During a Senate Agriculture, Forestry, and Nutrition Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) questioned Dr. Keith Ayoob, an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, about the medical benefits of whole milk in schools.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Ranking Member Klobuchar and again Senator Welch my co-leader on this this legislation
00:05welcome to all the panel members and thank you for taking time out of your day for something
00:09obviously is important near and dear to all your hearts so I appreciate it. I want to start off
00:14with Chef Beiler. Can I call you Chef? Yes. Okay um it's I didn't get to hear all your testimony
00:22I'm reviewing it here but it sounds to me like when you offer students a choice of milks
00:30consumption goes up and just can you just speak really quickly to that again? Sure. Giving them
00:34choices yeah. Yes absolutely um the milk that we were ordering increased by 50 percent and the waste
00:41decreased by 95 percent during the trial years year that we did. That's incredible I mean it's
00:47absolutely incredible and it's amazing when we give uh do a little education a little coaching a little
00:53teaching only a few choices that the eventually the consumer makes these choices when when you're
00:59concerning the cost of a student's meal the lunches that you're in in charge of I'm sure you do have
01:04to think about cost a little bit and I I hate to ask a question I don't know the answer but is milk
01:11an expensive item or how does the cost of milk formulate into that school lunch program as you
01:15think about the cost of the nutritious lunch you're serving? Sure I mean nationwide we have about four
01:21dollars and fifty cents to put a lunch together and that includes everything all of our overhead costs
01:26um in Pennsylvania where I'm at in northwestern Pennsylvania the cost of milk is about 27 cents
01:33so for a for a carton correct yes so you know I just remember again growing up like Peter said it at
01:4010 o'clock every morning the milk lady came in and I there I got a they were nickel and I got a dime I
01:46had a dime to spend on them and had an extra milk ticket to punch at lunch because my parents wanted me to
01:51have extra milk and I still credit milk to to so many so many great things as well what what would
01:58you what is your advice to us that that we're missing so far as we try to bring in my opinion
02:04home milk back to the school? I think it was said very well several times today we can do better I think
02:10if we just bring back the milk choice to schools we would see a huge increase in consumption a huge
02:17decrease in waste and satisfaction for our students would be through the roof and one of those choices
02:23would be whole milk absolutely right as well so uh Dr. Ayub I want to talk to you a second so I'm the
02:30OB I got to bring the baby and you're a pediatrician right uh I'm not a medical doctor I'm a doctor of
02:34nutrition of nutrition for someone I thought you were in pediatrics don't know where I got that
02:38you started talking about osteopenia and osteoporosis and I just want to drive this home
02:43there's just nothing more frustrating challenging in my in my life when an elderly woman has
02:48osteoporosis and her vertebrae have collapsed and really I mean they're in horrible pain they're in
02:54the emergency room and it's not like I can't it's not like replacing a hip I can't go in there and help
02:59those folks out so just tell it speak a little bit more what you're seeing clinically when it comes
03:03to osteopenia and process and how important it is that you you reach your poke your your your maximum
03:08density around 26 28 and then it's downhill from there unless you're taking some pretty aggressive
03:13medications um I can tell you I mean my clinic deals mostly with kids but I see what happens with
03:19their parents who grew up who were young parents who did not grow up and uh with drinking a lot of milk
03:25and they do and they do suffer they do pay the price and um knee problems hip problems etc
03:32I take dietary histories on all the kids that I see and I always want to focus on the balance
03:38of nutrients that kids are getting and if I see food groups that are missing that's a red flag for
03:43me and I always ask them I said do you drink the milk in school and I want to find out why and say
03:49well I don't like it okay and I know what kind of milk is offered it's skimming one percent um it may
03:54not be what they're used to um but that's a missed opportunity you know that's just a missed opportunity
04:00now some kids will drink the milk fine and I'm not worried about taking away options I just want
04:06to make sure that the full spread of options is there so that kids can get the milk that they want
04:11and they can actually drink the entire carton of it yeah I meant to ask Chef Beiler what the what the
04:16options were at school these days but I but I I still want to just I mean sodas sugar sodas aren't just
04:22neutral when it comes to osteoporosis and pina bona it's actually going the wrong direction
04:28go ahead can I speak one second also if kids don't get the kind of milk they drink they're
04:34going to end the school day with eight ounces less fluid they're going to be thirsty right they're
04:38going to be hungry because there's protein and nutrition in that milk and they're going to go
04:43right down to the corner at least where I live in New York City and they're going to go buy some 24
04:47ounce bottle of swill okay it's basically sugar because milk is what is it 80 percent water 90 percent
04:54yeah but they're going to be like a bottle of something something to get hydrated that's going
04:58to have first of all more sugar than they get an entire week in school but um even then and it's
05:04got no nutrition in it and that's losing yeah but but but emphasize though soda isn't just you don't
05:11lose the benefits of milk it's actually soda is is really hard on your bones is that right chef
05:16Tyler yes okay I better yield back thank you so much