Dietary Guidelines Report Shows Encouraging Signs for Dairy

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee Scientific Report released Dec. 10 reaffirmed the importance of dairy products to nutrition, a positive sign for milk producers in what may be in the final guidelines due to be released this year.

The advisory committee continued its three-servings-a-day dairy recommendation included in the current guidelines and maintained dairy as a separate food group. It also noted the importance of lactose-free dairy as an equitable nutrition solution and acknowledged the wild nutritional inconsistencies of plant-based beverages, a recognition of reality that reflects both science and consumer sentiment.

“NMPF thanks the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee for recognizing dairy’s important role in a healthy diet and its continued recommendation of three servings of dairy for Americans two years and older,” NMPF President & CEO said in a statement the day of the release.

“Throughout this process, the committee looked carefully at the nutrition dairy products provide,” Doud said in the statement. “The committee’s scientific review showed that reducing or eliminating dairy from the diet leads to undernourishment in key nutrients for millions of Americans.

“The review also made clear that expanding the food group to include additional plant-based alternative beverages outside of fortified soy is not supported by scientific evidence. Specifically, the committee noted “the direct substitution of plant-based milk alternatives for cow’s milk within the patterns may introduce unintended consequences for meeting other nutrient recommendations and may vary by product selected,” he said.

Despite the good news for dairy, the guidelines still did not accept recent science showing the nutritional benefits of full-fat milk and undervalued the nutritional benefit of low-fat flavored milk to populations that otherwise not might drink milk.

“We are disappointed that the committee only recommends consumption of unflavored milk, especially as they acknowledged that flavored milk contains beneficial nutrients and did not explicitly conclude any connection between flavored milk consumption and obesity risk,” Doud said.