Passage of this bill breaks an 80-year-long “cow’s milk mandate” in the National School Lunch Program and takes a step toward fixing a broken, wasteful program
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate today unanimously passed an amended version of S. 222, the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, that reinstates whole and 2% milk into school lunches while including key compromise provisions previously adopted without dissent by the members of the Senate Agriculture Committee to expand the availability of plant-based milk in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).
The NSLP has long been an outlier by mandating only dairy milk be served in every school meal, while plant-based milks account for well over 15% of retail milk sales in the wider consumer market.
Due to selective breeding for high yields, the average Holstein on an industrialized farm now produces six to seven times more milk annually than in the years before the milk mandate was written into law. This unnatural yield causes physiological and physical problems for cows, lameness and other leg and joint problems. Dairy cows are susceptible to become “downers” and are often “spent” at a young age, sent to slaughter at relatively early stages of their development.
Under the new legislation:
- Schools may offer dairy-free milk to students as part of their regular lunchroom options, as well as whole and 2% milk again, as part of the NSLP.
- More importantly, schools will now be required to provide lactose-intolerant kids with a dairy-free beverage — such as soy, oat, or almond milk — with a note from a parent, guardian, or licensed physician specifying whatever dairy-free beverage should be served to the student.
“Passage of S. 222 as amended will pull the federal government into the modern era, providing options for lactose intolerant kids in K-12 public schools and reducing immense milk wastage from cows selectively bred and bioengineered to produce six times more milk than they did only decades ago,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.
According to USDA statistics, 29 percent of milk cartons served in schools are thrown away unwanted and unopened. The resulting cost to taxpayers is estimated to be between $300-500 million a year. Lactose intolerance among K-12 kids in the NSLP explains much of that waste: lactose intolerance rates reach 60–80% among African Americans; 80–90% among Native Americans; 90–95% among Asian Americans; and 50–70% among Latinos. It also has high prevalence among individuals of Greek, Italian, Jewish, and Arab descent.
Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy partnered with Switch4Good and its leader, Olympic medal winner Dotsie Bausch, on the legislative campaign to create a healthy plant-based milk option in the NSLP. Together they worked with Senators John Fetterman, D-Pa., John Kennedy, R-La., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., to introduce S. 1236, the Freedom in School Cafeterias and Lunches (FISCAL) Act, to offer plant-based options to kids in response to the widespread lactose intolerance among so many demographic groups. Reps. Troy Carter, D-La., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., were first to introduce this legislation in the U.S. House as H.R. 2539.
The groups thanked Senators Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., and the Reverend Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., for their efforts to add a provision in today’s Senate-passed bill explicitly referencing lactose intolerance as a valid basis for requiring schools to offer dairy-free milk. While that language was not ultimately included, Senator Alsobrooks obtained a public commitment from the bill’s sponsors to address the issue in the underlying law.
“The amendments to the Whole Milk bill allow for a dramatic broadening of milk options for kids, including plant-based milks,” said Bausch, who won a silver medal in cycling in the 2012 London Olympics and was a national cycling champion in the United States. “These changes, if enacted as law, will combat an immense amount of food waste and put a humane close to an 80-year-old ‘cow’s milk only’ mandate in our nations’ schools. It’s been a long-term ambition of our organization to end the cow’s milk mandate and monopoly in the National School Lunch Program.”
“The inclusion of plant-based provisions is a long-overdue acknowledgment that kids need choices, farmers and processors producing many types of nutritious fluid beverages want fair markets, and animals deserve better than to labor in extreme ways only to see their milk tossed in the trash,” added Pacelle.
Supporters also noted that plant-based food production continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. consumer packaged goods sector, contributing billions in economic activity and supporting tens of thousands of jobs.
S. 222 now heads to the House, where it is expected to pass and be sent to the president’s desk.