Sugar Buzz!

I saw today that the LAUSD (Los Angeles School District) decided to keep chocolate milk out of schools beginning July 1. This is a good move. For those of you that do not watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, the show was most likely one of the key drivers although another woman had been pushing for this for over a year.



In one episode, to demonstrate the amount of ADDED sugar kids in LAUSD had in one week, he filled a bus with the amount of sugar they were consuming. Pretty scary! It filled the bus and ran out the windows.

The one board member that opposed this change, proclaiming that a TV show host should not have that much influence over the board had it all wrong. She compared the amount of sugar in fruit juices that they serve to be eqivalent to the chocolate milk. The point of the needed change is not the total grams of sugar but the ADDED SUGAR they were getting.

A 1/2 pint of skim white milk has 10g of sugar. A 1/2 pint of skim chocolate milk has 20g of sugar. The juice she compared to had 20g of sugar also but assuming the juice was 100%, it was not added sugar. Now, we all know from what we learned at Hilton Head Health that the sugars and calories in juices need to be moderated too, but I'll still consider this a win! In the realm of Unwise, Better, Best, the chocolate milk is unwise, juice is better and white skim milk is best!

Since I spent 4 weeks at H3, I am so hyper-aware of the sugars and calories in everything around me. I am also very aware of the choices those around me make and have to bite my lip vs. speak out. I am just a short way down my journey I realize. I ended up where I was because of a lack of knowledge.

Thank goodness for people like Bob Wright teaching what he does and for people like Jamie Oliver for taking it to the airwaves. We are plagued by obesity and all of the co-morbidities in this country. Every small change like removing chocolate milk will help!