A brand new proposal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture may just do away with flavored milk from school cafeterias.
The company opened a comment request in February for comments on its proposal to revise long-term school nutrition standards, which contains much less added sugars in school lunch and breakfast techniques to “reduce children’s risk of chronic disease.”
The proposal states, “This approach would reduce exposure to added sugars and would promote the more nutrient-dense choice of unflavored milk for young children when their tastes are being formed.”
More in particular, the USDA suggests restricting the quantity of strawberry and chocolate milk in top colleges and banning it altogether in basic and heart colleges.
As of time of newsletter, the USDA had won greater than 92,000 comments on the proposal, with reviews from all sides of the debate.
Some commenters applauded the effort and voiced beef up to support diet requirements at colleges, whilst others condemned the plan and mentioned it must be left as much as folks and households in my view to make the ones nutritional choices.
The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service Administrator Cindy Long told the Wall Street Journal Monday that “flavored milk is a challenging issue to figure out exactly the best path forward.”
“We really do want to encourage children to consume milk and we also recognize the need to reduce added-sugar consumption,” she mentioned.
Dairy business, milk processors decide to relief of added sugars
Last month, the International Dairy Foods Association announced a “Healthy School Milk Commitment” on behalf of U.S. milk processors, pledging to offer milk with much less added sugar for public colleges.
In it, the affiliation wrote that dairy firms would “deliver milk’s 13 essential nutrients to America’s students while reducing calories and added sugars in flavored milk.”
The dedication via 37 school milk processors, which constitute over 90% of the school milk quantity in the nation, will cross into impact for the 2025-2026 school yr.
The milk choices would have “no more than 10 grams of added sugar per 8 fluid ounce serving, fully consistent with the latest federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans and ahead of current school meal nutrition guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).”
“Flavored milk products such as chocolate milk offered in schools today contain an average of just 8.2 grams of added sugar per serving. The Healthy School Milk Commitment combines dairy’s passion for product innovation with a long-standing promise to provide healthy, nutritious dairy options to schoolkids everywhere,” the workforce mentioned in a observation.
What occurs subsequent?
Public feedback that have been prolonged from April to May 10, 2023 are actually closed.
The USDA mentioned it expects to factor a last rule in time for colleges to devise for school yr 2024-25.
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