National Dairy Council® Partners to Address Common Nutrition Challenges

With today’s changing nutrition environment, National Dairy Council® (NDC), the nutrition education and research arm of the dairy checkoff program, works hard to develop and implement nutrition research and education programs that help protect and promote the nutritional benefits of dairy products and ingredients.

NDC accomplishes this by working to ensure that public health leaders recognize that dairy should remain a distinct food group, and by engaging industry leaders to leverage dairy’s nutritional attributes to sell more dairy products. Another key approach is working with other animal agriculture organizations to help assure that animal-based protein sources continue to be valued as part of a healthy diet.

To that end, NDC and the Beef Checkoff Program are teaming up for a nutrition symposium in July to highlight how they work together to help protect and promote the nutritional benefits of their products.  Key topics at the symposium will include the Nutrient Rich Foods Coalition (NRFC), which aims to build awareness of the importance of high-quality protein in the diet, and to provide a science-based perspective on the role of fatty acids within a healthy diet.

The NRFC – a public/private partnership that brings together commodity organizations representing the main food groups – aims to increase public awareness of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid food guidance system, which recommend consuming three servings of low-fat or fat-free dairy products every day. Both NDC and NCBA are founding members.