During Tuesday's Senate Agricultural Committee hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) advocated for whole milk and healthier school lunch options.
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00:00Thanks, Senator Klobuchar. I took an interest in school lunches and started looking in my state
00:08and what the kids are eating. I went to Roberto Clemente High School in Chicago, an inner city
00:15school, largely African-American and Hispanic, and I asked them, what do the kids eat for breakfast?
00:22And they said, oh, the most popular breakfast here are a bag of flaming hots and a pop,
00:27an orange pop. That would be what they pick up at the store on the way to school.
00:33I also went to Westinghouse High School, which is on the west side, and a beautiful school,
00:39and asked to sit down at the lunch con, with school lunch. They didn't particularly want me to do that,
00:45but I did anyway. The menu that day featured corn dogs, which is, we believe, the source of all life
00:52in the Midwest. Pizza, and for vegetables, french fries. That was the lunch. I also have paid close
01:05attention, as I hope my colleagues have, of the trash cans in the lunchroom and what's being thrown
01:11away by the students. It's entirely too damn much food being thrown away to start with, and I often
01:17wondered, we can give speeches and do our analysis in Washington, but the bottom line is, what will
01:24those kids eat during the course of a school lunch? Bottom line. So I look at this controversy,
01:30and I suppose it's a controversy as to whether whole milk should be allowed, required, in school
01:35lunches. Your background, I take it, is in nutrition? You're referred to as Dr. Arsai, is that correct?
01:44PhD? Yes, sir. Good. I'm sure you're qualified. And I am also sure that we are always asking the
01:53question when it comes to nutrition, too much fat, too much sugar, too much sodium. Aren't those the
02:00three things we kind of boil the conversation down to? Yes, those are key components that we look at.
02:08So let me ask your question. I know where Senator Marshall's coming from. He is the original milkman
02:16in the Senate Ag Committee, and proud of it. And I just have to ask this. I look at the groups that
02:23oppose this bill, and they include the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American Academy of
02:31Pediatrics, the American Heart Association, the American Public Health Association, the Center for
02:37Science and the Public Interest, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners,
02:43National WIC Association. Do you know any major health groups that support this bill?
02:51I can't. I don't have information to that regard.
02:54Okay, I'd be interested in that. Has any survey been done about kids, whether they will accept two
03:02percent milk, the same as whole milk, or have a preference for skim milk or whole milk or two percent?
03:10We don't have data on preference directly, just on data on what is currently consumed. And
03:18the most commonly consumed is two percent, followed by whole, then low-fat and fat-free.
03:26So we do have data, but across the board, current consumptions need to increase. So whatever the
03:31form is, we need to have greater consumption of dairy. Did you use a figure 35 percent consumption
03:38for a certain group of teenagers, I guess it is?
03:41Using the most recent data, about 35 percent of adolescents consume fluid milk on any given day.
03:50I'll tell you, I'm just amazed it's that high. I really am. When you consider all the advertising
03:56for all the pop and soda and sweetened drinks that these kids are exposed to during the course
04:03of their lives, and the advertising for milk is virtually zero, as I see it, I think we need much
04:10more milk consumption. But moving in the direction toward those soda and pop drinks, it certainly
04:20can't be good for kids, for their teeth or their health. Thank you. I yield.