# Gubment Cheese vs. Government Cheese
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 10, 2002, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250 "2002-06-10T14:23:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TwoBuyFour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoBuyFour)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/1 "2002-06-10T14:23:28Z")
First of all, what is Government Cheese? As near as I can gather from various sources, it’s excess cheese purchased by the feds to keep dairy farmers in business, and sold or given to low income families. Is this close? How does the cheese get from farmer to needy family? Why is it cheese that the needy are really needing? How does Government Cheese differ from Regular Cheese?
Secondly, I’ve heard the phrase “Gubment Cheese” as the punchline for some joke or in some skit at some time in my history. The phrase has been rattling around in my brain for some time, now, but I can’t recall where it originated. All I can find online is a Chris Farley/SNL skit, but I’m sure the humorous phrase predated that. Any suggestions?
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/2 "2002-06-10T14:40:39Z")
Someone will be along with the real facts in a moment, but while we’re waiting, I’d just like to point out that it’s probably a _milk_ surplus that is being converted to cheese because it stores better.
There was a European ‘butter mountain’ that was sold off to the public at knock-down prices some time ago.
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### Author:  [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/3 "2002-06-10T14:41:48Z")
The more accurate term is USDA surplus. the Government buys some types of food from farmers (trying to simplify here) and ends up with too much. USDA surplus is given away as aid to other countries and, domestically, to charitable organizations. The products given away are all bulk commodities. For example cheese, flour, milk, rice.
What makes it “Government cheese” is not that the government _makes_ it, its that the government _owns_ it.
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### Author:  [@Why\_A\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Why_A_Duck)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/4 "2002-06-10T14:42:37Z")
Wasn’t “gubment cheese” from Eddie Murphy’s _Delirious_? The bit where he wants a McDonald’s cheeseburger, but his mom is going to make one out of greasy hamburger, Wonder bread, and gubment cheese instead.
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### Author:  [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/5 "2002-06-10T14:59:54Z")
All About the Emergency Food Assistance Program:
[http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/programs/tefap/pfs-tefap02.pdf](http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/programs/tefap/pfs-tefap02.pdf)
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/6 "2002-06-10T15:09:35Z")
No, I will not eat Green Eggs and Gubment Cheese.
It binds me up, so’s I can’t go to the bathroom whence I please.
That’s the only Gubment Cheese joke I know. Pretty pitiful.
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### Author:  [@Morgainelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgainelf)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/7 "2002-06-10T15:12:40Z")
The reason that “government cheese” has been used as a punchline is that in the mid '80s there was a huge surplus that was distributed so widely it touched many people who would never have normally been eligible for food assistance. I remember it well. It seemed that every person in my family over 65 received large bricks of the salty yellow stuff. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, had so much cheese that they gave it away to other family members, including us. We had to eat it for a while - it was so salty as to be almost inedible.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/8 "2002-06-10T15:50:37Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Aunts, uncles, grandparents, had so much cheese that they gave it away to other family members, including us.
We got “Government Cheese” from the old lady across the street. It was _perfect_ for grilled cheese sandwiches or macaroni and cheese.
Anyone who doesn’t want their free cheese, just send it to me!
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### Author:  [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/9 "2002-06-10T16:29:08Z")
There was also the song (Ain’t gonna eat no)“Government Cheese” by the underappreciated late '80’s band [The Rainmakers](http://www.rainmakers.com/faqs.html).
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### Author:  [@Zappo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zappo)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/10 "2002-06-10T16:52:57Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Johnny L.A. \*
> \*\*
> We got “Government Cheese” from the old lady across the street. It was _perfect_ for grilled cheese sandwiches or macaroni and cheese.
>
> Anyone who doesn’t want their free cheese, just send it to me! \*\*
A-men! It makes the best grilled cheese sammitch you’ll ever eat.
Mmmmm. . .grilled gubmint cheese. . .
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### Author:  [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/11 "2002-06-10T17:13:57Z")
Its actually not too bad, has sort of a ‘Velvetta’ type consistency.
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### Author:  [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2002, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/12 "2002-06-10T17:28:04Z")
I don’t want to drag too much politics into the matter, but gummint cheese was derided by some as a symbol of the elitist and uncaring Reagan administration. Near [Christmas of 1981](http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1981/122281c.htm), after massively cutting social programs in the face of a recession, the Reagan administration suddenly did an about-face and released fifteen thousand tons of cheese–an enormous amount of it to the very people the Reagan administration denied were impoverished or struggling when it had railroaded its FY1982 budget through Congress. Some viewed it as a callous act, although not many refused it if it was available to them.
The cheese incident persisted as a symbol throughout the Reagan administration, and quickly made its way into popular culture. In 1985, a band out of Kentucky named itself [Government Cheese](http://www.tommywomack.com/cheese.html) and had a modestly successful career. Their best-known song is probably “Camping on Acid.”
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### Author:  [@LorieSmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LorieSmurf)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2002, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/13 "2002-06-11T13:23:48Z")
My grandparents received government cheese during that time. Peanut butter too. I remember the huge white tin can with big black letters: PEANUT BUTTER. The cheese and the peanut butter were the bomb. I like gubmint cheese!
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### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2002, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/14 "2002-06-11T14:22:00Z")
Token remark to be made during any food related thread:
Mmmmmmm…cheeeessssse.
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### Author:  [@stofsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stofsky)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2002, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/15 "2002-06-11T14:33:32Z")
In the late 80s I was going to college in Tahlequah, OK, which is the capital of the Cherokee Nation. Once a month on free cheese & peanut butter day, the Cherokees would literally be lined up around the courthouse (this is not a racist remark, merely fact–I’m part Cherokee myself, though not enough to get free cheese).
One of my fraternity brothers was full-blood, and would get the block-o-cheese and the can-o-PB, and everyone else would pitch in to get a couple of cases of Pearl beer (so we could do the Rebus puzzles on the bottle caps after we got lit) and bread and crackers and we’d have a big bonfire by the river.
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### Author:  [@Flypsyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flypsyde)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2002, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/16 "2002-06-11T17:21:03Z")
\Green Eggs and Gub’mint Cheese\ was part of a skit on \In Living Color\ back in the '90s. If I remember correctly, it was a jibe at Jesse Jackson, where he was “reading” Dr. Seuss books to underage, inner city kids.
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### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2002, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/17 "2002-06-11T18:01:56Z")
There’s another Jesse Jackson / Green Eggs reference. When Dr. Seuss died about ten years ago, Jesse appeared on Saturday Night Live’s news segment and read Green Eggs and Ham in the southern black preacher oratory style. It was pretty entertaining.
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### Author:  [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2002, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/18 "2002-06-11T19:00:31Z")
Yeah, so THATS why my grandparents had all that cheese when we visited…they cut it up into cubes and had it as a side dish…it was okay, some batches more salty than others…More recently, I recently tried that gov’t PB at a friends house (they bought it at some food salvage place) …its the best peanut butter ive ever tasted…
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### Author:  [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2002, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/19 "2002-06-12T09:44:20Z")
They used to leave plates of the stuff in the lunch line at my middle school; it must have been pretty nasty, because nobody ate it, and they would set out the same trayful for weeks on end. People would carve their initials in the slices and leave them on the tray to see how many weeks would go by before the lunch ladies noticed and removed them. Age alone was apparently not sufficient cause for removal.
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### Author:  [@woolly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woolly)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2002, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gubment-cheese-vs-government-cheese/113250/20 "2002-06-13T01:12:28Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The products given away are all bulk commodities. For example cheese, flour, milk, rice.
Your tax dollars at work … and with the expanded Farm Bill, expect more of same coming your way soon.
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