{"id":150266,"date":"2026-02-10T15:13:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/150266\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T15:13:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T15:13:06","slug":"bay-area-schools-weigh-adding-2-and-whole-milk-as-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/150266\/","title":{"rendered":"Bay area schools weigh adding 2% and whole milk as options"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0When President Donald Trump signed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act<\/a> in January, it paved the way for 2% and whole milk to return to schools after a nearly 15-year absence.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

School districts have the option to bring back 2% and whole milk as options
\n
No Bay area school district has committed to having these milks as options but are considering them
\n
M&B Products<\/a> said it will work with schools on what they need\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Obama administration originally removed those milks in an effort to fight childhood obesity.<\/p>\n

Now, school districts will once again have the option to provide a wider range of milk options.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dale McClellan, the President of M&B Products<\/a>, a Bay area dairy company, has been working with schools since 2004.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The majority of the milk they supply is low fat, but now school districts have more options.<\/p>\n

So far, the response has been limited.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a little bit of a handful of phone calls from systems wanting to know, do we plan on doing a bigger variety of butterfat percentages? And we\u2019ve told them we would entertain anything that makes sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Christie Roberts, the Director of Patient Nutrition Services at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital<\/a>, said more options may encourage children to drink more milk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a child that doesn\u2019t like skim milk and then you have the option of a 2% or whole, then it\u2019s going to increase your consumption of milk,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No matter the type of milk, Roberts said children should have between two and three servings of milk a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cYounger children, we do recommend the more full or fat options for their growth and development,\u201d she said. \u201cBut as they get older and they\u2019re trying to work towards a healthy, lean physique and health, then the lower-fat options might be good.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spectrum News reached out to local school districts to find out if they are considering adding 2% and whole milk as options.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No districts have committed to adding the products, but are considering it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most provided statements were similar to this from Hillsborough County Schools:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are exploring how we might add whole milk and 2% milk to our offerings, as these products are not part of our current contracts with our dairy vendor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarasota County Schools provided this statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it is ultimately determined that Sarasota County Schools will move forward with offering 2% and whole milk as part of the National School Lunch Program, the earliest anticipated implementation would be the 2026\u20132027 school year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0When President Donald Trump signed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act in January, it paved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4996,3948,7083,571,7086,276,7088,4628,115,1338,596,1911,4135,135,137,136,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-150266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-education","9":"tag-app-health","10":"tag-citrus-county","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-hernando-county","13":"tag-hillsborough-county","14":"tag-manatee-county","15":"tag-matt-lackritz","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-pasco-county","18":"tag-pinellas-county","19":"tag-polk-county","20":"tag-sarasota-county","21":"tag-tampa","22":"tag-tampa-headlines","23":"tag-tampa-news","24":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}