I am a vegan, so I am biased. I do not eat cheese. I do not think cheese is good for you. Actually, I know it is bad for you.

The Department of Agriculture agrees because, according to The New York Times, data from the department shows that cheese, consumption of which has tripled since 1970, is the major reason the average American diet contains too much saturated fat. This summer the department issued a new ruling regarding saturated fat — no more than 15.6 grams a day for the average 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, according to The New York Times. MyPyramid.gov, a website by the Department of Agriculture used to convey easily digestible health information to the public, urges people to choose low-fat or fat-free dairy products.

So according to the government we are supposed to eat less full-fat dairy products and less cheese in general, right?

Wrong.

There is another arm of the government that is telling a different story. This other arm is Dairy Management, Inc. and, with the help of the National Dairy Council, operates without concern for anything the Department of Agriculture says.

This is the company behind the “Got Milk?” campaign. This is the company that told women that excessive servings of dairy a day would increase weight loss, despite little research to back up the claim. And most recently, this is the company that told Domino’s to add 40 percent more cheese to their pizzas, according to The New York Times.

Why the completely contradictory nutrition information?

The government needs money.

According to The New York Times, all dairy consumption, especially of full-fat dairy, is declining. And with the government dairy subsidies that have been in place since the Depression, this left a sizeable surplus of milk-fat. On its own, milk-fat is far from appetizing. But a little manipulating and those unappetizing globs of saturated fat turn into delicious ones — butter and cheese. And now the government has a product the people want to eat.

Then Dairy Management, Inc. sweeps in and starts sprinkling cheese and slathering butter on everything and it is not long before everyone involved sees big profits.

“If every pizza included one more ounce of cheese, we would sell an additional 250 million pounds of cheese annually,” said Tom Gallagher, the Dairy Management chief executive, in a trade publication last year.

And there you have it; a government of the large corporations, by the secretly affiliated organizations, for money.

So what is a person to do when the government puts on masks and sends contradicting messages?

Stop swallowing grilled cheddar-flavored heart attack sandwiches. And stop swallowing everything you see in a magazine, even if supermodels, athletes, and pop stars paint their lips white and tell you to. Fat, the kind that has to be isolated and tinkered with in order to taste good, is not good for you.

And honestly, supermodels do not eat cheese.