Is milk coming back?

First, butter made a comeback. Americans love butter’s clean label, minimal processing, and rich, distinctive flavor. New research that shows the health benefits – not health risks – of consuming dairy fat gave consumers permission to bring butter back into their lives. And they have done so with abandon. Domestic butter consumption has soared to over six pounds per person, up nearly two pounds since 2000.

Then cottage cheese followed. Protein is having a moment and cottage cheese might be the most versatile high-protein food ever. You can turn cottage cheese into everything from chocolate mousse to queso dip. Cottage cheese sales increased 16 percent year-over-year from May of 2023 to May of 2024. We certainly helped that increase. Five years ago, we bought a carton occasionally; now we regularly buy three-pound tubs and make sure there’s always an extra tub or two in the basement fridge.

Could fluid milk be next? According to a USDA Agricultural Marketing Service report, fluid milk sales for 2024 are up 1.1 percent year-to-date. One percent might not seem like much, but for a category that has dropped precipitously since 2009, any movement in the opposite direction is a big deal. 

Milk is coming up in everyday conversations, too.

Dan and Monika’s FFA Dairy Cattle Evaluation Team earned an opportunity to compete in the dairy judging contest at the All-American Dairy Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania last month. As their coach, I chaperoned the trip. We had dinner one night with the 4-H Dairy Judging Team from Minnesota. After taking our orders, the waitress asked, “Are you guys all dairy farmers or something?” How could you tell, we asked. We had practiced at a farm that afternoon and I was hoping we didn’t smell like cows. She said the giveaway was that we had all ordered milk with our meals. When we told her, yes, we are all connected to dairy farming, she said, “That’s really cool.”

A couple weeks later, on our drive home from World Dairy Expo, we stopped at a Chick-fil-a for lunch. Monika asked if she could get a milk with her sandwich. With a big smile, the young lady taking orders said, “Yeah. Sure. I’m a milk girl, too. Some of my friends think I’m weird for ordering milk, but I don’t care.” Monika returned the smile.

New research on milk and human health is shining a positive light on dairy, as well.

Research from the University of Kansas Medical Center made headlines when it showed that consuming milk boosts the brain’s level of glutathione, a powerful antioxidant that helps protect the brain from age-related decline.

Dan wrote a paper for school titled, “Why Milk is a Superfood.” Through the research he did for the paper, he taught his classmates about the benefits of galactose on the brain development of children and the protections it offers adult brains.

Research published last fall in the journal Nutrients verifies what dairy farmers have intuitively known for years: Whole milk is best. This specific study showed that pentadecanoic acid, an essential saturated fatty acid found in milkfat, protects heart, metabolic, immune, and liver health.

And whole milk tastes so much better than skim or low-fat milk. The best foods really are the ones that taste great and help us be our healthiest selves.

The next step is getting whole milk back into schools. I believe we have lost a decade’s worth of milk drinkers by forcing schools to serve only skim and low-fat milk. And, as mounting scientific research shows, we have endangered children’s health by doing so. What a shame.

I had hoped that the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act would pass and give schools the option to serve whole milk to students. Unfortunately, from what I heard when I was in Washington, D.C., this bill isn’t likely to pass through the Senate. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the chair of the Senate Ag Committee, told our group that senators are concerned that passing a bill like this would open the door for countless other attempts to legislate school lunch requirements.

Our next opportunity to get whole milk back into schools is through the new dietary guidelines. The final meeting of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which will set the Dietary Guidelines for Americans for 2025-2030, is happening right now. Once finalized, the dietary guidelines will be used to set the School Nutrition Standards. 

Dozens of comments were submitted to the committee extolling the benefits of whole milk. Let’s hope that the committee members recognize the scientific evidence that so clearly shows why whole milk is essential to good health.

Including whole milk and whole-fat dairy foods in the dietary guidelines would also give our dairy check-off organizations permission to include whole milk in promotions. Imagine what will happen when we can actually promote the health benefits of whole milk. We’ve seen before that Americans embrace good-for-you foods that taste good. Fluid milk really could make a comeback.