When we learned there was a backlash against chocolate milk, we were eager to join the cause. Nature’s Perfect Food is best enjoyed unadulterated by milk or anything else.
But it turns out the fight is over the chocolate part, not the milk part, and the battleground is the school cafeteria, so we’re not allowed to joke about it. Childhood obesity is a serious threat, and chocolate milk is an insidious contributor. Or is it?
More than half the chocolate milk sold in America is packaged in those little half-pint containers that are a staple of the national school lunch program. Some parents and nutritionists think that’s unconscionable. An 8-ounce serving has the equivalent of three teaspoons of added sugar, or about 45 calories. (That’s half a banana for those of you on a restricted calorie diet; five minutes on the elliptical for you gym rats.)
Worse yet is the gateway effect: Kids who develop a taste for chocolate milk tend to lose interest in the plain stuff, progressing to harder drugs such as Yoo-hoo, Pepsi and Red Bull. As a result of these arguments, chocolate milk is being banned from a growing number of school cafeterias.
Last week the National Dairy Council struck back with a campaign to promote the health benefits of chocolate milk, along with an online petition encouraging parents to Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk.
What’s good about it? Kids need the calcium to build strong bones.
Many of them don’t get enough Vitamin D since we started slathering them with SPF 50 every time they step outside. Of course, plain milk provides those same attributes, without the added sugar, if you can get the kids to drink it.
The dairy council argues that the extra calories aren’t such a bad thing if the nutrients are consumed along with them. (And yes, we know that argument was used, unsuccessfully, to defend deep-fried zucchini.)
The cafeteria cops say kids would drink plain milk if not tempted by chocolate.
Offer them french fries or applesauce to go with their sandwich and they’ll take fries every time, but offer them applesauce or applesauce and they’ll happily eat applesauce.
Our experience suggests that if you offer them plain milk or plain milk, they’ll go for the water fountain — but that’s not scientifically valid.
Enter Haley Morris, Lizzy Hucker and Ivy Moore, fifth-graders at Roslyn Road School in Barrington Community Unit School District 220 in Illinois. The district’s wellness committee did away with chocolate milk last year, but the girls are lobbying to bring it back. “Kids weren’t drinking the white milk,” Haley says.
Thanks to the girls’ efforts, the schools now serve chocolate (and strawberry) milk on Fridays. District workers measure how much milk is tossed out on Fridays compared to other days. In January, administrators will tally the data and decide whether to serve flavored milks every day.
Is the issue really chocolate vs. plain? Or is it down the hatch vs. down the drain?A thirsty world awaits their finding.
- McClatchy-Tribune News Service