Goodfat Nutrition - Online Petition

The New Zealand government has introduced compulsory guidelines for school tuckshops.

This will ensure schools remain consistent in teaching about good nutrition in both theory and practice.

However, we are concerned that the guidelines treat full-fat milk as a "junk food".

Full-fat milk currently contains 3.3% milk fat. Milk fat is an important source of Vitamins A, D and K. It also provides conjugated linoleic acid, which helps fight cancer.

So far, all studies into full-fat milk consumption seem to indicate that drinking full-fat milk actually helps prevent weight gain. Scientists are surprised at these results, and are cautious of drawing this conclusion. However, no study has been able to show the opposite result - ie, no study seems to indicate that drinking low-fat milk helps prevent weight gain.

The Ministry of Health believes that saturated fat causes heart disease. So far, no study has shown that reducing saturated fat intake reduces the incidence of heart disease. On the contrary, an overview of studies involving a total of 200,000 people showed that the biggest milk-drinkers had the least incidence of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. These people were drinking full-fat milk.

In any case, saturated fat consumption is currently averaging 13% of our daily energy intake, a lower proportion than a decade ago (see http://baker.edu.au/Content.aspx?topicID=651). While saturated fat intake has fallen during the last decade, incidence of both obesity and heart disease has risen significantly.

We believe that milk fat is an important source of nutrition for growing bodies. The Ministry of Health (reluctantly) confirms this belief by advising that babies under the age of 2 should be given full-fat milk. However, their advice is that the day after their 2nd birthday, children suddenly need to start avoiding milk fat.

We believe that the onus of proof should be on the Ministry of Health with regard to their allegations that reducing saturated fat consumption will reduce the risk of heart disease and weight gain. Unless the Ministry can find definite proof that fat-reduced milk has any advantage over the less processed full-fat variety, common sense should prevail and the guidelines should be altered immediately to allow full-fat milk in school tuckshops.