The Daily
Pulse.

Dotsie Bausch on Olympic Silver, Quitting Dairy, and the Fight for the AdSoy Act

Olympic silver medalist Dotsie Bausch didn't set out to take on the dairy industry. A single piece of slaughter footage sent her down a rabbit hole in 2010, two years before she stood on the podium at the London Games.

Dairy Money on the Team USA Training Table

Dotsie recalls the US Olympic team's decade-long sponsorship deal with the dairy industry and how heavily dairy was pushed on athletes at training centers in Colorado. Switching to a whole-food, plant-based diet built around potatoes, legumes, nuts, and seeds, she says, only strengthened her performance heading into the 2012 Games.

From Switch4Good to a Bill in Congress

Her nonprofit, Switch4Good, is now backing the bipartisan AdSoy Act, introduced by Representatives Troy Carter and Nancy Mace, aimed at giving the 51 million kids in the national school lunch program a plant milk option. Dotsie points to USDA data showing nearly 30 percent of school milk cartons get thrown away untouched every year, framing the bill as fiscal common sense as much as a health and equity issue.

• 73 percent of dairy industry income comes from federal government support, per Dotsie
• Roughly 29 percent of school milk cartons are discarded unopened each year, according to USDA data cited in the episode
• Supporters can send a pre-written letter to their representatives at switch4good.org

Switch4Good is also pushing Starbucks to drop its plant-milk upcharge and recently launched kidsandmilk.org, a resource for parents, pediatricians, and dietitians.