Dairy and the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines: What You Need to Know

Every five years, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are updated to reflect the latest nutrition guidance and offer practical advice for building balanced, nourishing meals. In the 2025–2030 edition, dairy foods — including milk, cheese and yogurt — continue to have a place alongside vegetables, fruits, whole grains and protein foods as part of a well-rounded approach to eating.

For many families, dairy foods are already part of everyday meals and snacks. The guidelines highlight the important nutrients dairy foods may provide — including calcium, vitamin D, potassium and high-quality protein — which can help support bone, muscle and overall health across the lifespan.

Dairy foods remain foundational to the guidelines’ core messages and food pyramid, where they are noted as an excellent source of protein, healthy fats, and essential vitamins and minerals, with a continued recommendation of three servings per day.

Dairy foods like milk, cheese and yogurt are included across a range of lactose and fat levels, giving people more flexibility in how they choose them as part of an overall balanced way of eating that meets personal preferences and health needs. Butter is included among examples of healthy fat options for cooking and meal preparation, reflecting broader guidance toward whole, minimally processed foods.

At the same time, the long-standing recommendation to limit saturated fat to less than 10% of total daily calories remains in place. The guidelines acknowledge that questions remain about how different types of fats impact long-term health and call for additional high-quality research to strengthen the evidence base.

Another notable mention is that fermented dairy foods — including kefir as well as yogurt — are recognized for their role in supporting gut and microbiome health. These foods can contain live and active cultures that can contribute beneficial bacteria to the digestive system. Growing research suggests fermented dairy foods support digestive and immune health as part of an overall balanced diet.

Let’s Talk Full-Fat Dairy and Health

A question I hear often is whether full-fat dairy foods can really fit into a healthy diet. The short answer is yes.

This is good news for public health, because it accounts for individual lifestyle preferences and wellness needs. It also reflects where consumers have been heading for some time. If you’ve noticed whole milk making a comeback, you’re not imagining things. Today, whole milk accounts for about half of milk sales in grocery stores.  People are choosing it because they enjoy the taste, feel satisfied after drinking it and find that it can fit into healthy diets.

One unintended consequence of the low-fat era was that nutrition advice became overly focused on what to remove and what not to eat rather than overall diet quality. In some cases, that meant people replaced satisfying, nutrient-dense foods with less filling or more refined options.

But as research evolved, including decades of peer-reviewed science supported by National Dairy Council (NDC) as well as hundreds of independent studies, we learned something important: Health isn’t determined by one nutrient in isolation. It’s shaped by the food it comes in and the overall eating pattern.

Decades of research show nutrient-dense dairy foods like milk, yogurt and cheese, at all fat levels, fit within healthy, balanced diets linked to cardiometabolic health, including lower risk of hypertension, stroke and type 2 diabetes. These benefits cannot be explained by individual nutrients alone, pointing instead to the dairy food matrix and the complex interactions among milk fats, high-quality proteins, essential micronutrients and bioactive components all working together.

That’s where dairy stands out. While whole milk might sound indulgent, nutritionally it’s not so different from the lower-fat options. Whether you choose skim, 1%, 2% or whole milk dairy foods, they will deliver a core nutrition package. Milk, from which other nutrient-dense dairy foods like yogurt and cheese are made, provides 13 essential nutrients, including high-quality protein, calcium, vitamin D, and several B vitamins.

In other words, it’s not about “good” versus “bad.” It’s about choice and a balance of nutritious foods making up the total diet. And a more flexible, realistic way of eating.

It’s encouraging to see the guidelines align with more flexibility in the choices across a spectrum of fat levels. Milk, cheese and yogurt fit into healthy diets supporting not just basic nutrition but also functional wellness like bone strength, muscle health, digestive benefits and sustained energy. 

From First Bite to Later in Life

One aspect of the guidelines that stood out to me is how consistently dairy foods appear across every stage of life.

For babies and toddlers, full-fat yogurt and cheese are identified as nutrient-dense food options that can be enjoyed starting at 6 months, with whole milk added at the first birthday. For children and teens, dairy foods can help support energy needs, immune health and bone development during critical growth years. During pregnancy and breastfeeding—a window of time from conception to the second birthday known as the first 1,000 days— dairy foods can help support both mom and baby, especially when it comes to brain development.

The guidance continues into adulthood, highlighting dairy foods as important sources of nutrients needed to help keep bones and muscles strong, support heart health and maintain a healthy weight. Nutrients in dairy foods like protein, calcium, vitamin D and vitamin B12, become even more important to support healthy aging.

Seeing dairy foods recommended throughout life’s milestones reinforces something many of us already know: their role in nourishment is not limited to any single life stage; it endures as the body’s needs evolve.

Why This Matters Beyond Your Fridge

The guidelines impact far more than individual food choices. They are the cornerstone for school meals and other federal nutrition programs such as WIC and SNAP, ensuring a consistent approach to nutrition advice. Greater flexibility within the recommendations can strengthen participation in these programs and help make healthy choices more accessible, individualized and enjoyable — ultimately supporting better nutrition outcomes for kids, families and communities with diverse needs and preferences.

From a public health perspective, guidance works best when it also reflects how people actually eat. The variety of dairy foods available today — from low-fat and whole milk dairy foods to lactose-free and lower-lactose options  — offers choices that can fit different preferences, cultural traditions, health needs and budgets.

The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines provide updated advice for building balanced diets — recognizing dairy foods alongside other core food groups as part of a realistic approach to nourishing lifelong health.