my protein shakes, but I downed that in slightly disgusted. I thinkbot all boils down to these gov agencies just keeping our farmers employed, our GDP high & unemployment low. It all comes down to money

In Russia we always drink a lot of raw milk and people live up to over a hundred years old and still work the field at 90 with barely any problems. My grandma worked the field until she died at age 96.

I am immensely in love with this guy storytelling and well-investigated information. Thank you so muchhhhhhhhhh

Wow, I drank a quart of milk every day when I was pregnant. We had the MIC program and the WIC program. We got gallons of milk in this government program along with eggs and cheese. This was in the 1980's.. My youngest son was still born with a bone condition called Rickets. It was so much milk that I froze some and share some with my neighbors so it wouldn't spoil. They did have dry beans and a variety of hot cereals and sugary cereals to choose from, so we did get to use a lot of the milk. My daughters did gain weight but I kept them at the park to run and jump outside, that helped. Thanks for digging deep with your research good information. An educated consumer is the best customer.

Love these deep dives--Great job. As someone with a family history of cancer I just wish you added how doctors are suing the FDA as they don't require cheese to list the high concentrations of estrogen it contains and which increases hormonal cancer rates.

I stopped consuming all dairy products six months ago (including butter) and I feel greatly improved physically and mentally. All the important nutrients in milk can be obtained elsewhere. Unfortunately, milk products are in so many items and restaurants that it takes a huge commitment to avoid them.

When you said magic powder to keep the troops strong I think that’s the wrong concept…

I switched from milk to beer and I feel so much better

Obviously a different story in the UK but I also grew up drinking tons of milk in the 90s and me and my parents held the unwavering belief that my bones would shatter without it.

Had the opportunity to try raw milk. I regularly drink gallons of milk A week, but have begun to slow way down. The processed milk is so much like water. But the raw milk was sweet and rich, and filling. I could only drink a fraction of the raw milk before I was full.

This video has brought a lot of deeper thought to an already widely covered topic. Kept me interested from start to finish!

Man, this is shocking to see... actually we Indians consume a lot of dairy in day-to-day life. Even I was drinking about half a liter of milk daily. thankyou for a such thoughtful and informative video

So many stories in recent years (now that lactose intolerance is more widely recognized) of people having gas, stomach cramps, nausea etc. through much of their childhoods and it not being connected to milk for ages because it is so ubiquitous. I was the same, used to absolutely destroy bowl after bowl of cereal, loved hot cocoa, got milk for breakfast in school etc., and only found out in my teens after a particularly serious spell of being super sensitive to dairy that no, indeed it is not normal to be in pain and feel like you're gonna throw up after having these things. It's crazy how even in former Eastern bloc countries, the fake science and food-related propaganda of the US is so effective that we have the same problems with milk and sugars/carbs.

Canada also has a very big milk industry and it pushed milk on us in schools too. Very similar stuff to what you described in your video in regards to the US, of course, relative to the size of the Canadian market. So, it was very funny when diary products got removed from Canada's food guide a few years back because suddenly, the dairy industry was doing a lot damage control through tons of advertising to try to keep the same relevance.

I have a friend, he died at 94, his breakfast was milk and harring

I love milk and have been drinking it all my life. There are much worse things the government is guilty of. They do not and never have had our best interest in mind, just lining their pockets.

I remember in the 90's and early 2000's while living in the Philippines There was a huge craze or influx or milke or dairy products, advertisements of milk brands are everywhere and promises this magical properties of milk. Just shows how much influence the US had in the world

When I first learned of the link between big dairy and fast food my biggest surprise was how Burger King has gotten away all these years never putting cheese on the Whopper