Dairy products provide essential nutrients important for sustaining health over the course of life. Meanwhile, sustainability concerns are driving dietary shifts globally. With the production of animal-sourced foods being recognized as important drivers of climate change, it is relevant to also quantify the impact of dairy products on public health. . Health risk-benefit assessment of foods provides a tool to comprehensively assess the impact on health of changes in food intakes, considering both positive and negative health effects of the food documented in the scientific literature and food intake data. This presentation highlights results from RBDairy, a project co-funded by the Danish Dairy Research Foundation and the Technical University of Denmark, which aimed to estimate the number of healthy life years gained or lost in the Danish population given hypothetical changes in intakes of dairy products and possible replacement of milk by plant-based alternatives, such as rice drinks. Additionally, the presentation will include preliminary results of a new study investigating dairy products role in diets that are optimal for health and sustainability, where diets are optimized to minimize the loss of healthy life years and environmental impact. Together, the results contribute to the overall evidence needed to quantify and assess the trade-offs of the transition to a sustainable food system. This is highly relevant for the dairy industry, which is a major stakeholder in Nordic food systems, but also for decision-makers that are responsible for a sustainable transition.