Milk consumption drops off massively in the US

Americans do not drink as much milk as they used to.

Milk consumption in the US has dropped 30 percent since 1975 and even 3.3 percent in the last year alone, said a new report by the Wall Street Journal.

The most likely reasons are the plethora of new drinks on offer from smoothies to energy drinks to iced teas.

Another reason could be low-fat diets or diets that stress reducing consumption of milk, which is increasingly seen as unhealthy and even unnatural.

It also could be that children, who are the biggest consumers of milk, are a smaller portion of the US population than they once were.

The Journal said that despite milk's precipitous decline as the alternative to water, pseudo-milk drinks made from rice, soy and almonds were up 16 percent.

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Dairy products like yogurt and cheese have also seen a similar rise.

The Daily Meal said that the dairy industry is fighting back with new products like protein-enhanced milk for fitness buffs and smaller milk containers for people on the go.

Huffington Post pointed out that it's not the first time the milk industry has felt the need to fight back.

The early 1990s campaign "Got Milk?" was an enormous $23 million campaign that spent as much as some of the largest brands in the US – an unprecedented move for a food industry organization.

The website has since been refurbished with the first image a swing at soy, almond and coconut drinks calling them "imitation milk."