Congress eased non-dairy milk rules, but schools lag
Federal rules governing the national school-lunch programme have long required public schools to serve cow’s milk. Until the law changed, a school generally needed a doctor’s note describing a pupil’s disability before providing a plant-based substitute. The substitute also had to match dairy milk nutritionally, such as fortified, unsweetened soy milk.
The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, enacted in January, included two changes concerning non-dairy milk. Schools may now place a plant-based option on the menu for any pupil, although they are not required to do so. For pupils with disabilities, documentation can come from a parent or legal guardian as well as from a doctor. The law also sought to restore whole-fat milk to school programmes after a 2012 USDA policy limited them to fat-free or 1% dairy milk.
Implementation has been uneven. Chloe Waterman, a senior programme manager at Friends of the Earth, said a carton of non-dairy milk costs schools about 70 cents more than a carton of cow’s milk. School meal reimbursements are fixed, so a cafeteria that adds the option must cover the difference. California has budgeted for non-dairy milk and other plant-based foods; Governor Gavin Newsom signed the measure, which applies to a public-school system serving nearly 6m children. Most states have not adopted comparable funding.
The legislation’s wording has also produced separate rules for meals. Its provision on replacement milk refers to lunch, while many schools serve breakfast as well. Waterman said this could require staff to make soy milk available during lunch but remove it for breakfast, unless a pupil has the required documentation. The USDA’s subsequent regulations expanded the whole-milk provisions to breakfast, but did not mention “non-dairy” or “plant-based” milk. The department said the non-dairy provisions would be included in future rulemaking and that a proposed rule would address them.
States often wait for federal regulations before revising their own guidance, according to Waterman. As a result, some schools have not changed their policies. Zoey Ying, a 15-year-old Massachusetts student, said her school’s practices were unchanged and that food-service directors might not know about the new law. She and Joshua Toomer, a 17-year-old in Texas, belong to the Plant-Powered Youth Fellowship, which brings together 14 students each year to advocate for plant-based meals.
Lactose intolerance affects an estimated 25% of Americans, with higher reported rates among several racial and ethnic groups. Toomer, who is lactose intolerant, said the absence of alternatives at his school made it difficult to eat and stay hydrated during the day. Ying said her lactose-intolerant brother experienced stomach problems in class that affected his learning. Students may also seek plant-based milk for environmental or animal-welfare reasons. The two activists have met congressional staff, including representatives of Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey and John Cornyn. Warren and Markey’s offices were receptive, Ying said, but she received no specific commitments. Cornyn’s staff referred to the Farm Bill, which later failed in the Senate and contained no non-dairy-milk provisions in either chamber’s version.
