Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2023

Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2023

This bill revises requirements for milk provided by the National School Lunch Program of the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Currently, schools participating in the program must provide milk that is consistent with the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans; USDA regulations require milk to be fat-free or low-fat and allow milk to be flavored or unflavored. The bill modifies these restrictions and instead permits schools to offer students whole, reduced-fat, low-fat, and fat-free flavored and unflavored milk. The milk that is offered may be organic or nonorganic. Further, USDA may not prohibit a school participating in the program from offering students any of these milk choices.

In addition, schools currently participating in the program must provide meals that meet certain nutrition requirements; USDA regulations require that the average saturated fat content of the meals offered must be less than 10% of the total calories. Under the bill, fluid milk is excluded from the saturated fat content calculation; milk fat included in any fluid milk provided by the program must not be considered saturated fat for the purposes of measuring compliance with USDA regulations.

Finally, the bill prohibits schools participating in the program from purchasing or offering milk produced by Chinese state-owned enterprises.

[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1147 Introduced in House (IH)]

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118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1147

  To amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to allow 
schools that participate in the school lunch program under such Act to 
                           serve whole milk.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 21, 2023

 Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania (for himself, Ms. Schrier, Mr. Fulcher, 
   Mr. Balderson, Mrs. Miller-Meeks, Mr. Trone, Mr. Austin Scott of 
  Georgia, Mr. Meuser, Mr. LaMalfa, Mr. Smucker, Mr. Cartwright, Mr. 
 Banks, Mr. Baird, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Gottheimer, Mr. Reschenthaler, Mr. 
 Perry, Mr. Simpson, Mr. McClintock, Mr. Mann, Mr. Cloud, Mr. Kelly of 
 Mississippi, Mrs. Miller of Illinois, Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania, Ms. 
Slotkin, Mr. Steil, Ms. Stefanik, Mr. Ryan, Ms. Tenney, Mr. Fitzgerald, 
 Mr. Barr, Mr. Johnson of South Dakota, Mr. Tonko, Ms. Spanberger, Mr. 
      Moore of Alabama, Mr. Gallagher, Mr. Feenstra, Mr. Joyce of 
 Pennsylvania, and Mr. Cline) introduced the following bill; which was 
        referred to the Committee on Education and the Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to allow 
schools that participate in the school lunch program under such Act to 
                           serve whole milk.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 
2023''.

SEC. 2. WHOLE MILK PERMISSIBLE.

    Section 9(a)(2)(A) of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch 
Act (42 U.S.C. 1758(a)(2)(A)) is amended to read as follows:
                    ``(A) In general.--Lunches served by schools 
                participating in the school lunch program under this 
                Act--
                            ``(i) shall offer students a variety of 
                        fluid milk;
                            ``(ii) may offer students flavored and 
                        unflavored whole, reduced-fat, low-fat and fat-
                        free fluid milk and lactose-free fluid milk; 
                        and
                            ``(iii) shall provide a substitute for 
                        fluid milk for students whose disability 
                        restricts their diet, on receipt of a written 
                        statement from a licensed physician that 
                        identifies the disability that restricts the 
                        student's diet and that specifies the 
                        substitute for fluid milk.''.

SEC. 3. HEALTHY MILK FAT.

    The Secretary of Agriculture shall revise section 210.10 of title 
7, Code of Federal Regulations (or successor regulations), to increase 
the allowable average saturated fat content of a meal to account for 
milk fat included in whole milk.
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