There’s a pretty common knowledge base in terms of drinking milk (or taking in calcium in some other way, shape, or form) leading to stronger, healthier bones. After all, who wants to develop osteoporosis, to have an increased risk of breaking a hip or something in a fall, of being deficient in vitamins or minerals that are fairly easy to get, nutritionally speaking?
And, like most healthy dietary habits, incorporating necessary nutrients into what you eat is easiest done when started at a young age.
After all, isn’t that why the standard beverage …
… accompanying a school’s hot lunch is milk?
The inclusion of “flavored” milks such as chocolate and strawberry is coming under recent fire, however, with school administrations all over the country contemplating getting rid of what’s basically the only regular source of calcium a lot of kids consume.
Does this make any sense whatsoever?
Nutritionists – and parents – are split over whether bans make sense, especially when about 70 percent of milk consumed in schools is flavored, mostly chocolate, according to the industry-backed Milk Processors Education Program.
Many, including the School Nutrition Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dietetic Association, American Heart Association, and National Medical Association, argue that the nutritional value of flavored low-fat or skim milk outweighs the harm of added sugar. Milk contains nine essential nutrients including calcium, vitamin D and protein.
A joint statement from those groups points to studies that show kids who drink fat-free, flavored milk meet more of their nutrient needs and are not heavier than non-milk drinkers.
“Chocolate milk has been unfairly pegged as one of the causes of obesity,” said Julie Buric, vice president of marketing for the Milk Processors Education Program.
Others note the nation’s child obesity epidemic and say flavored milk simply needs to go.
Between living with two daughters and teaching adolescents all day, I spend the lion’s share of my time around children. I’ve seen a lot of obese children over the years, and I can honestly say that not one of them spent their time guzzling chocolate milk … two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew or Dunkin’ Donuts coolattas are far more common beverages of choice for these kids.
I would argue, in fact, that replacing soda or sugary beverage treats with fat-free flavored milk might actually have a positive impact on the obesity epidemic.
But obviously some people disagree with me.
“Chocolate milk is soda in drag,” said Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the Boulder Valley School District in Louisville, Colo., which has banned flavored milk. “It works as a treat in homes, but it doesn’t belong in schools.”
Flavored milk is also a target of British TV chef Jamie Oliver, who has made revamping school food a signature cause.
For a segment to be aired on his “Food Revolution” TV show, he recently filled a school bus with white sand to represent the amount of sugar Los Angeles Unified school children consume weekly in flavored milk.
“If you have flavored milk, that’s candy,” he told The Associated Press.
If you put it into a bigger picture, though, there’s a potentially detrimental impact that’s already shown up.
Efforts by some other districts turned sour after children drank less milk. Milk consumption drops by 35 percent when flavored milks are removed, according to the Milk Processors Education Program.
Cabell County, W.Va., schools brought chocolate milk back at the recommendation of state officials, and Fairfax County, Va., did the same after its dairy provider came up with a version sweetened with beet sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup.
The Florida Board of Education also backed away from its proposed ban on chocolate milk after the state agricultural commissioner urged the board to look at all sugary food and beverages served in schools.
Ms. Cooper, however, evidently feels that this is some sort of power play or something.
Cooper and others argued children will drink plain milk if that’s what’s offered.
“We’ve taught them to drink chocolate milk, so we can unteach them that,” Cooper said. “Our kids line up for milk.”
As a parent, this issue is very important to me.
My older daughter has always hated milk (chocolate, strawberry, or otherwise), so I’ve had to make sure that she receives adequate calcium, Vitamin D, and protein in other ways.
I’m also the parent of a chocolate milk-aholic, for which I’m actually profoundly grateful. This is a kid who gives new meaning to the term “picky eater”, and any sort of nutrition she’ll take in is pretty much a gift. I should, however, note that her chocolate milks are rationed—she has a carton at school, of course, but she’s only allowed one cup with breakfast and dinner. She’s aware of this and is happy to drink “white milk” at all other times.
As far as I’m concerned, this whole thing is making completely needless mountains out of molehills.
What are your thoughts?
I think they have the right idea. It is parents who have taught kids that sugary milk is an even substitute for the real stuff, and parents could teach something else instead. There is an insane amount of sugar in that stuff, and it isn’t the healthy drink it has managed to be considered.
Of course, I also don’t believe that we are made to consume the secretions of another animals mammary glands, and that the milk industry has done a fabulous job of promoting their product into ubiquity.
I don’t think it’s bad for everyone, but I think it is by no means necessary, and all the ingredients can be found in other places. The emphasis on milk is nuts.
Why would you drink milk from another species? That is some sick twisted shit.
most people do it every day. cows. we didn’t really evolve to drink what was evolved for calves..
Being opportunistic omnivores, i don’t think any whole food is not “meant for us to eat”. We evolve and adapt to historical diets- this is true for northern Europeans who can metabolize milk and beer with no problem (and needed to as they couldn’t raise crops during a long winter so preserved foods and animal products were vital) – give the same food to Native Americans and you see higher levels of diabetes, alcoholism and lactose intolerance. So “we” is relative to where your ancestors were from.
I did not properly communicate the emphasis. it wasn’t “we’re NOT meant to eat this”. It was intended: “we’re not MEANT to eat this”
I don’t think there is anything wrong with milk.
But I do not think it is the necessity that the milk industry has managed to sell it into the food guides as. Yes, there was a time where milk of other animals was probably one of the only sources of necessary nutrients. But there are a lot of ways to get calcium today. Milk is merely one. While it certainly has benefits, we do not NEED to consume milk. It is the belief that it is a necessary critical part of a human diet that I disagree with.
(While I don’t enjoy milk on its own, without milk there would be no cheese. And that would be truly tragic.)
Way back in the moldy oldy days, my school cafeteria offered about 4/5ths “white” milk to 1/5 chocolate for every lunch. If you wanted chocolate milk, you had to be fast. If you missed out that day, you drank “white” milk, in the hopes that the next day you’d be one of the lucky ones.
Your argument seems to be that this is one of the only sources of calcium in a kid’s diet, but not the only source of sugar. The amount of calcium in a pint of milk, sweetened or not, is pretty pitiful. Milk didn’t become an “essential” part of a kid’s diet until dairy farms began to be subsidized, back at the beginning of the last century. I don’t think a kid’s bones are going to suffer horribly if they don’t get that pint of milk at lunch. They’ll definitely suffer if they have no other sources of calcium, though.
I know I’m stating the obvious, but parents should be offering more calcium-containing foods at home, and yes that means broccoli and greens like kale. What about keeping a gallon of milk in the refrigerator? My brother and I went through at least a couple of gallons a week when we were really growing. Then there’s cheese, unsweetened yogurt and fresh fruit, and low-fat cottage and fruit. I ate all these things as a kid!
Half of the sucrose molecule, though (the fructose half,) is metabolized through a kid’s liver and ends up turning in to fat most of the time. Sugar is the one thing we can guarantee without a doubt makes kids (and us!) fat. Seems to me like the benefit of cutting down at least one source of sugar in a child’s balanced meal is worth losing a little calcium over.
You are fat most of the time. Nobody cares.
I detest milk, so all I EVER drank in school was chocolate milk, just because I could force it down because it tasted better. Personally, I’m of the opinion that schools should offer bottled water as a substitute. They have bottled water in a lot of schools, but if you want it, you have to (at my school) pay $1.50 and they make you get the milk, anyway. Even if you wind up throwing it away. What a waste.
For environmental reasons, bottled water is a terrible idea.
Tap water is excellent in most places, and a tap-mounted brita filter does a good job in the couple left.
I drink the people’s water.
Out of all the unhealthy things they serve in school cafeterias, they are going after chocolate milk? My daughter is in middle school, and some of the items being served just this week are, hot dogs, cheese pizza and tuna sandwiches (loaded with mayo). The breakfast menu’s are 10 times worse and include french toast sticks with maple syrup, pancakes with maple syrup or sweet rolls. My daughter eats breakfast at home so that menu isn’t an issue for us. But seriously, THE WHOLE SYSTEM NEEDS TO BE RE-VAMPED!
I suspect they are not *just* going after chocolate milk – that’s just the one mentioned right here. Jaime Oliver, mentioned, is working to revamp the system
We need to keep in mind why it is we need calcium. A lot of this “increase calcium consumption” literature comes from the fact that if we do not ingest enough calcium, our bodies will take it from our bones. This is, of course, correct. However, similar to the bugaboo of cholesterol, we need to understand why our bodies are taking calcium from our bones.
The basic answer is our acidic/alkaline (base) ratio in our body, or pH balance. Because our nations diet switched from high-fat to high-grain (you’ll notice that grains are the largest portion of the U.S.D.A. food pyramid) in the late 1970′s, our food intake that is acidic has dramatically increased. The number one culprit is corn but wheat and soy contribute as well.
Even if you do not eat corn off the cob or from a can or whatever, you may still be ingesting a high amount through high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is highly acidic as is other sugars. So, that low/fat-free chocolate milk kids are given actually raises the amount of acid in the body making the body require more calcium. Not to mention that homogenized milk itself contains acidic properties. As an example, the second and third ingredient in Hood 1% low-fat chocolate milk is Sugar and HFCS, respectively. So all that awesome calcium that is being ingested is already trying to fight the acid from the sugars and from the milk itself.
Let’s take a look at the food pyramid again. Grains and fruits (high in fructose) will increase acid in the body. Fats and meats will produce alkaline. Where are these things on the pyramid? The grains, as mentioned, are the largest single portion and meats are the smallest (besides vegetable oils). Dairy is almost as large as grains but when you add those fruits in, the acidic pH balance moves to the acidic side rather easily. Cheeses are also acidic, especially of the hard variety so part of that dairy recommendation must be added to the acidic side.
This is why calcium is so strongly recommended. The pyramid, if followed directly, can very well lead to all of those calcium-deficient diseases everyone is so afraid of. A better balance would be decrease grains and sugars and increase fat intake. Why fat? As I said, it is an alkaline and it does not increase your insulin levels (grains will due to them converting to glucose in the GI tract, insulin directs glucose oxidation and storage). So two benefits happen. By lowering insulin levels, it is difficult for our body to store fat and secondly, you are bringing that pH balance back to where calcium intake is not as necessary (more so in adults but still applies to children).
A good analogy is this: I need more fire extinguishers because of all the fires I start in my house. In this case, the increase in fire extinguishers doesn’t really solve my problem of why so many fires are being started in the first place. If it is my control to stop the fires from starting–and it is–in the first place, the increased extinguishers wouldn’t be needed.
The same can be said for calcium intake.
God, you should change your name to Fatt Lames.
tl;dr
I can see why this is being discussed; milk already has a form of sugar naturally, so adding sugar is overkill. When we over-sugar everything kids eat, they form an addiction to it and need more sugar in things that shouldn’t have it anyways in order to taste it. Just like sodium, we need to back off the sugar altogether. I’ve switched to raw sugar and it took some getting used to, but now that I’ve adjusted to it I find it plenty sweet, and refined sugar is too sweet for me.
I think what’s crazy is even introducing chocolate milk in the first place.
Everything about most school lunches is unhealthy, and it’s much easier to stop serving sugared up milk than it is to completely revamp and retrain the cafeteria staff.
I’d call it a good first step.
I agree that it’s probably not chocolate milk causing the obesity problem, but it is one more sugary food that people think is healthy just because it has calcium.
My daughter hated milk too. Wouldn’t drink it. She liked chocolate milk, but I didn’t want her sugared up. So I resorted to other forms of calcium that weren’t loaded with sugar.
I would’ve loved it if her school didn’t offer her chocolate milk.
There’s almost as much calcium in a piece of lowfat string cheese as there is in a carton of chocolate milk.
Calcium gummy vitamins also have almost as much calcium as a carton of chocolate milk and only 3g of sugar compared to the nearly 12.5g of sugar in the chocolate milk.
It just seems completely unnecessary to give your kid a sugary drink in order to make sure they’re getting calcium.
True. But it’s way easier than say, parenting..
When I was a kid,we ate sugar and candy by the sack full,we also played baseball for 3 hours after school and tag and kick-the-can all night. Obesity and diabetes were pretty uncommon.
the activity makes the biggest difference, but there are other things too. If you ate it by the sackful, I think you were atypical. Junk may have been popular, but its portions were also much smaller, And most of the sugar came from sugarcane – not HFCS. There were a lot more ‘bad’ products with real fat and sugar, and a lot less strange processed sweeteners. I think all that stuff adds up as well.
I think the fact that so many foods that kids eat are doctored up with sugar is a giant problem.
I bet the sacks of candy Joey ate weren’t accompanied by chocolate milk, sugared up canned pasta, cereal that’s made of mostly sugar or apples dipped in caramel.
The caramel with apples thing really gets me. For fuck’s sake, apples are already sweet!
Have things really gotten to the point that kids need to have extra sugar and fat to convince them to eat a damned apple?!
I remember when caramel apples were a treat, not a bribe to eat fruit.
All I have to say is: Jamie Oliver is a knobhead. You can’t go around saying what is good and bad for children when you yourself had the ill-judgement of naming your own child BUDDY BEAR. Shut up, Jamie.
From whence comes this vitriol?
Okay, so maybe he shouldn’t be allowed to write a baby name book but that isn’t relevant to his credibility as a cook or nutritionist.
(I do not comment on his credibility as either – merely that the name of his child is not a relevant factor to it.)
One thing I think these choco-milk banners fail to take into account is that plain school milk tends to taste nasty. I was always a lover of milk as a child but I steered away from the plain milk in school because the cartons/packaging tended to give them an unpleasant taste. Chocolate flavouring masked that.
I am not so sure that kids WOULD turn to normal milk in the absence of the chocolate simply because, let’s be honest, the taste of many things in public school cafeterias is substandard and milk is no exception to that. (I once remember a carton of normal milk that actually tasted like PAINT. Awful and inexplicable.) Any attempt to mask that is a boon to kids.
WTF?
Has anyone checked on Joey lately???
He has been very quiet.
And, he lives near Minneapolis!
Lola, get on that.
He and a small dog we last seen somewhere over Kansas.
Thanks for your concern,I’m fine,two hundred miles from Mpls. I do have a nephew who was blocks from some major damage. Poor Joplin Mo.,they really got it.
Pingback: Only the Rich Eat Healthy? – Zelda Lily, Feminism in a Bra