Improving views of milkfat

While the American Heart Association launched its latest campaign on reducing fat consumption in the United States, Global Dairy Platform held a meeting in Chicago in April to understand nutrition research related to milkfat and to develop a coordinated research effort. The aim of the meeting, and the related research and communication effort, is to achieve a more balanced view of milkfat by consumers and health professionals.

Workshop participants examined research related to milkfat/dairy food intake and the risks of cardiovascular disease. Dairy foods may be avoided by consumers due to concerns about milkfat consumption.

The first day of the workshop featured presentations from international experts on the current state of the science from an epidemiological and clinical perspective to understand future research opportunities. Note: GDP members can review and download these presentations from the members’ section of the GDP web site.

The early part of the second day reviewed current public health/dietary recommendations, as well as the regulatory environment for saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol from North American, Australasian and European perspectives. The remainder of the day was a strategic planning session, led by a professional facilitator, to gain the full involvement of members.

The outcome was a wide-ranging strategic plan, which, once fully implemented, will work to change the perception of milkfat in the minds of health professionals and consumers. The central objective will be to “maintain or increase dairy food consumption by improving the health perceptions of milkfat”.

To accomplish this, the first priority will be to develop the quality science needed to improve milkfat’s image by completing a review of the existing science, developing areas already shown to have the potential to impact the negative perception of milkfat, and potentially researching areas to identify and develop new benefits. Work in this area will be led by Judith Bryans of the UK Dairy Council, Doug DiRienzo of Dairy Management Inc., Alistair MacGibbon of Fonterra and Isabel MacNeill of Dairy Australia.

The next strategic priority will be to package the science for communication to health professionals, media and the food industry. This effort will be headed by Judith Bryans of the UK Dairy Council, Maja Erlandsson of the Swedish Dairy Board and Isabelle Neiderer of Dairy Farmers of Canada.

Gerrick Hiddink of the Netherlands Dairy Association (NZO) and Dave Mehenert from Kraft will pull together a team to develop the advocacy activities in parallel to the science to ensure that research findings can be acted upon by GDP members.

Finally, GDP will work to strengthen industry communications and collaboration in tackling this vital issue. The organisation will create partnerships to address pre-competitive research agendas and priorities, help to expand expertise and access to information, develop a consensus on external messages and establish efficient and effective communication mechanisms.

The group agreed to align the global priorities that had a high probability of success and focus on those issues first. The scientific presentations from the first day had indicated significant opportunities for improving the image of milkfat and dairy foods. One key area to further investigate is the role of carbohydrates rather than saturated fat in raising small dense LDL levels, which is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

As a result of their efforts, participants hoped future generations will be advised to “have the cheeseburger but hold the roll”, rather than “have the burger but hold the cheese”.