All Milks Are Not Equated Equal

All milks are not created equal…and they shouldn’t be treated as such under the Dietary Guidelines for Americans standards.

That’s the take-home out of a recent letter sent to the Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA.

In the letter, U.S. Senators Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) called on the Biden administration to protect America’s dairy industry and ensure that plant-based imitation products are not equated in upcoming dietary guideline changes. Risch and Baldwin, joined by Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), urged the HHS and USDAx to carefully consider any changes to the upcoming Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) that could add plant-based imitation products into the dairy category, despite their nutritional differences.

The Senators wrote that, “Existing research has shown that plant-based alternatives are indeed not nutritionally equivalent to dairy.”

The Senators expressed concerns that adding imitation products to the dairy category equates the products nutritionally, despite imitation products often containing lower protein and added sugars.