World Dairy Diary

Panelists representing varied perspectives of the dairy industry supply chain shared their views on changing global standards for dairy products.

A panel discussion held at World Ag Expo explored the topic from several viewpoints, including:

* The impact regulatory changes have on the value and market for dairy products
* How increased focus on milk quality standards impacts milk production
* Opportunities for dairy producers to improve their milk quality

The Committee suggests that using objective measures of sector hardship can reduce political pressures in the allocation process. The Committee recommends that the Secretary implement trigger levels based on the difference between average milk prices and a new measure of feed costs . The Secretary can then objectively determine when dairy farmers face extreme hardship by examining whether the difference between revenues and costs fall below specific trigger levels. Extreme hardship would justify shifting governmental resources from other uses. Within this framework, the first trigger would indicate use of a food assistance program to increase demand for dairy products. At the second trigger, the DPPSP purchase prices may be raised. The Committee recommends applying these responses cautiously.

5. Milk
Got milk? Lempert predicts that more of us will start drinking milk regularly for dietary reasons.

“I’m predicting the rise of milk, not as flavored or sugar-added but plain old milk,” said Lempert. “It’s about really touting the whole aspect of vitamin D deficiency. People understand the solution isn’t to overdose on supplements, but getting those vitamins naturally from foods.”

The study suggests that a replacing 25 grams per liter of carbohydrate with milk protein in standard carbohydrate-electrolyte sports drink can improve the rehydration ability of the drink by improving fluid retention.

“The results of the present investigation indicate that, when matched for energy density, fat content and electrolyte concentration, a carbohydrate–milk protein solution is better retained than a carbohydrate solution after exercise-induced dehydration,” wrote the researchers, led by Dr Gethin Evans from the Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK.

Rehydration after exercise has been well investigated, with previous research showing that for complete recovery of fluid balance, both the volume and composition of a rehydration fluid are vital.

It is known that the volume of the fluid consumed must be greater than the volume of sweat lost, and account for ongoing – post exercise – fluid losses. However, for the effective, long term, maintenance of fluid balance the composition of the fluid is also of critical importance.

On top of the addition of electrolytes, such as sodium and potassium, to rehydration fluids, the consumption of solutions containing protein has been suggested to offer advantages in terms of fluid retention. With previous research demonstrating that low-fat milk containing proteins is brought about better fluid retention than either a carbohydrate–electrolyte sports drink or water.

The new study investigated these findings in more details, examining the effects of milk proteins on rehydration after exercise in the heat.

The results observed that a solution made up of 40 grams per litre of carbohydrate and 25 grams per litre of milk protein was offered better fluid retention than a 65 gram per litre carbohydrate solution – as a post exercise rehydration drink.

“This study helps support the importance of bringing nutrient density to the discussion as the carbon footprint of beverages and foods is examined,” said Dr. Greg Miller, president of the Dairy Research Institute.

In the Swedish study, the NDCI for milk was 0.54 for milk, compared to 0.25 for soy drink and 0.28 for orange juice. Beverages with the highest index value had the highest nutrient density scores in relation to GHG emissions. Carbonated water, soft drinks and beer all scored zero due to their low nutritional value, while red wine and oat drink scored below 0.1.

He cautioned that this nutrient density — climate index research is a single study specific to the production and nutrient content of milk and other beverages in Sweden, and that while the results are not necessarily transferrable to other countries, the study was positive for dairy.

Miller indicated that this work builds upon previous research conducted in the U.S., which was funded by dairy farmers through the National Dairy Council (NDC) to demonstrate the nutrient richness of dairy foods. Milk is America’s No. 1 source of calcium, potassium and vitamin D in the diet, and provides six other essential nutrients. NDC helped support the development of the Nutrient Rich Foods (NRF) Index — a scientifically valid definition of nutrient density that takes into account the total nutritional quality of a food or beverage. The NRF Index (published in the August 2009, issue of the Journal of Nutrition2) was created to help people have healthier diets by choosing more nutrient-rich foods from all food groups.

He added that extensive consumer research indicates that people want to believe that dairy products can be part of a lifestyle that promotes health and nutrition, benefits communities and protects the environment. To this end, he pointed to U.S. dairy industry efforts to better understand and improve environmental and nutritional impact, including ongoing life cycle assessments (LCAs) from farm to table,
and environmental and human nutrition research being conducted on behalf of The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.

MilkPEP works with the trade (retail, schools, foodservice, and vending) to create new business opportunities for milk through channel expansion. This website offers programs, information, and resources for these trade channels.

Refueling after exercise, especially during the two-hour recovery window, is key in helping the body recover and prepare for the next workout or competition. And, when it comes to recovery, lowfat chocolate milk offers post-exercise benefits. It includes the right mix of protein and carbohydrates to repair and refuel exhausted muscles, plus fluids and electrolytes to rehydrate and help replenish what’s lost in sweat. With nine essential nutrients, milk contains key vitamins and minerals your body needs every day.

“The trainers, coaches and athletes that I work with agree that the two hours after exercise is a crucial part of training to help your body recover and refuel,” said speed skating superstar Apolo Ohno. “My races are often right after one another, so recovery is essential. I grab a lowfat chocolate milk to help me get fuel and nutrients back into my body quickly to help me refuel for the next race.”

USA Basketball Men’s National Team member Chris Bosh also is letting fans know that chocolate milk helps keep him at the top of his game. “Lowfat chocolate milk is an important part of my recovery plan – plus it tastes great,” he said. “I’m excited to be part of this important campaign to help teach athletes the importance of fitness and nutrition, and how drinking chocolate milk can help them refuel after exercise.”

Chocolate milk is making star appearances in locker rooms around the country as more athletes and top level coaches discover the benefits of refueling with chocolate milk after training. Experts agree that the two-hour window after exercise is an important, yet often neglected, part of a fitness routine. Active bodies need the right mix of nutrients and fluids to properly recover and get back in the game.

“What’s so great about lowfat chocolate milk is that it delivers the things the body really needs to recover – like carbs, high-quality protein, fluids and electrolytes – with the bonus of other nutrients like bone-strengthening vitamin D and calcium, all in a great-tasting, affordable drink that’s probably already in your refrigerator,” said nationally-recognized certified sports dietitian Tara Gidus, RD, who works with some of the nation’s top athletes.

A growing body of research supports chocolate milk’s recovery benefits. Most recently, a series of four studies presented at the American College of Sports Medicine suggests that drinking lowfat or fat free chocolate milk after exercise can help the body retain, replenish and rebuild muscle to help your body refuel and could even help prepare muscles to perform better in a subsequent bout of exercise.

To educate teen athletes on the role of chocolate milk in refueling their bodies after exercise and reward them for choosing milk, teens can join the “Refuel & Reward” program which provides them with a “virtual personal trainer” via their mobile devices. By texting REFUEL to 80800, teens will receive tips from world-class athletes and opportunities to win cool prizes including autographed gear.

The largest of its kind to date, the study included nearly 700 measurement days over three months at 58 elementary and secondary schools across the country. It found that when lowfat flavored milk was not available in school cafeterias, many children chose not to drink milk and missed out on the essential nutrients that milk provides. On days when only white milk was offered, milk consumption dropped an average of 35 percent, with some schools experiencing a decline of more than 50 percent. The study also revealed that milk consumption stayed down in schools that were in their second year of eliminating or restricting flavored milks.

“When flavored milk was not an option, many children wouldn’t take the white milk or if they did, they frequently threw it away,” said Linda Stoll, MPH, executive director of food services at Jeffco Public Schools in Jefferson County, Colo., which participated in the study. “It was tragic to see all the nutrients go down the drain.”

The researchers estimate that this decline in consumption translates to an alarming drop in nutrients – including calcium, vitamins A and D, potassium, magnesium and protein. This includes three of the four “shortfall nutrients” the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has said both adults and children need to consume more of: vitamin D, calcium and potassium. The researchers concluded it would require up to four different foods to match the nutrient contributions of milk, yet these foods would add back more calories and fat and cost up to $4,500 more annually per 100 students.

“The MSU Dairy Farm is fortunate because its employees are really interested in the cows and dedicated to doing their individual jobs well,” Bob Kreft, farm manager said. “It’s a team effort – each member of the team has a role to play in producing milk of high quality.”

Kreft attributes the high quality of milk produced at MSU to clean, healthy cows and productive employees. Milk produced at the MSU Dairy Farm is sold through the Michigan Milk Producers Association, a farmer-owned cooperative based in Novi.

“Dairy farmers have a huge responsibility caring for their animals,” said Kreft. “Properly caring for the animals keeps the cows healthy and somatic cell counts down, which means the milk produced is of a higher quality.”

The same goes for farming the land and producing feed for the cows to eat.

“Taking good care of the land and crops means that the animals have access to higher quality feed, and this makes a big difference in animal health and production,” said Kreft. “It’s about providing the animals with a clean, sanitary place to live; quality feed and good care.”

Of 13,000 infants studied, the team found that 66 (0.5 percent) tested positive for the milk allergy — far fewer than would be expected based on previous population estimates of 1 to 3 percent, they note in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

The researchers also found no link between cow’s milk and soy allergies, despite some earlier estimates that up to 1 in 3 children with the first allergy also suffered from the second.

But what his team found next most intrigued him. Infants who were first fed cow’s milk at the age of 15 days or more had 19 times the risk of developing cow’s milk allergy relative to those exposed earlier — during the first two weeks of life.

Due to common difficulties in digesting the sugar content of cow’s milk, some pediatricians have discouraged its introduction until a certain age, Dr. Kari Nadeau of Stanford University in California, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health.

Now, it seems there might also be benefits to an earlier start. “It’s nice to know that if you do give small amounts of cow’s milk to children at an early age,” Nadeau said, “it could help prevent their immune system from later viewing this milk protein as a foreign substance and reacting unnaturally to it.”

She also cautioned that early feeding of cow’s milk is no guarantee that a child won’t get the allergy. “At any point in time, if a child starts developing a rash or vomiting to a food,” she said, “they should always get checked out by an allergist.”

Katz added that the findings should not be interpreted as discouraging breastfeeding. Rather, he recommends simply complementing it with cow’s milk early on.

“Foundation for the Future.”
The features of NMPF’s Foundation for the Future plan include: transitioning the existing safety nets of the Dairy Product Price Support and Milk Income Loss Contract programs into a new Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program to guard against periods of severe financial pressures; establishing a Dairy Market Stabilization Program to help address periodic imbalances in milk production and demand; and reforming the Federal Milk Marketing Order program.

NMPF President and CEO Jerry Kozak said that the Foundation for the Future is the result of 12 months of detailed deliberations concerning the most appropriate course to follow in reforming federal dairy policies, some of which have been in place for many decades. He added that the package will be used as the basis for the future direction of the dairy provisions in the next Farm Bill, or in some other form of federal legislation that Congress may consider in the future.

The Federation’s proposal to revamp the federal safety net involves creating an insurance program tied to the margin between the national average cost of feed, and the national average all‐milk price. After farmers choose to enroll in the base level of the Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program at no cost to them, they would receive indemnity payments during periods when their margins are severely compressed, as they were for most of 2009. In addition, farmers would have the option of purchasing supplemental coverage to protect a higher margin level between feed costs and milk prices.

Another key element of the Foundation for the Future will be a Dairy Market Stabilization Program that sends a signal to producers that an imbalance in the marketplace could result in lower farm‐level margins. Like the Dairy Producer Margin Protection Program, the Stabilization Program is tied to farmers’ margins that could be reduced either by low milk prices and/or high feed costs.

The Stabilization Program was shaped by some key principles: that it allows for the growth of U.S. production, doesn’t encourage imports or hinder exports, and keeps government intervention at a minimum.

“It’s not just a dessert item, but it’s very healthy, especially for endurance athletes,” Lunn tells WebMD.

The research involved eight male runners in good physical shape who ate a balanced diet for two weeks. At the end of each week, they took a fast paced, 45-minute run.

Following each run, the men drank either 16 ounces of fat-free chocolate milk or 16 ounces of a carbohydrate-only sports beverage with the same number of calories.

Post-exercise muscle biopsies showed increased skeletal muscle protein synthesis — a sign that muscles were better able to rebuild — after the milk drink, compared with the carb-only beverage.

Additionally, drinking fat-free chocolate milk led to a higher concentration of glycogen, or muscle fuel, in muscles 30 and 60 minutes after exercise, compared with the sports drink. Replenishing glycogen after exercise helps future performance, Lunn says.

The findings were presented at the American College of Sports Medicine conference in Baltimore this week.

While only men were studied, one would expect women to gain the same post-workout benefits from chocolate milk, he says.

While the studies were small, there’s no reason not to reach for fat-free chocolate milk after your next workout, says sports nutritionist Nancy Clark, MS, RD, of Healthworks Fitness Center in Chestnut Hill, Mass.

“Athletes can consider it an inexpensive nutritional alternative to engineered sports beverages for help with post-workout recovery,” she tells WebMD.

“Three years ago Shrek helped us launch our biggest worldwide promotion of fruit, vegetables and dairy,” said Dean Barrett, senior vice president, McDonald’s global marketing. “Now he’s back, with his famous friends, to help us communicate the great taste and fun of these foods in new and even more impactful ways. We anticipate the response to our Happy Meal choice items such as Apple Dippers and low-fat milk jugs will be greater than ever.”

This new Shrek-themed promotion, focusing on the great taste and appeal of fruits and vegetables, reflects McDonald’s ongoing commitment to kids and families and making these foods fun for kids to eat. McDonald’s is broadening the approach by delivering the “great taste” on Shrek packaging, point-of-purchase marketing materials at kids’ eye-level, TV commercials, online and in social media.

In 2007, McDonald’s featured Shrek on the packaging of Happy Meal choice items such as milk jugs and Apple Dippers. Today, McDonald’s estimates more than half of Happy Meals sold worldwide include a fruit, vegetable, milk, juice or water option.

“We continue to work with leading children’s experts and organizations to elevate our approach on how to motivate kids to choose fruits, vegetables and dairy foods more often,” added Barrett.

“The FDA has allowed the meaning of ‘milk’ to be watered down to the point where many products that use the term have never seen the inside of a barn,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of NMPF. “You don’t got milk if it comes from a hemp plant, you can’t say cheese if it’s made from rice, and faux yogurt can’t be made from soy and still be called yogurt,” he said.

This matter was originally brought to the attention of the FDA in February 2000, when NMPF sent a letter asking that the agency make clear to manufacturers of imitation dairy products that product names permitted by federal standards of identity, including dairy terms such as “milk,” are to be used only on foods actually made from milk from animals like cows, goats, and sheep. The FDA has failed to act on that petition, so NMPF “is again asking our regulators to defend the letter and the spirit of regulations intended to prevent false and misleading labeling on consumer products,” Kozak said. “The use of these terms shouldn’t just be determined by the common and convenient vernacular that marketers prefer; they should be used according to what the law allows.”

As NMPF had predicted ten years ago when it first brought this issue to the attention of FDA, soy “milks” continue to be marketed and sold right along with dairy milks, and now, a bevy of new artificial dairy products has reached store shelves in the past decade. In many cases, these products don’t contain the equivalent levels of nutrients that real milk does.

NMPF’s petition cites examples including imitation milks made from hemp, rice, almonds, and other plants, legumes and vegetables; yogurts made from soybeans and rice; and cheeses made from soy, rice, and nuts. In some cases, marketers use superficial word changes, such as “cheeze,” in an apparent attempt to skirt the standards of identity regulations.

Using the latest national data (NHANES 2003-2006) on what more than 16,000 Americans ages two and older eat, researchers investigated the contribution of each food group to the total vitamin D intake. No other food item came close to the vitamin D contribution of milk. In fact, for kids ages 2 to eighteen, milk provided nearly two-thirds of all vitamin D in the diet.

“There are few true replacements for the nutrient package you find in one glass of fat free or lowfat milk,” said Dr. Keith Ayoob, a registered dietitian and pediatric nutrition expert. “Without milk in the diet, it’s hard to meet a number of nutrient needs – most notably vitamin D.”

Many Americans are not getting enough vitamin D, and this D-ficiency may put their health at risk. Well known for its role in keeping bones strong, vitamin D is now being hailed for so much more. Emerging science suggests vitamin D may also help protect against diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and certain cancers. It also supports a healthy immune system.

Despite a potential upside of boosting vitamin D levels, Americans of all ages still fall short of their vitamin D needs. In fact, current deficiency levels prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to double the vitamin D recommendations for children and teens. The Academy estimates that up to half of adolescents have low vitamin D levels.

They pursued this research because of concern that consumers may be misinterpreting organic and rbST-free labelled milks – which are an increasingly common sight in grocery stores.

“Consumers have little knowledge of the how milk is produced, and the information search for most Americans rarely extends beyond package labelling and retail marketing,” stated the scientists.

“Of particular concern is that some consumers may perceive that this type of specialty labelling indicates differences in the quality, nutritional value, or safety of dairy foods.”

To investigate the nutritional values of the different milk types, the researchers looked at a sample of 292 milks, and narrowed their investigation to an assessment of their fatty acid composition.

They only found statistically significant differences between the fatty acid profile of organic and conventional milk, but none of these were judged meaningful. The milks were all considered “similar in nutritional quality and wholesomeness.”

In addition, the differences were ambiguous. “From a public health perspective the direction for some of these differences would be considered desirable and for others would be considered undesirable.”

To improve the nutritional profile of a milk drink, the scientists concluded that dietary components and formulation are much more relevant than production management practices. For example, the scientists cited research indicating that feeding cows supplements of fish oil or other products rich in EPA and DHA can improve the fatty acid profile of milk.

“With this new line, we are excited to have the opportunity to not only provide new high-quality dairy products to the public, but products that can also play a role in promoting improved digestive and immune health when incorporated into a healthy diet,” said Tom Rice, marketing director for Guernsey Farms Dairy. “Now consumers who enjoy our milk can have the added health benefits of probiotics without having to take a supplement.”

Probiotics are “good bacteria” that have been shown to improve digestive health and support immunity. Unlike many probiotic strains, GanedenBC30 is unique in its ability to survive harsh manufacturing processes, including those used in milk processing. The survivability and viability of GanedenBC30 can be attributed to the naturally-occurring layer of organic material that protects the genetic core of the bacteria.