**Discussion begins at 8:20**
Picture this: Colleen on her couch perusing, scrolling across the infamous TikTok, and she stumbles across this one video that was quite shocking, something she's never heard of before. She gasped. She saved it. She sent it to Megan and Kait. It was a TikTok describing government cheese. Is the cheese in America controlled by the government? Is Dominoes stuffed crust pizza made from government cheese. When you go to Taco Bell and you get a steak quesadilla, is it government cheese? Let's talk about it.
Source Material & Additional Content
Theme song by INDA
**Discussion begins at 8:20**
Picture this: Colleen on her couch perusing, scrolling across the infamous TikTok, and she stumbles across this one video that was quite shocking, something she's never heard of before. She gasped. She saved it. She sent it to Megan and Kait. It was a TikTok describing government cheese. Is the cheese in America controlled by the government? Is Dominoes stuffed crust pizza made from government cheese. When you go to Taco Bell and you get a steak quesadilla, is it government cheese? Let's talk about it.
Source Material & Additional Content
Theme song by INDA
Hey guys.
Hey.
How's it going?
How are you doing?
We're back with the 2schemequeens. Where's Kait?
She is in space. Space, space, space.
Wait a minute, is she like landing on the moon?
She's looking for aliens right now.
Oh.
She's traveling with SpaceX, if you will.
Ooh, okay.
Traveling the galaxy, galaxy, galaxy.
Is she going to tell us whether or not the Earth is spherical?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I cannot wait to get her space feedback.
Yeah. Some crazy space media.
Well, how about you? What have you been up to?
I am preparing for a new work role.
I know. I'm so jealous. I'm so happy for you. She's so excited.
I'm very excited. So today me and my roommate hashtag Jordi just went and spent a lot of money on office supplies.
She's getting her office space ready.
I got some strawberry shaped push pins.
Well, I just got back from Kerry's big birthday. I'm not going to say how old she is. I don't want to call her out, but we had quite a big shindig and she's got a lot of friends listening to the pod.
Hey friends.
And I got a lot of recommendations for conspiracies from the generation ahead of us.
So excited.
We'll have to get to some of those.
I also, this morning before I came back home, we did a little boat ride, a little Bloody Mary boat ride. And so I was making the Bloody Marys. I believe I have perfected this recipe. I actually posted a drink check on the website under each episode. I'm gonna start doing that now with like the ingredients and the recipe.
The website is really fun, guys.
But we had some Stirring's Bloody Mary mix because I really like their margarita mix. And so I was like, let's give this a shot. It actually was pretty tasty... if you like horseradish. So I was making those but we ran out and my dad was like, there's some zing zang. We'll just like, top it off with zing zang.
Zing zang is what we used?
Yeah. And there was something about the blend of this Zing Zang and the Stirrings. It was perfect.
So I don't know what Stirrings is.
That's like, it's just like a brand of mix. They do... They have like margarita, cosmos...
I would try it again. Because I do believe in trying everything seven times.
You got four more tries.
Yeah, I got four.
OK, we'll try it again. I'll make the special recipe. Maybe we'll do like a little garnish with like, you know, some like olives. Oh, pickles, a piece of bacon. We'll make it like a big we'll do a brunch one day.
The 3schemequeens will do a brunch. A live stream brunch moment where we just do drink checks. And then by the end of the live stream, we can barely stand.
So that's what I've been doing. So Happy Birthday, Kerry.
Happy birthday. My aunt has been dying to be shouted out. And I told her I won't shout her out till she leaves her review or donates her review. So aunt, you know who you are. Hopefully you get a shout out in the next episode. Do we have any shout outs for the week, Megan?
We do. So this week, we will shout out to Brynn. She bought us some coffee. Thank you, Brynny.
She says, you know, all the love.
We're sending our love from afar now. Brynn moved farther away. Miss you, Brynn.
Just a reminder, don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages. That's 3SchemeQueens, number 3, Scheme Queens, all one word. If you wanna check out our website, that's 3schemequeens.com, and you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content and our contact page. Let us know how we're doing, what you want to hear next. There's also opportunities to financially support us. There are links to buy us a cup of coffee, links to our merch store and Amazon affiliate links, additional content related to the topics that we have covered. And as always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, the listens, the likes and be sure to check us out on Reddit because we are also on...
Yeah, we love Reddit. Colleen, AKA Kait, what should the people do?
Let me get into my Kait impersonation. Yeah, so just. Scroll on down, leave us a five star review, a comment, just want to interact with us. Whatever you want to tell us, we love to hear it. Yeah, we love the support.
Yes, that's just we're just trying to get our name out there, right?
Yeah, we're just trying to, you know, spread the word.
So is it time for our drink check?
Yeah, what are we drinking?
This week we've got a themed drink. So what are we talking about?
Well, I'll go deep into the intro, but today we're talking about cheese.
Cheese. I love cheese.
We're talking about cheese and we're talking about the dairy industry.
So as I mentioned, I was with my parents and their friends and their very good friend is a wine distributor...
...Which is quite a flex.
Yeah, I feel like so I was like, I'm getting together with Colleen to record about cheese.
Cheese.
What would be a good wine to pair with cheese? And he gave us some good advice.
He did.
He said generally Chardonnay is a good one. If you have like a spicier cheese, maybe some Sauvignon Blanc.
I love a good Sauvignon Blanc.
So we're currently eating some cheese.
Not spicy cheese. Regular cheese.
Regular cheese.
And we are drinking some Wente. Morning Fog Chardonnay. Yes, it's what people call Wente. And Colleen's not a huge Chardonnay drinker, but you said...
Normally, this one's light, but maybe it helps cause it's that cold.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I like to put ice in my wine.
Do we, I was about to say, should we put some ice in my wine?
Not yet, it's cold.
We might have to circle back.
Yeah, yeah, I like to either add juice or ice to my wine.
Juice?
I like it to be a little sweet or a little bubble water.
Yeah, just a little spritzer.
A little bubble water.
Especially if you're like if you're trying to like if you're day drinking or something, you know, lighten it up.
Yeah. I dilute it down like a white sangria is what I tell myself, but it's definitely not what I'm making. But yeah, there was a weekend where I met up with Brynn, who is our shout out today and a couple of the girls. And I mixed white wine with white claws. That was a choice I won't make again.
Like in the same cup in the same cup? Yeah, I wouldn't do that.
Yes. Do not recommend.
We did have a little taste test this morning. We made Tom Hanks' famous Coke-agne.
It's his favorite drink, Coke-aign, which is a third diet coke. And then the rest of your glass, you fill with champagne.
I think I would enjoy that.
I mean, it was not it was better than it sounds.
It sounds sweet. Like, was it sweet?
Yes, it was sweet.
It tastes better than it sounds, but again, would not be my go to.
I think I would like that.
All right. We'll try it sometimes.
I really do like champagne. Maybe if we find a Tom Hanks conspiracy.
Yeah. Probably not, because he's like, sure, there's something else. No, he's just like America's dad.
I mean, he would relate to something about Disney, though, because he's Woody.
Oh, yeah.
You know, I mean, OK, maybe we'll add that to the list.
Yeah. Email us if you know anything about Disney conspiracies. Is he frozen? Walt, you know, Walt in the vault.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll find out.
OK, so should we get into it?
Yes. Picture this. Colleen on her couch perusing, scrolling across the infamous TikTok. And she stumbles across this one video that was quite shocking, something she's never heard of before. She gasped. She saved it. She sent it to Megan and Kait. It was a TikTok describing government cheese. Is the cheese in America controlled by the government? Is stuffed crust, government cheese? When you go to Taco Bell and you get a steak quesadilla, is it government cheese? Let's talk about it.
I thought you were going to start with, have you ever had these? Shout out to mermaid girl.
Well, I really did think about it and I really was going to go in deep with my usual intro. So but guys, I really thought this was a major, major conspiracy.
You know, when you sent the TikTok link, which we'll have to probably post.
Yeah, I'll share it directly, but the girl was talking about like... you're gonna get more into it, right? But this girl was talking about how the government had such a surplus of cheese that every cheese we eat is now government. But like that they were mandating to Pizza Hut, you must start stuffing your crust.
That's what it felt like - they were trying to utilize all of this cheese.
I was like, this is crazy. This can't be true. But no, guys, this is a major part of his American history. This is all fact. So Colleen tried to deep dive into this conspiracy only to learn that it's historical. Not really a conspiracy. We have a lot of proof proof on this one.
Yeah, there's a, I mean, it's a little... like the TikTok definitely exaggerated things, but it is based on hard cold truth.
Okay. So this is more of like a historical episode.
But I think everyone's probably still good. I can't wait to hear.
It's real real. And I do think a lot of like your mom and your mom's friends, they would remember a little bit of this era, probably towards the end of it. because it happened, I'm going to go into the plot line, but it started in around the 1970s, 1980s. So they might have eaten government cheese. Well, you said you actually, you've had some adults, like we're not adults, right? But you've had some peers of a slightly older age than us who were telling you that they have eaten government cheese.
So I've met three adults - two of them have eaten government cheese. One of them, dispersed government cheese. And all three of them have described it. And we're gonna get in deep and deep about what is government cheese, but they've all been describing it like an American Velveeta flavor.
So is this where the term government cheese came from? Or is that just, oh my gosh, I just thought it was a coincidence. No, it's the, it's a, there's a legit type of cheese that is government cheese. So you know that there are people out there right now who are like, obviously guys, government cheese.
Yeah, this is not... I mentioned it at work and our peer, Cathy. Hey, Cathy. I was like, yeah, I've eaten it. And I was like, what? I was mind boggled. I was like, you're telling me this is real. So, yeah, we can get into it. But did you know, Megan, that the government currently has caves in Kansas City, Missouri, full of about one point four billion pounds of cheese? Still, I had no idea.
I saw. a comment on this TikTok where someone goes, yeah, everyone knows about these cheese caves. And that was it. There was like no context. It was just like cheese.
It's all if you're from that state, like, it's stored in multiple states, but the biggest caves is in Kansas City. So it's in Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota. I think it was Indiana too. I'll have to follow up for sure in that state, but there's multiple caves full of cheese.
So why? Is there just like so much that they don't have anywhere to store this?
Yes. Yeah, it's the we're going to get into why there was a surplus. But you can tour these caves.
Have you been to Missouri?
I have been to Missouri. If you guys aren't aware, Megan is trying to take off all 50 states.
I'm getting close.
Low key. I think I'm joining that journey with you because I've done the entire East Coast now. I feel like that's kind of a flex.
I also can't believe that like... Like she's a traveler.
She?
You, you left the country. You're not someone who like never left... but when you said 'I never went west', I was like, my mind was blown.
Well, now I've been to St. Louis for a wedding. I don't think I'd go back. But the arch was cool. But before that, the furthest west I've gone was Philly, Pittsburgh, one of them. I think I've been to Pittsburgh.
Yeah, that's wild.
Yeah. So at some point I'm going to the...
I'm dying to see the Pacific.
Well, when I go out to see my friend, Lindsay, who lives in Vegas, and she and I are gonna go over to Roswell, you might have to join me.
Well, I will 100% go on that.
Me and my roommate Jordan wanna go to Alaska because she's obsessed with Alaska.
Love Alaska, but Alaska's a big time commitment.
I've learned that. It's crazy.
But you should go to the we're getting off track here, but you should go to the lumberjack games in Alaska.
Oh My and the lumber woman. Right? Lumber Jane. I've seen videos I've seen clips and then there's that guy that cuts the wood -
Oh, I follow both the guy who cuts the wood and the... is it a farrier? Yeah, if anybody doesn't follow Bradley.Thor.... I think his name is actually Thor Bradley, but his Instagram handle Bradley.Thor.
He's muy guapo. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Oh my God.
He's just a very attractive bearded man who questioned suerto, guano. And he cuts, he doesn't just cut the wood. He like smashes it into smithereens and then smushes watermelons between his legs.
I mean that guy's been around for a minute.
He went viral on TikTok. But there's now another guy. He's a farrier.
It's giving fairy vibes.
Well he does like. I'm sure there's horse girls out there right now.
Oh, hooves.
But he like, yeah, he like takes off the horse shoes and like cleans up their feet.
Those videos are my guilty pleasure. The hoof changing and then ear cleaning videos.
But yeah, I think it's like, it hits all this because like, he's really attractive. He's got like a British accent. He's doing like a blue collar job. But then also, but also as he like pulls the muck out of the horse hooves, that's like a gratifying.
Yeah, it's satisfying.
Yes. And he's hot.
Yes. The woodcutter guy though, I will say, he gives me the ick when he talks. Like if you know what it means to get the ick, he gives the ick whenever he does anything other than cutting wood.
Sometimes, I guess his wife films him and sometimes he'll be like in the water and he does like a slow-mo, you know, as he like shakes the water out of his hair and he's got like the big lighthouse tattoo up his sternum and I'm like, this is not your best look. And please just wear your suspenders and your black glasses and cut wood.
Not to be...
Not to be objectifying.
Yeah. However, go back to what you're good at. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Anyway, we digress. I want to hear about the cheese. Tell me.
So this is going to be a tour through American history spanning across multiple decades, starting in 1949. The core event that created this cheese drama was the Agriculture Act of 1949 and then was expanded in the 1970s with Jimmy Carter and were worsened in the 1980s with Reagan. So the Agricultural Act of 1949 gave, it's a group, it's called the Depression Era Commodity Credit Corps authorization to buy Dairy. So it subsidized dairy products in America.
But why did we have to do that?
So it was to help fund farmers in a way to help with produce in America. So the original... intention of this was to help with like the economy and farming in America. So this act was created in the 1940s following the depression to help fund farmers to help us get out of the depression.
Got it. Okay.
So in 1970s, this is when Jimmy Carter was president, there was a major dairy shortage. Now, the reasoning behind the dairy shortage had to do with demand and supply. There was a very low supply and a very high demand. So because there weren't a lot of farmers and farmers weren't producing much with what they were creating. And the prices of dairy in the 1970s were astronomical.
I mean, I love cheese. And if you couldn't get cheese, that'd be a problem. It'd be a problem.
Yeah. And so people weren't buying dairy because it was so expensive. And then it was like rebound effect. People stopped making dairy because it was so expensive that like people weren't buying it. And so to incentivize people into buying dairy, Jimmy Carter subsidizing dairy produce to then encourage farmers to produce more dairy. And, um, he did this by as acting for the government, buying an insane amount of dairy product directly from farmers.
Do we know how much?
So in the late 70s, early 80s, they bought about 500 million pounds of cheese.
That's a lot of cheese.
Or excuse me, they bought pounds of dairy like milk, which they then turned into cheese. And I'll explain why they turned it into cheese. But so Jimmy Carter was trying to decrease this inflation in dairy. So as the government, he bought he literally bought dairy product. He bought milk to then lower the price. So it was as if he was acting as. the demand, so he was increasing the demand, which would then increase the supply, which would then decrease the pricing, which was the intention.
That all makes sense.
Okay. So he gave funding to the dairy industry by encouraging farmers to produce dairy because whatever wasn't sold to people would be then bought by the government. So dairy farmers started creating an insane amount of milk because they knew they would make an insane amount of money because no matter what, they were going to sell it all. because if it wasn't sold in the grocery stores, it was sold to the government. And so we had this exponential growth in dairy. So it started with Jimmy Carter because he essentially kind of abused that agricultural act. Following Jimmy Carter, the government owned about 500 million pounds of dairy, which is- A lot of dairy. And the next president following Carter was Ronald Reagan. The government- owned 500 million pounds of dairy at this point. And because there was just an insane amount of milk, they turned it to cheese, which is then where we get government cheese from. So while that we've all heard that term and I had no idea. This is fact. This is actual fact because cheese was more shelf stable. It could last longer. It could age well. And that's where they created the cheese caves. And I will be sharing some pictures, but, you can see shelves and shelves and shelves of cheese. They had forklifts lifting cheese. There was just astronomical amounts of cheese.
Guys, it's just wheels and wheels of cheese. It's crazy. 1.4 billion pounds of cheese.
So we didn't get to that number till 2019, and I'll explain why.
Okay.
But at one point, In the 1980s, we had Reagan and we had his secretary of agriculture, and he was confronted by the fact that the government had all this wasting away cheese that was sitting there and molding away, and we had hungry people in America. So Ronald Reagan, to kind of save face in a little bit, in a way, created a new program called the Temporary Food Assistance Program, which then gave the government cheese for free away to the population of America. So they gave it to food banks, they gave it to centers, and they put it in the public school system, and also sold it to companies like Domino's and Taco Bell.
Oh my God. I mean, it's totally making sense that it's like, yeah, why don't we feed this cheese to the kids in school?
That makes sense, but yeah, the fact that our Domino's and Taco Bell cheese originated from government cheese. That's wild. Or I don't know if I should say originated, but that's now use government cheese.
OK, yes. Yeah. So Reagan was shamed for wasting food. And so then he turned it around and was like, we're going to give this cheese away, which is then where our peers of certain generations will remember eating government cheese, because there was so much cheese. Every public school was given pounds and pounds and pounds of cheese. And they were sold in like rectangular chunks like butter, but huge. And every kid for lunch would get shavings of cheese on their plate and like just cheese. And that was it.
I mean, sounds like a good lunch to me. And like, it was like a lunch lady's job every day to shave the cheese.
Oh my gosh.
To cut cheese, if you will.
We could have so many, I just feel like Colleen's probably really holding back on all the cheese jokes right now.
So, many cheese memes. And I do have a quote I would like to read directly that describes the flavor of government cheese. "If you've ever tasted what's known as government cheese, you won't soon forget it. It's flavor was described as similar between Velveeta and American cheese and smacked of humiliation or gratitude for the people who couldn't afford not to eat it. Its color, a pale orange, was eye catching. And it came in iconic stacks of five pound blocks. that made it immediately clear it wasn't your standard cheddar or camembert."
Is this where like the American, like, I mean, it sounds like this might be a step below, but is this like where Kraft Singles came from? I don't understand Kraft Singles.
I think now this is a conspiracy. I truly think Kraft Singles is government cheese. Because it sounds exactly like how they're describing it. Like a pale cheddar somewhere between American and Velveeta. Like that's spot on. And it's funny you mentioned Kraft, because in my research, I learned that this cheese, this so-called government cheese, is not actually owned by the government. So diving into this podcast episode, I've just learned so much drama about politics and funding in America. And the reason why this dairy issue and cheese became such a headache is because lobbyists for political funding got ahold of it and started pushing for more and more funding into dairy, therefore, pushing for more and more production of dairy to fund big companies, specifically Kraft cheese. So this cheese, this government cheese is not owned by America. They incentivize Kraft as a company to buy a crap ton of cheese and the government is just storing the cheese for Kraft. Isn't that crazy? It's not just Kraft. It's owned by...
I mean, it sounds like Kraft is really making out.
Kraft is probably the well-known one. It's Kraft, Hilmar and Sopra, which I didn't know those cheese companies I only knew Kraft. So yeah, these big cheese companies and this is where I'm gonna get real emotional about funding in America and where our money should support because I am a relative of a dairy farm farmer and so it like breaks my heart to read about the funding for dairy in America and how it's not going where you want it to be going and how infuriating that is. But I digress. We'll get into this. So, yeah, we have all this cheese. We have Ronald Reagan being like crowned a king for feeding Americans. And then in my research and we'll cite my sources like we always do. But there's articles from quotes of people who ate this cheese and liken a lot of the gentlemen that I there was one particular gentleman that I read about and he was like, we would just throw it away like WIC and things like that were eating this cheese. I mean, it makes you think of like how good was this cheese?
I mean, the TikTok comments.
I mean, it seemed horrible.
No, I thought made it sound people were like, oh my God, I miss it. It was the best. Some people either say it's the worst thing they've ever eaten.
Some people say they would kill to eat it again.
I mean, that's probably like, if you're describing it sort of being Velveeta-ish, I think Velveeta is disgusting. But other people will like, they just don't eat, you know, like they're Velveeta in Rotel. There are people who love it. And I think it's disgusting.
I don't mind Velveeta.
I can see it being, where people's opinions about Velveeta is like very divisive, I guess. So if you're describing this cheese as being similar, I guess I can see how people could have very... different opinions.
And then I got into like a conversation, I promised her a shout out. Hey Maggie, we got into a discussion about childhood delicacies and how we ate these things in our childhood that we thought were the best thing ever in our actual trash. So that's the kind of the perspective I feel like people have for government cheese. Like it was disgusting, but you wish you could be a child again to eat it. Like we were talking about, like I was talking about different yogurts, like Trix yogurt. Oh my God. I'd kill to eat Trix yogurt, but the one where it was blue and pink and full of sugar. I was like, I loved the go-gurt.
Oh, my God.
Like, so, yeah, I think that's the perspective people have on it.
But now that also makes me think about these kids these days. Yeah. Who like. OK, for example, I would kill for someone to make me some like homemade from scratch mac and cheese.
Oh, my mom does that. All the time.
My grandma used to do it. I think it's delicious. Who would take Kraft mac and cheese over homemade macaroni cheese? These kids. These kids will do that. My nieces have never, my brother says they have never had a restaurant mac and cheese they liked. And it's like, no, they just want the cheap blue box.
Well, in my perspective, I have them in two different classes because we would eat Kraft on late nights and we would eat Kraft camping. So like I associate it with like different memories. So I would eat it to reminisce that, but like I'd much rather homemade mac and cheese. Are you kidding me? My Grammy's homemade mac and cheese with the Ritz crackers on top. Chef kiss. Or like, I mean, don't get me wrong. I love an adult meal. I love salmon and asparagus, but chicken fingers just hit different.
Yeah, I kind of have like a peds palette myself, but okay, go ahead.
So then we kind of get into history repeating itself with the cheese production. Hell no. And this is where we get into our favorite Cheeto man, our favorite cheese puff, our favorite American representative. Yeah. I can see Colleen giggling to herself as she comes up with all of these cheese puns by herself. Our favorite Cheeto man, our favorite cheese representative, representing the great state of America. Donald, graded states of America, graded states of America.
Okay, so Donald Trump is involved in the cheese?
Yeah.
Okay.
He has completely repeated the cheese production.
You know, I bet he loves the government cheese.
I'm sure he loves it.
He doesn't have a very refined palate. And again, I'm not mad about, I mean, I'm not judging him for this either, but like, the man loves a Coke, I love a Diet Coke. The man loves McDonald's. I wouldn't say I love McDonald's anyway. Based on what I know of Donald Trump's palette, he would have loved the government cheese.
Huge cheese fan. Yeah. Huge cheese fan. Okay, so in 2019, the demand for dairy started dropping again. I don't really understand the full, there's lots of different reasons that led into.
I wonder if like all these diets and stuff we used.
Yeah, well that's what I was gonna say, yeah. I don't know if we can fully declare dairy is dropping because people like oat milk. I don't think we can say that as a statement. And our fellow Scheme Queen, Kait, is going to be following up with a mini podcast of her particular opinions on dairy in America because she is truly the professional with nutrition. And she's the...
We all know she's a hippie. She's got strong opinions on it. She's got rants ready for you guys. So just be ready for that followup. But I don't know if we can fully declare why the demand for dairy was dropping. But in 2019, the demand was dropping and the production was up 13%. So again, we had like a little bit of a reproduction of another set of dairy issues. So I personally felt like a lot of this had to do with political lobbyists trying to fund big dairy companies. Because that's what the...
That's what the Tik Tok was. Yeah, because not to keep referencing the Tik Toker, because sometimes we get feedback about our sources being like Loki and Tik Tok. But all I know about the cheese is from the Tik Toker.
She was my inspiration. We have legitimate sources coming to me, but she did make it sound like it was like the lobbyists were driving.
Yeah, I truly think a lot of it has to do that because of that agricultural act from the 1940s. It made dairy a governmental topic a subject of what they voted on. And also that has to do with farming in general, which it should be a political thing. Farmers should get funding from the government, but we've gotten into a little bit of a cheesy situation. If you would, a lot of holes, you know, like Swiss. So like I said, these political lobbyists have been striving to increase the funding for dairy, which subsequently increased the production for dairy because all this funding was going to big dairy companies. I think the biggest I can name is Kraft. I actually don't know if I know any other major cheese company. I'm sure there's so many others, but the funding, this is where I'm gonna go on a Kait rant, but the funding is going to big companies. This governmental funding is not going to your average farmer. It is in a little in a certain stance, like farmers do get support. But this huge, tremendous portions of money that is increasing dairy production is increasing it in huge dairy companies, not your small town farmer. This is a side. I'm just looking at. I just Googled like, you know, cheese list.
All right. Sartori Is that what you're thinking? Oh, maybe that's what that was. Anyway, I'm just Googling cheese companies to see if I recognize any of them. The only other one I really recognize is the mozzarella. Oh, yeah. Bel-Gioso. Which is like, has like, I always get like my mozzarella...
Baby Bell cheese. And a... Laughing cow.
Is laughing cow even real? That sounds also like government cheese.
That cheese, that's probably government cheese.
Oh, there's a beehive cheese. Kait's a big bee girl. Yeah. Beehive cheese is from Utah because, you know, I just learned that the state logo is a beehive because the Mormons wanted to use the beehive as a logo because it's all about cooperation and productivity.
I did not know that.
But I'm wondering because my parents are both graduates of Washington State University and they are kind of like Virginia Tech, like a very agricultural store.
Right.
And they have their own like creamery, I guess. Oh yeah, UConn has that, too. You can get your own ice cream.
And they sell Cougar Gold cheese.
Oh.
So I wonder if like these colleges who are cranking up. If they get funding.
They're getting support. They must. And this is the opportunity where I'm going to advertise my cousin's farm.
Do it.
So we've got my cousin's farm, Mapes Farm Fresh, located in New Berlin, Pennsylvania. This is a small town local farmer. They produce and process their own milk on site. Sell it on site in addition to small local stores in New Berlin, but you can buy their cheese, you can buy ice cream, you can buy, they have different flavors of milk, creamsicle, chocolate, strawberry, and generic, straight from... brown Swiss cows on site. So this is who the money should be going to. Yeah. So they have like a little farm store and they have a farm stand on the farm. Yeah. You can actually meet the cows making your milk. Oh, that's you can. My cousin, we used to name them. I've seen many cows give birth farmer Mark and Jenny. And then Mike and her brother, Jimmy and my aunt Sue are the true core behind it all. And you can buy milk, you can buy, again, all different types of dairy.
Do they have a website?
They do have a website, we will link it, it's fantastic. It actually just got an upgrade through funding. So she won some kind of award that then allowed, this is my cousin Jenny, then allowed them to revamp their website and Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, we'll share it. That's Mape's Farm Fresh.
Ooh, okay.
But this is who the funding should be going to. You know what I mean? Like you should be buying your dairy local. You should be supporting your small town farmers. Not Kraft. Because what Kraft is doing is creating billions of pounds of cheese. So since 2019, we've now had 1.4 billions pounds of cheese being stored in America, in the caves.
That is wild.
Going to waste. Now here is where it plays into with Trump, I'm gonna you know, age back like blue cheese towards Trump and what he did with the cheese.
So 2019, government started buying cheese again, started funding extra cheese because we had a surplus of it. So we were starting to buy it out again. We had 1.4 billions of cheese. Suspiciously, this happened in 2019 and I think we're all aware of what happened in 2020.
About the vid? Yeah, I hesitated for a moment because you know what? The feels like the pandemic has been going on for decades.
It feels like the timing. This is where this is truly fully a conspiracy that I believe in. It feels like the timing of the purchase of cheese in 2019 was setting Trump up for success in 2020 because just like...
What are you implying that like they knew Covid was coming a little bit?
Because, just like what Ronald Reagan did in the 80s, Trump used the temporary food assistance program to then send cheese out to America. In 2020, everybody was receiving free food. There was an increase in surplus in food for like programs like WIC, food banks, et cetera. And a lot of it was cheese, government cheese. Okay. So did they purposely buy cheese to fund America?
I think he might be making a leap there. I think maybe he was like, I love a Big Mac and I like some cheese and I got to make sure we're not about to run out of any cheese.
I do think it has a little bit of truth to it because the Trump administration used the CCC, which is that Depression-era commodity credit court that we talked about earlier. He used that to provide large subsidies to offset the trade war with China, and Canada and the EU, but China was listed first. So I thought that was interesting. So like trying to promote buying trade in America.
I think that Trump honestly is just one of his strengths was like he was what people you know, people like he lost money, but one of his strengths was like that he is a businessman. Yeah, like the economy was one of his strengths. Yeah. And so it would make sense to me that he would be like negotiating. Yeah, with these.
I mean, I'm not trying to get into any COVID conspiracies whatsoever. However, they bought a crap ton of cheese in 2019 and used a lot of that in 2020. So think of that, you know? Think about that. Think about that. How about that? Then we get into other ways government cheese was used in America. So we talked a little bit about Dominoes, we talked about Taco Bell, and then we talk, we're going to talk about got milk. Do you remember got milk?
Oh yeah, like I was like, big in the nineties, right? All the celebrities, their got milk.
Nineties, late eighties, early nineties, got milk was huge.
I used to get teen people and there was always like all the celebrities doing that milk.
The true purpose of got milk was to increase the demand for dairy to then lower, or to increase the demand for dairy to help decrease the surplus of cheese. And cheese was then put in everything. It was put in... That's when Stuffed Crust was created with Domino's. Taco Bell was then paired with the government to then be included in public school system lunches. So actually, Taco Bell.
Wait, wait, wait. Public schools, kids were eating Taco Bell for lunch in the in the 90s and 80s?
They were.
Man, I don't know about you. We didn't even have real pizza.
We had like the I had cheesy bread. No sauce at school. Yeah. But it was like, it was not, you know what? Now that I think about it, there was this particular type of cheesy bread. Everybody's gonna know it if you were in elementary in the early 2000s. It was like two, like almost like hot dogs, but instead of hot dogs, it was cheese in the middle. They were like together, like a popsicle, like a double popsicle. And it was cheese bread, cheesy bread. I bet that's governmental cheese.
Sounds... Disgusting. It had no flavor popsicle that was like a hot dog, but with cheese and yeah, it had no flavor.
I'll share it with the gram. Um, but Taco Bell used their specifically their double steak quesadillas in school lunches, which I thought was interesting.
In federal school lunches? So I don't know like if that was very specific locations or what but we used to have Dominoes for pizza for lunch on Friday.
We did not have a nice pizza.
We had Domino's pizza. This is where it's gonna get political again - until Michelle Obama changed to school lunches. So she decided these kids need to be healthier?
No, we had those like kind of like, they look like the Elio's or whatever, but like the, is that how you pronounce it? The little squares, we never had anything good like Dominoes.
Yeah, we had cheesy bread.
This is also like my least favorite pizza.
We had cheesy bread that was like Sicilian pizza style. So it was like rectangles, no sauce. You would pick it up and like a pound of grease would fall off. So were you telling me that the reason Taco Bell... You could go to Taco Bell. Right. And spend $20 and eat for the next month. Everything's like a dollar.
Right. Government cheese.
It's because the government, they, yeah.
They're paying so little.
Yeah. For their government cheese.
Because they're getting free cheese.
Free cheese. Well, essentially free cheese, because it's already paid for. The government bought it. Yeah. And Domino's specifically was bailed out by the government during the 2010 recession. So like we need you to we need you. We need you. Actually, there's an Uncle Sam graphic will post and it's like, we need you to eat dairy. And it's like Uncle Sam wearing a cheese hat. So yeah, like for a fact, Dominos was bailed out 2010. For a fact, Got Milk was created to help with the dairy production. And for a fact, Taco Bell was included in federal school lunches. That is wild because they were so there still is so much cheese. So kind of referring back to 2019 and why there's a decrease in dairy. I think our friend Kait... she's going to be real passionate about it.
She's going to be truly the most passionate.
But there has been an odd amount of lactose intolerance in America, a suspiciously odd amount of lactose intolerance. I believe in my sources, it stated that America was probably the third country that uses the most cheese. I think it was France and Italy before us, and then America, and yet we have so much more lactose intolerance in them.
I'm dubious.
I don't know, we kinda talked about this pre-recording. I don't know if it's really just the recording of it. Like maybe people in France and Italy are just not declaring their lactose intolerance. Well, I guess because we have like, Kait, for example, has a true dairy allergy. She breaks out in hives.
She touches cheese and gets hives.
So not a lactose intolerance issue. But I feel like lactose intolerance, like I was diagnosed with lactose intolerance as a child.
And tolerance versus allergy is a big thing.
And then, because like my stomach hurts sometimes. And then as I got older, I was like, you know what, I like cheese and who cares? I eat cheese. And like, I think I probably had like childhood stomach aches like everyone did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I wonder if in, you know, we are. first world country and we are very into our feelings and how we feel and making sure that going to the doctor and all that. And so maybe people in other countries are like, yeah, my stomach kind of hurt and I don't care and I just move on.
Well, that's the other thing is how many surveys in France are being written up about lactose intolerance. Like, you know what I mean? Like where's the data coming from France? Like maybe there's just not enough research on it.
Or is our bigger issue like, you know, when you go to, when you go to Europe. Even like I got Italian food in Germany. Well, that's and it was like the best cheese I had ever had, it's like, yeah, it's like not all pasteurized and processed like, yeah, our cheese. So how much of it is like the actual dairy or just like the way we are 100% airing the dairy and Kait's going to go more into this and about preparation of milk, I mean, well, dairy in general and like how dairy is processed in America, because I think a lot of it is processed food. But if you think about Italy and France and the size of that country compared to America and then look at the companies in those countries.
Do we think France really has a major cheese company like we do, like Kraft? No, I think a lot of it is local farming in France. They're getting fresher, better feed. And I'm gonna refer back to my cousin's farm. We need to go back to supporting local, fresh dairy. That's where it should come from. But specifically I have... the percentages of lactose intolerance in America. I find it interesting. 75% of African Americans are lactose intolerant. 51% of Latinos lactose intolerant. 80% of Asian Americans lactose intolerant. And, uh...
Okay. Well, I'm doing a quick Google right here. I guess my first thing when you say that is you said... earlier that Asian Americans have the most... And I was just kind of curious about is it Asians or Asian Americans? Because I don't really feel like there's a lot of dairy in food. I don't think they eat a lot of dairy. And then we know that genetically, for example, they lack the enzyme to break down alcohol and that's why, oh, so many of them, so that's why a lot of them don't drink or they, yes, they drink, have one drink and they have the Asian flush. Or my friend's husband has like a half a beer and he's like, you know, feeling it.
Lit up, yeah.
So. I wonder if it's like Asian Americans or Asian in general. So Google here is saying 70 to 100% of East Asian people are lactose intolerant. So that doesn't even sound like it's an Asian American issue. Am I just an Asian? That's a huge amount of, yeah. And then it says, so they're calling it like lactase non-persistence, which I think it's just lactase is the enzyme that breaks down lactose, right? So I guess lactase non-persistent would just be that yes, your enzyme is not, you lack the enzyme to break down the lactose. So this is saying that in addition to Asians, which are East Asians, which are the highest percentage, we also have high levels in West African countries. Again, is there like a lot of dairy and African food? So I'm like, is it the exposure? It's like, create your normal flora in your gut, but it like based on what you eat early on in childhood. Well, yeah, like, yeah. Well, I was saying like, I think I was telling you and Kait this maybe, that so I did like a little four-year vegetarian stint. And then, I was a pescatarian and then one day I decided I was going to reincorporate chicken into my diet.
It throws you off.
It took six months before I could digest chicken without feeling terrible. Then at one point I was in some survival training and I had to eat a rabbit.
Megan''s really cool guys.
I got so sick to my stomach because again, I think your body is just like, we don't know how to process the food.
Different fats of the food.
Yeah. you know, in a in an area or from a culture that doesn't eat a lot of dairy that maybe I don't know this is it just what I'm hypothesizing as we talk right now.
Right. Is it like the exposure in the environment more so than it is dairy in general? It also says it's very common among Arabs, Jewish people, Greek people.
There's very interesting. Yeah, because they eat a lot of yogurt.
Maybe they're feta'd up with it.
And Italians though, actually, I will say I'm very surprised by Italians. Once again, Kait is of Italian descent.
Yeah, and Kait's gonna go into like gut health and like.
Kait just needs her own spinoff podcast.
We will have bonus material released that is purely content from Kate talking about gut health. In case anybody else is into hippie stuff. There's a lot of people that are into that.
I do have more.
I'm not so much into that.
I eat whatever. Unless Kait is feeding me and then I eat whatever she gives me. I do have more info regarding finances with dairy in America. Okay, so and we're gonna add a third president Clinton this was I mean this was very pretty people that sounds like... Sounds like a whole lot of cheddar, you know I mean?
By the way, I was telling Colleen earlier today that I was yelling at my dog Tanner and the neighbor - This is like when I first moved here -I was like, 'Tanner, Tanner.'And she was,' oh, my gosh, cheddar? Is his name cheddar?' And I was like, 'no, it's Tanner'. But I have since decided that if I ever have another dog he is going to be named cheddar...
The difference between you and me is my social anxiety would then say, 'yeah, his name is cheddar' and just go with that for years forward. And only that neighbor knows of his name being cheddar. So in 2016, the American dairy industry, this is mind boggling, dumped 43 million gallons of milk into fields because it just wasn't being processed. And that's in addition to the dairy being bought by the government, which I thought is crazy. And the dairy industry received $43 billion and $36.3 billion in 2016 and 2017 from the federal government.
Yeah, this seems like wasteful.
And yet they're dumping billions of milk. And then in the 1990s, a little bit of throwback with Clinton. So our third president, arguably you could include Trump again in the 2016-2017 funding, but the president doesn't really deal with the funding specifically, but I'm not going to teach you guys about legislation. However, so Clinton, going back to the Clinton administration in the 1990s, started the Dairy Management Corporation, which created an annual budget of $140 million for the Department of Agriculture specifically to inspire Americans to consume more dairy. And that's where we get the got milk from. Isn't that crazy?
That's crazy. It's just so wild to think about how I'd really do like got milk was sort of like a staple of our childhood, like every magazine, TV included in it. Yeah. And then to think that like, I just thought it was like, yeah, milk people. So, but like that this all was government driven.
Like we have too much - Yeah - We have too much dairy, drink your milk.
We're gonna pay Taylor Swift to push dairy in people.
I got milk. So we had all this increase in budgeting for dairy. We had all this increase in production of dairy, surplus of dairy... And going back to lactose intolerant, this source states that, 75% of African Americans, 51% of Latinos, 80% of Asian Americans, and 20% of... Caucasians in America are lactose intolerant. Yeah, that's also,
I guess, Hispanic people too. I mean, I think there's dairy in their common foods too. So my theory about exposure, you know, about, I guess doesn't really track there. So it's like, we are spending so much cheddar on cheddar. I had that one written down.
I was ready to say that. I guess I just, I get it.
And why, why? I... And I still want to know about like true allergies because I do think that Americans are a little whiny.
Yeah. And I went on a Reddit, a part of my research involved Reddit because when you are involved in conspiracies, you're always going to end up on Reddit.
Yes. There was only one post on government cheese and a comment said moon equals cheese? Question mark. What is the government hiding?
That was all it said?
That was all it said. Is the moon cheese? It looks like Swiss to me.
You know what I mean? Isn't moon cheese what astronauts eat and it's dehydrated?
Oh, I've had that. Moon cheeses 100 percent real cheese that has had the moisture ejected to make it a tasty shelf stable snack. No refrigeration needed.
You know, I remember in the pandemic receiving gifts of food, and one of them was dehydrated cheese chips.
You did? Was that government cheese? Well, this says, so no, moon cheese is a specific type of cheese.
Well, people were saying that the moon is cheese. And it goes back to the like, did we land on the moon?
I think you're jumping there. So, I mean, this is saying that I think there is like some kind of moon cheese that it sounds like a powdered cheese, like cheese puff, maybe kind of like that. Then it also says that there is a specific cheese, I'm not gonna try to pronounce this because I don't want everyone to, I don't wanna mess it up. But there is a specific cheese, from a specific region in France that is called moon cheese because it is shaped like a full moon and it has the characteristic marks.
Maybe it came from the moon.
That look like impact craters on our natural marks. You just got me thinking about cheese powder. Maybe all cheese powder derives from government cheese because they've been trying to use it up. So they turn it into powder.
Yeah. Is that why, when were Cheetos created? Can we get a fact check on that? Because Doritos were only since the 80s, right? Because my mom told me about eating Doritos Oh my God, Doritos were created in the 80s, powdered cheese on chips, government cheese turned to powdered cheese, released Cheetos. Maybe not. Well that's Cheetos, but Doritos came from the 80s.
Cheetos were invented in 1948 in Texas.
Oh, 1948?
Until 1971 when the band, yeah, 1948. Wow. It was the brand's sole product for 23 years until the introduction of Cheeto Puffs. in 1971. Oh my god. And you asked about Doritos? Doritos came from the 80s.
I just kind of assumed they were the first cheesy chip, but my god, I'm trying to think of other cheeses to name for puns.
Doritos were a product made, uh oh, we were literally just talking about having some doing some - Disney conspiracies. And it says here the original product was created and sold only at Disneyland in the 1960s. Oh my, oh what? And then probably sounds like 19, maybe I'm confused.
No, no, I think you're right. I mean, I think probably that's when you can finally buy it.
Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. Disney created Doritos. Are you telling me Disney owns the Frito Lay chip company too? Like what's the like the Lays? Isn't it Lays from Fritos too?
Yeah. Wow, guys, Disney really has - And that's when it became a Frito Lay product.
Oh my God.
Disney really has their roots in everything.
That's crazy.
Disney created Doritos. Then they merged with Pepsi. I mean, this really is just about how a couple of big companies are like running the world.
Well, you know Disney has a huge stake in the government. Because they own so many companies, they are dramatically affected by different funding in the government. So I'm sure. They're pushing for government cheese. Turn that cheese into cheese powder for the derivatives. Wow. I love Cheetos. Fun fact, my cat's favorite treat ever is Cheetos. He goes berserk for them.
Oh yeah, sometimes don't Kait's kids like give you some- They have given me, yeah. Joie gave me a cheese puff, forced me to put it in a gallon Ziploc bag to bring home for my cats. And then I forgot to give it to him. So sorry, Joie.
Oh, here. OK, there's actually somebody. Quora says, does Disney profit from the Doritos sale?
100 percent.
Interesting. The whole reason that Doritos were started is because there was a surplus of tortillas.
Oh, my God. It's all one big circle. Just like a wheel of cheese.
Disney is no longer profiting.
Like, It's the circle of cheese. What are other types? cheddar, Colby Jack. Colby Jack. That's a TikTok audio. Think about types of cheese. Yes, Swiss. Well, here we've got like Gouda, Havarti, cheddar, Swiss. Like Brie. Blue cheese. Oh, that stinky cheese. Camembert.
Goat cheese.
Oh, I like blueberry goat cheese.
Hold on. Does dairy mean it comes from cows? So is therefore goat not goat cheese doesn't count in this cheese? Yeah, I'm asking is dairy milk is goat milk still dairy? Because it's or does it have is it only dairy if it has like lactose in it?
Goat milk is still dairy. So goat milk does contain lactose, but it contains less lactose than cow's milk. I would also say like, you know, there's so much I really like the Harris Teeter generic ultra filtered milk. Right. Like also Fairlife is ultra filtered.
I just buy the one in the red box that lasts forever. So it's probably the worst kind of dairy.
No, that well, that's what these are.
Oh, is that what? Ultra filtered lasts months.
That's what I drink. And it tastes so much better. Yeah, I always get drink skim. Well, tastes like maybe 2%.
To me, it doesn't matter the taste. It's because I forget about milk. Yeah, and it expires.
But I guess I'm one I'm just wondering is like, is this part of why? We have so much ultra filtered milk. I will say, shout out my cousins again, Mapes Farm Fresh. They brought cheese with them when they came up for my grampy's funeral in the fall. That was the best cheese I've ever had in my entire life. It was phenomenal. The creamiest cheese I've ever had.
Because it wasn't all processed.
It was straight fresh from the cow. It was crazy.
All right, we're field tripping to Mapes.
Yeah, it's only two hours from us.
But you said we're gonna do it. Kait wants to meet the cows. Do they have chickens?
They used to. I think they have turkeys now. They sell. My cousin Jimmy sells turkeys in the fall for Thanksgiving.
That's such a commitment. I went to this wedding and the best man, it was like out of town. No, but he had, it was in the fall. Right. And he, so we came for the rehearsal and then he was like, I can't spend the night. I have to drive like three hours home because I have to open up the farm stand tomorrow to sell pumpkins before the wedding. I was like, farming does, I mean, we joke a lot about how I could -
Farming doesn't stop.
Yeah, farming doesn't stop. It sounds like too much work for me.
Yeah, and like these cows gotta get milked. You know what I mean? Brown chicken, brown cow. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So that was cheese, guys. Little bit of conspiracy. A lot of history.
That was interesting. That was well researched, too.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Not always in my well researched.
So do we even have a poll? Hold on. OK, this is my Kait impersonation. So the poll this week, we are going to ask Did you have government cheese? And if you did, let us know what you thought. Give us your opinions on it. We wanna hear all about it.
And now they've finished this episode, what do they do?
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My Kait is turning very Valley girl.
Thank you.
This is too girly, girl. This is not Kait.
And we will see you next Tuesday.
See you next Tuesday.