The House Agricultural Committee has undone a decade-long travesty brought on by the Obama administration, where they decided in defiance of the entire science community that low-fat and non-fat milk would lead to healthier outcomes in children.

It sounds as stupid as every other non-fat claim, the kind of food survey epidemiology that made Harvard School of Public Health a running joke, but Democrats certainly believed it, and he was a sympathetic ally to them as President Clinton had been. Yet where President Clinton subjected us to all manner of woo, by removing FDA from real oversight of the supplements and potions his constituents loved, this was actually worse for child health, because President Obama found it so easy to use agencies to end-run Congress he then started mandating vegetarian meals for all kids.



Centralized government progressives who claim to care more about poor kids than those who want parents and communities involved in the health of their neighbors engaged in two policies that made nutrition for low income children worse - because a school lunch might be the most nutritious meal they get each day. Instead of leaning into that, the Obama administration chose to remove meat from meals and push a non-fat agenda in milk, which only led to a whole lot more food going into garbage cans.

The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act undid the milk part of The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, and even most Democrats have seen the error of their ways, because the course correction 330 to 99.(1)

Their next effort should be to restore standards of identity that used to exist. I have no problem with almond or any other substitutes, my son used rice because he had infant allergies to milk and soy, but they should not be allowed to claim they are milk. They are flavored plant juice, and that means throwing in numerous additives, which Democrats are most likely to declare unnatural and therefore bad, so it is strange that Democrats insist standards of identity should allow any product to identify as anything it wants.

NOTE: 

(1) If they really want to show they care about poor kids and those of color, they should undo the whole thing. Though a popular Democrat, the Russell Senate building is named after him, Russell was an avowed Jim Crow segregationist and close friend to notorious KKK members like Strom Thurmond. Sen. Chuck Schumer tried to get the building renamed for Sen. John McCain after McCain died, but fellow Democrats shouted him down. Beatifying someone who created poll taxes to keep poor black people from voting seems to still be important to them, at least if the alternative is naming something after any Republican.