The Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday held a hearing on a bill to allow whole milk in school meals, but several committee Democrats who supported the bill turned the discussion toward the Trump administration’s cuts to nutrition programs and congressional Republican plans for more cuts and said the GOP approach raised much more important questions about nutrition for children.

In recent years, the federally financed school meals program has allowed only nonfat or low-fat milk in line with the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which have said Americans are consuming too much saturated fat. A cup of whole milk contains 4.5 grams of saturated fat, about 20% of the daily amount recommended by the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Sens. Roger Marshall, R-Kan.; Peter Welch, D-Vt.; Dave McCormick, R-Pa.; and John Fetterman, D-Pa., have introduced the bill that would allow schools to serve whole milk as well as nonfat and low-fat milk. A similar bill passed the House in the last Congress but failed in the Senate after then-Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., refused to support it on the grounds that it did not follow the dietary guidelines.

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Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., the new ranking member on the committee, said at the top of the hearing that she supports the bill, but immediately turned to her concerns about Trump cuts in nutrition programs and Republican proposals for more cuts.

Klobuchar said she had been on a 14-county tour with the Minnesota Farmers Union and learned that schools, food banks and farmers have all been hurt by the Trump administration’s cuts in programs that buy local foods for schools and food banks.

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Eve Stoody, director of the Nutrition Guidance and Analysis division of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion in the Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service, testified that the school meals program has followed the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendations that people consume less saturated fat, less sugar and less sodium.

THE GUIDELINES

The dietary guidelines regard dairy products as part of a healthy eating pattern for people to get calcium and vitamin D, but also recommend that the milk be consumed with little or no fat and no added sugar, Stoody said.

Ninety percent of Americans don’t follow the dietary guidelines, Stoody said.

In response to a question from Boozman about the dietary guidelines, Stoody said that the recommendations call for “an overall healthy diet” that is “intended to have some flexibilities.”

Stoody noted that the dietary guidelines recommend that “most foods should have little saturated fats and added sugars. We don’t have a lot of room for more saturated fat. Most dairy should be fat free or low fat.”

Democrats repeatedly asked Stoody questions – such as how the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program interacts with school meals – that she said she could not answer.

Stoody noted that the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee did an “extensive review” of the scientific evidence and advised “to maintain the current guidelines.”

Stoody added that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. have said that “they will do a line-by-line review of the report.”

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., noted that he had been the superintendent of schools in Denver. Current SNAP rules do not allow the purchase of hot foods, but Bennet noted he has introduced a bill to allow hot food purchases under the SNAP program.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., noted that several nutrition advocacy groups and the Center for Science in the Public Interest all oppose allowing whole milk in the schools. Durbin asked Stoody if any nutrition groups favored the bill, but she said she could not answer that question.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., the main author of the bill, said the Make America Healthy Again movement is “about whole foods” and that “whole milk is part of that movement.” Marshall said he is concerned that children who do not get enough milk as children develop bone diseases as adults.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said that he supports the whole milk bill but he believes that the bill should also make it easier for students to get nondairy alternatives. Schiff also noted that the California Democratic delegation has written Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to urge her to reconsider the discontinuation of the programs used by schools and food banks.

Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., a former coach, said he had spent his life with kids and that in passing a bill to allow whole milk in the schools, “we have an opportunity to do something so precious it is off the charts. There are things they should not put in their bodies, but whole milk is not one of them.”

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., said he supports the whole milk bill, but also said he supports programs such as the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Program, which the Trump administration has cut. Lujan said Republicans want to cut the SNAP program while planning big tax breaks.

A second panel of nutrition experts supported whole milk and school nutrition programs that the Trump administration has cut.

Michael Gorman, a school food service director in Michigan, said he was particularly concerned about Republican proposals to make it more difficult for schools to be eligible for the Community Eligibility Provision that allows schools to offer free school meals and breakfast. Under current rules, schools can sign up for community eligibility if 25% of their students automatically qualify for free school meals by participating in qualifying federal assistance programs, such as Medicaid or SNAP benefits, but House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, has proposed raising the threshold to 60%.

Gorman also noted that many students qualify for free meals because their families get SNAP and said that if rules make it hard for families to qualify for SNAP that will make it harder for students to qualify for free school meals.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., told Boozman late in the hearing that he believes the committee should advance the whole milk bill on its own rather than wait for the farm bill. Boozman told The Hagstrom Report after the hearing that he agreed with Welch about advancing the milk bill on its own.