January 14, 2025 – Schools may begin serving whole milk for the first time in more than a decade in a matter of weeks, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) took steps to implement a bill signed into law Wednesday.

The agency has now posted rulemaking to implement the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said during the bill signing at the White House. This rulemaking process will take a few weeks before “the milk starts moving in” to schools, she added.

A law from the Obama administration removed whole milk from the federal school lunch program in 2010, as part of an effort to make school meals healthier. Schools have only offered fat-free and low-fat, flavored and unflavored milk for over a decade. The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act again allows whole milk and makes it easier for students with dietary intolerances to access non-dairy options.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this action builds on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released last week. One of the overarching messages in the new guidelines encouraged Americans to eat “real food.”

“This law puts that principle into action,” Kennedy said.

The nutrition guidelines also encourage consumption of whole milk, along with red meat and butter. Nutrition research and previous versions of the DGAs have discouraged these foods in part due to their high levels of saturated fats, and earlier this month groups released their own alternative dietary guidelines.

The government’s official guidelines recommend a limit on saturated fats to 10 percent of total daily calories. But the law signed Wednesday removes milk from being counted for a school meal’s total saturated fat limit.

Under the new law, students will be able to substitute non-dairy milk with notice from a parent. Previous rules required students to get a doctor’s note. This opens the door for soy milk, the only non-dairy milk that still meets nutrient requirements, to be more available in school meals.

Also on Wednesday, plant-based food advocates gathered to celebrate the introduction of the Plant Powered School Meals Pilot Act to the Senate. The bill would create voluntary grants to allow schools to expand plant-based food options. While the bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives before, Senator Adam Schiff (D-California) brought the effort to the Senate for the first time. (Link to this post.)

The post USDA Starts Process to Bring Whole Milk Back to School Meals appeared first on Civil Eats.

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