Half of Americans don’t know where chocolate milk comes from

a reply to: dawnstar

Isn't that hilarious. If they get really drunk they even get hung over too. Animals are funny sometimes and act just like people in many ways.

Cows are curious little suckers too. When I lived in the mountains where there were multiple ranchers, we'd go hike around different places and whenever we'd stop somewhere like a watering hole or something and make some noise, it wouldn't be long until we were surrounded by cows coming to check us out. They were sneaky too. One minute you'd be out there alone and the next you'd look around and there were cows just creeping up all around you checking you out.

a reply to: sine.nomine

hey, I thought they were classified as dairy. that's where they are in the stores, I just figured they didn't really have a better category for them... they're not a meat..

a reply to: mOjOm

Indeed, like most survey based studies, it indeed is rather bs.

Only 1000 people were surveyed, then those numbers get extrapolated to the overall population.

So 70 out of 1000 people the reality of the chocolate milk question..

You know not to sound like I'm shilling for Monsanto but with genetic engineering we could engineer cows that actually make chocolate milk right from the udder. If goats with spider genes are producing spider silk in their milk then how hard could it be to splice some genes from a cocoa plant into a cows genes to get some chocolate milk?

Ok I admit it's a pretty messed up idea but it seems doable.

originally posted by: sine.nomine
I'm not at all surprised. People in America are shockingly stupid when it comes to knowing where their food comes from. When I worked in the food industry more than half of my coworkers were convinced that eggs are dairy products...

Many reason to account for eggs in dairy. One the price, what do you call mayonnaise on an inventory? eggs? No.
How about prepared egg whites made for mass use diluted with dairy...just eggs? No...it is called inventory in 'production'.

Now, as to "shockingly stupid' (and I take offense)...A sample of 1000 persons, cited by this OP off of RT.com...really?

You are going to attempt to thump a nerve with that low of a sample...how about...hmm..probably 1/3 of the sample was not born or raised in the United States...

If I were asked that question, by the small organization (most likely in the grocery store) I would give the same answer as the dozen above...a smart ass answer because the question is....

Stupid.

mg

a reply to: mOjOm

our parents thought they were pain in the necks really, coming through our years, leaving these big hoof prints a few inches deep...
but us kids found them entertaining..

a reply to: SolAquarius

Not even close to the same thing though. Chocolate isn't produced like that. There is no Genetic Switch or piece of code that is going to make cows produce chocolate in their milk.

The spider goat works because the production of milk and a spiders production of silk are very similar. The goat still produces the milk which the silk then has to be extracted from in a process as well.

For a chocolate cow you'd have to cross breed an animal with a plant first of all. Then somehow also make the animal process in the sugar within the chocolate and all that before it came out chocolate milk from the utter.

But it sure would be cool to have a chocolate cow though.

a reply to: SolAquarius

first who wants spider silk in their goats milk? and second, have you ever tasted unsweetened cocoa???

originally posted by: Chadwickus
a reply to: mOjOm

Indeed, like most survey based studies, it indeed is rather bs.

Only 1000 people were surveyed, then those numbers get extrapolated to the overall population.

So 70 out of 1000 people the reality of the chocolate milk question..

I don't know why they even make and print stuff like that. It's just propaganda to make everyone think Americans are dumber than they really are. Which we can all agree that they're already pretty dumb sometimes, but this is ridiculous and just a lie being pushed to make Americans feel worse about themselves.

a reply to: mOjOm

maybe it's to make us think we are smarter than we are....
I mean if you buy into the idea that there's a bunch of people who don't know that chickens lay eggs...
gee, you must be a genius since not only do you know that, but you also know that no matter how long you sit on that egg, you ain't gonna get a baby chicken out of it, just a stinky egg after awhile...

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: sine.nomine

hey, I thought they were classified as dairy. that's where they are in the stores, I just figured they didn't really have a better category for them... they're not a meat..

That's how a lot of people think. Dairy products are products that are milk-based, so eggs are not dairy. I remember one of those food pyramid charts in grade school that had eggs grouped with meat because they're rich in protein. I guess they're so delicious that they're in a class of their own.

originally posted by: missed_gear
Many reason to account for eggs in dairy. One the price, what do you call mayonnaise on an inventory? eggs? No.
How about prepared egg whites made for mass use diluted with dairy...just eggs? No...it is called inventory in 'production'.

Now, as to "shockingly stupid' (and I take offense)...A sample of 1000 persons, cited by this OP off of RT.com...really?

You are going to attempt to thump a nerve with that low of a sample...how about...hmm..probably 1/3 of the sample was not born or raised in the United States...

If I were asked that question, by the small organization (most likely in the grocery store) I would give the same answer as the dozen above...a smart ass answer because the question is....

Stupid.

mg

What are you on about? Did that really make you angry or something? It's just eggs... And no, they're not dairy. BTW, I'm American, and I still think Americans are pretty damn stupid when it comes to knowing what they're eating.

Where "chocolate milk" "comes from" could actually be a quite complicated discussion. I'm impressed they managed that many "correct" responses".

I don't think the brown cow answer was all that bad, does leave you wondering about strawberry milk???
and as far as banana milk goes...... I'm not going there!

And we all know hamburgers are made from pigs...... HAM Burger.......... Duhhhh

originally posted by: clodbuster
a reply to: pirhanna

I bet if you google chocolate milk you could find a credible link to back up an arguement that it comes from brown cows. Thats whats wrong with the internet, you can validate most anything and confirm your confirmation bias, no matter how wrong it really is.

Lol thats true. But the real info is there too. I remember when I was a kid and wanted to know about everything. I literally would pull out the old funk and wagnal encyclopedias and start reading. When I was like 7. It was so hard to find what you were looming for. No internet. Limited tv. Not much communication outside your town for those that didnt live in a big city. Now..2 seconds and i can see info on anything. Some is bs, but still. Its all there.

Edit to add: And yet things seem worse in some ways. The real transition, I think, was more the second wave of the internet, when everything started being based around social media. That really brought out the negatives of people and society.

a reply to: sine.nomine

Not upset.

Look, nowadays eggs are found in the dairy section of a grocery store for one. So many assume they are dairy, simple.

When inventorying prepared items, eggs are the cheapest ingredients and often used with dairy which is more expensive, ergo, inventoried as dairy.

Most restaurants/grocery store count whole eggs (of any species) as 'dairy' because it not 'meat' and can throw other costs out of whack and is also handled by the dairy department in stores. Some pull eggs out as a line item of their own because they are a byproduct alone (neither meat or dairy)..

What gets me is how people think Americans are stupid based on small samples, t.v. snippets and generalizations of poorly made observations.

mg

originally posted by: sine.nomine
I'm not at all surprised. People in America are shockingly stupid when it comes to knowing where their food comes from. When I worked in the food industry more than half of my coworkers were convinced that eggs are dairy products...

This study has no valid references and surveying a thousand people from who knows what nationality* doesn't prove a thing other than their inability in how to conduct a proper survey.

Anyone who has grown up as an American knows how chocolate milk is made and where beef comes from. We're raised on both from birth because for more than 40 years 2 of the largest special interest groups in Washington DC are the milk and beef lobbyists. The USDA is rife with corruption as they spend more than 80% of their annual $140+ billion dollar budget on "nutrition education". That means they are actively leading its citizens down the path of consuming the products from the leading producers of milk and beef.

So they do some half-ass survey like this as justification for broader and more invasive "nutrition education".

The US is the largest beef producing country on the planet and fluctuates between the number 1 and number 2 producer of cow's milk worldwide. Trust me...we know where our food comes from. No other country spends the amount of money we do in our public school systems on nutrition education. It's ingrained in us throughout grades 1-12.

* Just because the study was conducted in the US doesn't mean all the people they targeted were of US birth. Many studies like these target areas of the US where there are high levels of immigrants. This way the study can make a valid claim even though the respondents are not representative of the traditional citizen. This was proven years ago in the tobacco industry when big tobacco was sued for billions.

EDIT: Surveying 1,000 people does not equate to 150M.

a reply to: Outlier13

The USDA is rife with corruption as they spend more than 80% of their annual $140+ billion dollar budget on "nutrition education".

WHAT?? Are you serious? It's hard to believe, do you have a source for that?

originally posted by: clodbuster
a reply to: Outlier13

The USDA is rife with corruption as they spend more than 80% of their annual $140+ billion dollar budget on "nutrition education".

WHAT?? Are you serious? It's hard to believe, do you have a source for that?

My earlier numbers were based off of some older data I had tucked away in my brain. I just looked at the 2017 numbers and here they are. The 2017 budget is $155 billion. We will spend $110 billion on "nutrition assistance" which is comprised of roughly 10 different programs. The largest one being "nutrition education".

And how do we know that these people aren't just answering questions wrong intentionally for laughs? "Yeah dude, chocolate milk totally comes from brown cows *snicker*"

It's not like the survey takers water boarded them until they got a 100% truthful answer.

These threads pop up way too often, and it usually just boils down to people reinforcing their own "X group is sooo stupid, unlike my group!" bias without considering that the survey is most likely critically flawed both in method and truthfulness of the responders.