Whole Milk Is Back in School Cafeterias. How Healthy Is It For Your Kids?

Whole milk will be making its return to public-school cafeterias after a 10-year absence, thanks to a new bill unanimously approved by Congress late last year and signed into law on Wednesday by President Trump.

The dairy industry—recently boosted by Robert F. Kennedy’s MAHA move of flipping the U.S. nutrition pyramid to put meat and dairy on top—is counting it as a win, with the National Milk Producers Federation saying the law “represents major progress in improving the nourishment of American schoolkids. The International Dairy Foods Association, meanwhile, called it “a defining victory for children’s health and for the dairy community.”

But plant-based milk advocates, interestingly, are also celebrating, due to another change to the law: allowing a parent or guardian to request a dairy-free milk alternative for their child (for reasons including allergies, lactose intolerance, or being vegan). Before, this request had to come from a physician.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which has a mission of improving the lives of humans and animals through vegan diets backed by scientific research, applauded that provision. “Before, you had to have a doctor’s note, and it had to be filed as a disability in order to even be eligible to get a dairy alternative,” Anna Herby, RD and nutrition educator for the PCRM, tells SheKnows. “and it’s just like for people to have to go to the doctor and have to call it a disability, and then have to bring that note back to school. “It put a barrier for a lot of kids and families to getting that non-dairy option.”

But milk wars aside, what’s most healthy for kids?

What science says

Marion Nestle, the multi-hyphenate nutritionist and New York University professor emerita, has sounded the alarm on the move back to whole milk. “I can hardly get my head around this,” she writes in her recent Food Politics blog, referring to a social media post by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins posing with a milk mustache and calling the new law “a commonsense win for school nutrition and America’s dairy farmers.”

Nestle then trots out the simple evidence: An 8 oz. glass of whole milk contains 8 grams of fat and 5 grams of saturated fat (the kind that leads to heart disease) while 2% milk contains 5 fat grams and 3 of saturated fat, low-fat (1%)has 2.5 and 1.5, respectively, and skim or nonfat contains .2 grams of fat and .1 grams of saturated fat.

“How will doing this make kids healthier?” she asks, pointing out that the new law also excludes milk fat from rules about saturated fat limits. “This is not a health initiative; it is a dairy promotion initiative.”

Herby agrees. “There’s really no benefit to drinking whole milk, other than that it’s less processed,” she tells SheKnows. “But it is very high in saturated fat, and we just have tons of research on saturated fat showing that it’s harmful. That is very well established.”

Years of intensive nutrition research conducted by a USDA scientific committee concluded that there was not enough evidence to support the drinking of any dairy milk besides fat-free or low-fat, due to whole milk’s cholesterol-raising saturated fat.

What about the health benefits of cow’s milk in general?

The National Dairy Council says that milk is linked to lower risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and bone issues while providing “13 essential nutrients in each serving including: protein, calcium, phosphorus, vitamins A and D and four B vitamins — B12, riboflavin, pantothenic acid and niacin,” and “about 52 percent of the calcium, 51 percent of the vitamin D, and 17 percent of the protein consumed by Americans.” New studies have been backing up the cardiovascular claims, saying dairy has at least a “neutral” effect..

Still, many cite a lack of evidence behind the health benefits of any dairy milk, whole or otherwise.

A 2020 review article by Harvard researchers and published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that cow’s milk is unnecessary, and that all of its nutritional aspects can be found through various other food sources. Further, researchers wrote, “the health benefit of a high intake of milk products has not been established, and concerns exist about the risks of possible adverse health outcomes.”

Studies have linked dairy to a panoply of cancers, including increased risk of breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer, while other research has shown no link of cow’s milk and improved bone health.

The idea that humans “need” dairy, many argue, is simply illogical, as humans are the only animal to continue consuming dairy—of another species, no less—after weaning. And cows, as pointed out by anti-dairy nonprofit Switch4Good, are simply the “middlemen” for calcium, accruing it in their milk from diet the same way humans can find it in kale, tofu, white beans, and fortified nondairy milks.

Plant-based milks in schools

Dairy milk is still the norm in the U.S., which saw a small uptick in sales last year. But the new law, as PCRM points out, does give more leeway for students to avoid dairy altogether. Reasons for people eschewing cow’s milk are many, including:

•Lactose intolerance, meaning they are genetically unable to digest the sugar found in dairy products. This affects about 36% of people in the U.S.—especially African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, and Ashkenazi Jews.

•Milk allergy, affecting an estimated six million Americans

•Ethical reasons, including environmental impact (the dairy industry is a major contributor to global warming through greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and deforestation) and animal cruelty, as dairy cows live a life of suffering, and producing their milk on an industrial scale also supports the beef and veal factory-farming industries.

It’s all why some nutrition experts point out that some plant-based milks (compromising an $8.1 billion industry) naturally contain protein, while many are fortified—as is dairy milk—with vitamins A and D. And despite some containing sugar or other additives, all are more ecologically sustainable than dairy milk, using less water and land and causing less harmful emissions in production.

If nothing else, the new law—which allows for chocolate, unflavored, organic, nonorganic, reduced-fat, low-fat, fat-free, lactose-free, or plant-based milks (typically soy) in schools—is a boon for personal choice.

“And kids deserve to have a choice in their beverage,” says Herby.