U.S. Schools' War Against Chocolate Milk

An interesting story from Time Magazine.

Here's at tidbit:

It would sound like a joke if everyone weren't so up in arms about it. Taking a stand against chocolate milk? It's like canceling Christmas. What could possibly be wrong with something that brings children such joy?

A lot, according to some nutrition experts and school districts that are removing the brown liquid from lunchrooms. One 8-oz. serving of reduced-fat chocolate milk has nearly as many calories and sugar as a 12-oz. can of Coke. Encouraging students to regularly consume the drink, they say, is contributing to an already worrying childhood obesity crisis.
(Read a brief history of school lunches.)

As chocolate milk opponents lobby state and federal officials, the dairy industry has responded with an estimated $1 million campaign dubbed "Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk." Launched in early November, the YouTube-intensive strategy is designed to highlight the drink's health benefits (vitamin D, calcium, potassium) and to counter the critics who have pegged it as nothing more than a sugar-laden snack drink.

While milk has been the keystone of America's school lunches since the federally subsidized program was established in 1946, the role of chocolate (and other flavored) milk has become a focus of late following a 2006 rule that required schools to establish comprehensive "wellness programs." Public school districts in Berkeley, Calif., and Boulder, Colo. — two of America's more progressive towns — have removed the drink from their list of daily offerings, opting for low-fat, organic white milk instead. That's a perfect way to force kids to shun milk completely, says the dairy industry.

"Flavored milk really fits two needs," says Ann Marie Krautheim, senior vice president of nutrition affairs for the National Dairy Council. "It meets kids' taste preferences, and it provides the nutrition that they don't get elsewhere."

Some nutrition experts reject such either/or simplification. "There's almost this threat, like "If you don't drink chocolate milk, then your children will not get the nutrition they need!" says Marlene Schwartz, deputy director of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. For Schwartz, the dairy industry's campaign is one as concerned with market share as it is with nutrition. "The real issue is a food-industry segment saying, "We want to market our product to children. So we are going to add extra sugar that is completely unnecessary to improve the taste so that kids will drink more of our product." And since more than half of all flavored milk in the U.S. is sold to children in schools, she says, there's a lot to be lost if chocolate milk gets kicked out of the cafeteria.
(Watch a TIME video on a bacon chocolate bar.)

Take Colorado's Boulder Valley School District, which removed chocolate milk from its lunchrooms this fall at the recommendation of Ann Cooper, the new director of nutrition services. That's about 30,000 students in 50 schools that are no longer stocking chocolate milk. Cooper is outspoken in her belief that school cafeterias need to be overhauled — fresh ingredients, more fruits and vegetables, less sugary snacks. "I'm all for parents having chocolate milk with their kids at home once in a while, or on Sunday morning with waffles, but it doesn't have any place in schools on a daily basis," she says. If a child chooses chocolate milk instead of regular milk every single day for a year, she says, they'll gain about 3 lbs. because of the extra sugar and calories. "Over the course of a K-12 education, that can add up," says Cooper.

Read the rest of the story here.

So this is great. I mean, milk as it is processed and sold to us today is basically poison which has no real benefit other than the lies they tell you on the carton, so adding sugar and chocolate to it isn't really much a stretch is it?

I think it's ridiculous that at the level of non and failed education you have in the United States, your biggest worry is the Milk your kids are getting. I mean really?

I understand that nutrition is important and children in school should eat well and better than they do right now, however, there are far more pressing matters to attend to than the Milk.

Thoughts anyone?

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower
I see Boulder Colorado yanked the chocolate milk;that is where the CIA lives. They use those schools. Boulder schools are great public schools even by European standards. The chocolate milk distributed in public schools is loaded with soy. The elite of the CIA do not want their boys to be girls and they do not want their girls turned into cows. They are correct to refuse that poison. All schools should do the same.

I love chocolate milk. They'll have to pry my Nestle Quick from my cold, dead hands.

reply to post by maybee


From your cold dead hands onto mine!! I guess that District leaders have nothing else to worry about. Just focus on some milk....let our kids' educations go to the wayside yet again.

Milk is important to kids growth. Will they drink white milk? I wouldn't, never did. Hated the stuff. Chocolate milk though, that's another story. Mmm Mmm good. Whoops, I hope I don't get a legal call from Campbell's.

Originally posted by intrepid
Milk is important to kids growth. Will they drink white milk? I wouldn't, never did. Hated the stuff. Chocolate milk though, that's another story. Mmm Mmm good. Whoops, I hope I don't get a legal call from Campbell's.

Same here, friend.

I refuse to drink white milk. Always have.

Any flavored milk is game, though

If its such a BIG DEAL:

Why don't they just use "sugar-free" chocolate syrup then?
That would cut the calories.....right?
Unless they know something about Aspartame that we don't.

Hmm....

Oh well, I still enjoy it. Even though I've switched to Ovaltine.
More vitamins and minerals in that stuff.

Originally posted by Lemon.Fresh
Same here, friend.

I refuse to drink white milk. Always have.

Any flavored milk is game, though

That's right. I forgot about Strawberry Quik. Whatever it takes to get milk into your kids.

reply to post by intrepid


I get my milk straight from the Dairy.

My buddy owns a small farm in Northern New Brunswick and every week he sends me fresh, straight from the cow milk.

I have to shake it everytime I poor a glass cause the cream sits at the top. Best stuff ever.

It will change your mind about White Milk I promise you.

And my youngest doesn't really like it, so I put a drop of vanilla extract in it and he's none the wiser, I tell him it's melted vanilla ice cream.

~Keeper

I hate white milk also, i drink choclate milk all the time. I remember back when I was in high school and when the vending machines showed up in our lunch rooms. First the school made them be turned off during lunch hours, but once the companies behind the vending machines started coughing up some cash, they allowed the kids to have all the pop they wanted. The result was that you could watch the people come in and restock the machines like clock work.

I personaly dont think it is a big deal, if a kid wants a choclate milk or a $2.00 20oz(remember when they were .50 and .75?) let them have it, of all the stuff to worry about and spend money on, this is by far low on the totum pole.

Boulder, Colorado... 30 square miles surrounded by reality.

Boulder is a city filled with paradoxes. Take a look at their smoking laws. Now, take a look at how they handle the cigarette convention in their area.

Basically, if it happens in Boulder, the rest of Colorado doesn't really care. Boulder has always done their own thing.

if only they woul sweeten chocomilk with stevia.

If you guys hate white milk then how do you eat your cereal in the morning? I dont eat cereal or drink milk but I make sure to drink fruit juices because soda is just too harmful to your health.

reply to post by Stop-loss!


If I have cereal it's dry. I don't drink sodas either. Basically water and beer.

reply to post by intrepid


Amen to that brother.

Alexander Keith's all the way.

But truly Intrepid, you have to try straight from the cow milk, I swear it might change your mind about Milk all together.

~Keeper

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
But truly Intrepid, you have to try straight from the cow milk, I swear it might change your mind about Milk all together.

~Keeper

Oh I have. My wife's a farm girl. That is just WAY too rich for me. Like scallops. I love them but can't get past maybe a half dozen. Very rich.

I, for one, am very happy to hear this news.

Low-fat chocolate milk is a double whammy.

(A) Low-fat/skim milk just happens to be more fattening than whole milk. The lack of fat provides for quicker absorption of the natural sugars (lactose) in the milk.

Contrary to our hypotheses, dietary calcium and skim and 1% milk were associated with weight gain, but dairy fat was not.

(B) The added "chocolate" is providing kids with quick-acting, lipogenic sugars, which quite possibly could be High Fructose Corn Syrup.

The fat isn't the problem, and neither are the calories; it's the sugars.

Of all the things to worry about, dietarily speaking, chocolate milk is at the top of the totum pole, right up there with soda and potatos.

-Dev

I remember when chocolate milk was just part of lunch.

We also had a meat, vegetable (or two), and a starch. Along with that was usually a fruit of some kind and dessert (which was served in those 2 1/2 inch wide bowls instead of a half keg sized bucket.

The chocolate milk was the same as the white but it had a little chocolate syrup in it instead of a chemistry experiment like todays milks do.

We were all mostly skinny and healthy back then. Of course this was the old days when television had three channels and christmas trees had those big lights that came in three colors and food was good for you.

Then, during the 70s, it became taboo to eat like normal people.

We were taught to eat 12 servings of refined carbohydrates, a half bushel of lettuce a day and no fats whatsoever.

That damn FDA food pyramid started the mess. The food and drug administration along with big pharma, fast food, big food conglomerates and chemical companies hijacked our food supplies.

All they do now is take real food and turn it into drug laden and addictive crap.

So, now, no chocolate milk.

Let's get rid of all 8 destructive ounces. Then we can give the kids a "nonfat, nonsugar, vitamin fortified" chemical concoction that will screw up their endocrine system and taste like cough syrup. That'll show em.

I guess that's all right. All of the milk nowdays is chemogenized, hormone laced, soy by product garbage with chemical sweeteners and over processed sugar adjuncts that are 'fortified' with what can barely be classified as vitamins and minerals.

Farmers wouldn't even feed this stuff to their animals but people feed it to their kids.

Sad.

Could you please expalint to me why chocolate milk in the states is so fattening when over here in europe it is not?

Is "syrup" added to everything over there?

Over here one takes a cup of milk, adds 2 teaspoons of chocolate powder and voila, really delicious chocolate milk that has barely no more sugar than ordinary milk.

Oh come on. When I was a kid over there, that was the only edible thing we got for lunch. They count ketchup as a vegetable serving but chocolate milk is sinister? Get the heck out! When are you people going to grow some cojones and tell *them* what they're going to supply. Why do you always bend over for more and more and more abuse?

Europe isn't much better anymore. We need to do the same over here, but our problem isn't yet as big as it is there. Get to it so we won't have to!