Yasmin Tayag

I think of myself as milk agnostic, but because I have a two and a half year old at home, I only drink whole milk.

Just normal behavior.

The whole milk push has a lot of nutritionists scratching their heads.

Okay.

Because whole milk, compared to its skim relatives, is packed with saturated fat.

And we know that saturated fat is linked to the risk of heart disease.

It raises cholesterol.

But the recent dietary guidelines underwent a huge revamp.

The biggest thing we've seen is that the traditional food pyramid has been turned upside down.

And at the top are meats, dairy, in particular whole milk.

So part of the justification for this inverted pyramid is the belief that saturated fats aren't actually that bad for you.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

has been pushing this for a long time.

I think the example of school lunches is interesting because part of the argument for doing so is that it'll get kids to drink more milk because it tastes better than low-fat milk, which is true.

What I think is just so funny about the passionate push for whole milk is—

is that it doesn't really matter what kind of milk you drink because people don't drink that much milk.

And so the saturated fat content, whether it has a lot of saturated fat or not, whether you're drinking whole or skim, that alone is not going to make a huge impact on your health.

Throughout all of my reporting on this whole milk controversy, what it really comes down to for me is like, this is not really about milk.

So what I think this whole milk craze really boils down to is this philosophical belief that what is natural is best.

And this is an idea that's been kicking around American food for over a century.