"5 Reasons Why Flavored Milk Matters" Propaganda....

Today at the Minnesota State Fair, we made an annual stop at the "All You Can Drink Milk" booth.  This is a popular booth at the fair with roughly 15 lines of people minimally 10-15 people deep at all times.  Most people are toting buckets of Sweet Martha's Chocolate Chip Cookies.  For $1, you can have all the milk, white or chocolate that you can handle.  With Jacob having been part calf most of his life and being a non soda drinker, this is his Mecca. 

People Lined Up For AYCD Milk!

This year was the first time that I found propaganda in their space.  Without question, the pressures being put on schools by people like Jamie Oliver as I talked about in this post are causing more than just regional impact on how people are thinking differently.  I picked up a flyer titled "5 Reasons Flavored Milk Matters".  Let's review them from a counterpoint perspective and see if they really have 5 valid points.

1. Nine Essential Nutients - It says right on the flyer that flavored milk has the same nine essential nutrients as white milk.   So if it is the same, what is the gain here?  No point.
2. Kids Love The Taste - Seriously?  Kids love chocolate?  I would never have guessed.  Next they will start publishing studies that if given a choice, kids will choose cookies over fruits and veggies!  No point.
3. Helps Kids Get 3 Servings A Day - Like #1, no different than white milk.  No point.
4. Better Diet Quality -  Kids that drink flavored milk meet more of their nutrient needs; do not consume more added sugar, fat or calories; and are not heavier than non-milk drinkers.  This makes me want to scream!  Flavored milk contains 10g added sugar than white milk for a 1/2 pint.  That already disqualifies this.  Also, to compare the weight of flavored milk drinkers to non-milk drinkers in terms of weight, etc is a farse!  Milk drinkers or not, kids are eating junk everywhere so you are comparing 2 like groups!  ABSOLUTELY NO POINT!
5. Top Choice In Schools - Low Fat chocolate milk is the most popular choice in schools, and kids drink less milk, and get fewer nutrients, if it's taken away.  This is just a restated version of #2.  Of course kids will choose chocolate over white!  Maybe if the schools served up better food overall, those that dislike white milk won't be missing out so much.  There is more than 1 way to get these essential nutients aside from milk without caving in with flavored milk every day.  No point!

This all comes to you courtesy of the Midwest Dairy Association.  A member of our community wellness group made a comment in a meeting that she did not feel flavored milk was the enemy.  Maybe not completely but in the state of things with how our children eat, let's get balance back before we make that call.  This could be the first generation of kids that do not outlive their parents in life expectancy.  This is from a plethora of causes but right now we need big changes across the board.  Yes, that includes removal of flavored milk.

If Jake wanted chocolate today (they were sold out), would I have said no?  Absolutely not.  This was the fair - a treat - a diversion from everyday life.  That is what eating outside of the norms should be based on.  Every day in school is a completely different story and why we as a country are so overweight.  We have lost that sense of what a treat is.  Our 90/10 split is more like 99/1 but in the wrong direction. 

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!