Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. KILEY of California. Mr. Speaker, it is frankly crazy that for 20 million kids who rely on free and reduced lunch, they are banned from drinking whole milk as a matter of Federal law. Whatever basis in science or public health might have ever backed this up has long since been debunked. I am glad that we are finally correcting this error today.

Why should kids have access to whole milk at school? Well, at least three reasons. Number one is nutrition. The latest science shows that whole milk actually is probably better for you nutritionally than other kinds of milk because it is less processed. As for saturated fats, science shows that the body processes dairy fats differently than other kinds of fats.

The second reason is satiation. Whole milk is simply more filling. For a program that is designed to make sure kids don't go hungry, that might be a relevant consideration. Moreover, when kids are not full from their lunch, then they might be more inclined to grab things that are a lot less healthy.

The third is taste. A lot of kids simply hate the taste of skim milk. I don't blame them. I hate it, too. I love the taste of whole milk.

What is particularly crazy is that while schools can't serve whole milk, they are allowed to serve sugary strawberry and chocolate milks, which are a lot worse for kids.

This may not seem like the paramount issue facing the Republic at this moment, but I will say that it touches upon two important issues. The first is health in this country. One of the biggest drivers of healthcare costs and of poor public health outcomes is obesity that begins in childhood that has continued to rise, the rates have, since this ban on whole milk went into effect and now constitutes over 20 percent.

The second issue is trust in government. Our public health establishment has given a lot of very bad advice in the past; for example, downplaying the risk of sugar. Even more than that, when kids are seeing the government do stupid and arbitrary things like tell them they can't have whole milk, I am not sure how we are supposed to foster the trust in government on which democracy depends.

This is a good bill. I hope we pass it overwhelmingly today.

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