The Senate Ag Committee on Tuesday advanced a bill that would allow schools to serve whole milk and provide nondairy substitutes that have equivalent nutrition.
The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025, sponsored by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and approved by the committee on a voice vote, would amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to let schools participating in the school lunch program to serve additional options to the currently allowed fat-free and low-fat milk.
Under current USDA requirements, schools must provide meals meeting specified nutrition guidelines, including an average saturated fat content of less than 10% of the meal’s total calories. The bill would exempt milk calories from being included in the calculation.
The committee approved two amendments, including one proposed by committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., to allow schools to provide nondairy milk substitutes that are “nutritionally equivalent” to fluid milk and meet USDA nutritional standards.
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The amendment included language from Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., that would allow parents and guardians, in addition to physicians, to provide dietary restriction notes.
The second amendment proposed by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would require the inclusion of food allergy information in existing training modules for food service personnel.
The bill's supporters hope to move the measure through the Senate, so the House could then take it up and send it to the president, an industry source said.
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