USDA allows flavoured milk for schools
American dairy leaders thanked newly confirmed US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for recognising the important role school milk plays in ensuring school-aged children get the nutrition they need, according to the National Milk Producers Federation.
In one of his first actions as secretary of Agriculture, Perdue visited a school to announce that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will implement regulations to allow school districts to again offer low-fat (1%) flavoured milk as part of the national school lunch and school breakfast programmes. Under the previous administration, USDA eliminated low-fat flavoured milk as an option in the school meal and a la carte programmes. Since then, consumption of school milk declined, as did overall participation in the school lunch programme.
“In just the first two years after low-fat flavoured milk was removed from the programme, 1.1 million fewer school students drank milk with their lunch,”Jim Mulhern, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, says. “Secretary Perdue’s action recognises that a variety of milks and other healthy dairy foods are integral to child nutrition programmes in schools.”
“Secretary Perdue took an important step toward bringing back lunchroom favourites – low-fat chocolate and strawberry milk – that students have been missing,” J. David Carlin, senior vice president of legislative affairs and economic policy for the International Dairy Foods Association, notes.
“When kids don’t drink milk, it’s extremely difficult for them to get the proper amounts of calcium, potassium, vitamin D and other nutrients that dairy foods supply.”
USDA will publish an interim rule to cover the regulatory changes needed to allow low-fat flavoured milk in schools.
