The Senate Agriculture Committee wrestled Tuesday with the question of whether whole and reduced fat milk should be offered in school cafeterias.
At a hearing, lawmakers analyzed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which would offer whole and 2% milk in school meals.
Eve Stoody, the director of the USDA's Nutrition Guidance and Analysis Division, told the committee that dairy intakes fall below recommendations for about 90% of the U.S. population. Approximately 65% of young children, 34% of adolescents and 20% of adults drink milk on a given day, she added.
Dairy foods contribute between 60% and 80% of calcium across all age groups beginning at 12-month-olds and 55% to 75% of total vitamin D for these groups.
Dairy intake has been declining over time, particularly during adolescence, Stoody said.
"Efforts to increase dairy intakes would improve nutrient intakes and support overall health," she said. "Offering dairy during school meals supports consumption directly and can also set the stage for consuming a healthy dietary pattern outside of school meals."
Without shifts in other foods and beverages, providing students with the option to choose milk with higher saturated fat could result in saturated fat intakes far exceeding current recommendations, Stoody added. More than 80% of children and adolescents currently exceed the recommendation to limit saturated fat intake to less than 10% of calories per day, she said.
"Exempting milk from the overall weekly saturated fat limit may add complexity to the programs," she said of school meals. "Schools would need to 'count' milk toward other daily and weekly meal pattern standards, such as weekly calories limits, but would need to exempt milk from saturated fat limits."
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Krista Byler, the food service director of the Union City Area School District in Spartansburg, Pennsylvania, said her school district in the 2019-20 school year offered all middle and high school students skim, 1%, 2% and whole unflavored and chocolate milks as a trial program.
As a result, she said the district saw a 50% increase in milk consumption, and a 95% reduction in milk waste. She said milk waste went from 3 gallons on average day to 19 ounces.
"The feedback we had from the students was they want something they're familiar with," she said, adding, "There's just a lot of anecdotal data that I have from our students that what works for them best is having a full variety of options."
Keith Ayoob, an associate clinical professor emeritus in the department of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Yew York, New York, told the committee offering whole and reduced fat milk in school lunches would increase consumption, "leading to improved nutritional outcomes for our children."
"No matter what type of milk is offered in school, none of it is nutritious unless students drink it," he said. "And they don't drink it often enough."
Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall, one of the bill's champions, poured himself a glass of milk during the hearing, while reflecting on how his grandparents delivered his family whole milk two or three times per week when he was young. He said he saw adding whole and reduced milk in school lunches as part of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
"The Make America Healthy Again movement, it's about whole foods," he said. "I think we could characterize whole milk as part of that."
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