We recently read a series of articles prompted by the National Dairy Council’s new ad campaign titled “Raise your hand for chocolate milk“. The premise of the campaign is that removing low fat chocolate milk from school cafeterias “could do more nutritional harm than good.”
If not low fat chocolate milk, then what? Soda? Fruit juice? White milk? Water? The merits of flavored milks must be measured against the alternative. Chocolate milk has more calories than white milk with similar fat content, so if that’s the comparison being made, white milk wins out. The extra calories can add up to something substantial: over the school year, who needs an additional 40-60 calories (in the form of milk flavorings) per day, if they’d be willing to drink white milk?
By the Numbers
So how do the options stack up?
| 1 cup | Calories | Sugar (g) | Fat (g) |
|---|---|---|---|
| White Milk (Skim) | 86 | 12.5 | 0.4 |
| White Milk (1%) | 102 | 12.7 | 2.4 |
| White Milk (2%) | 122 | 12.3 | 4.8 |
| Chocolate Milk (1%) | 158 | 24.9 | 2.5 |
Source: caloriecount.about.com
The Rationale
The National Dairy Council’s nutrition resources page cites the following as a lead-in to discussing the merits of flavored milk:
The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) recommends 2 cups of low-fat or fat-free milk or equivalents (i.e., cheese, yogurt) daily for children aged 2 to 8 years, and 3 cups or equivalents daily for people aged 9 years and older because of milk’s important nutrient contributions to the diet.
No debate there, but the leading observation of the article is that people aren’t consuming the dairy they are supposed to. Is the answer to sweeten milk up with chocolate, strawberry and root beer flavors to make it more palatable, as the study suggests? Or does that exacerbate the problem? Certainly our ancestors didn’t have this issue … in an agriculture-centered economy, milk was a staple, and didn’t compete with displays and advertising for soft drinks, energy drinks, or any of the other bottled beverages.
Education and Praise
While researching this post, we ran across a study by a team at the University of South Carolina Upstate. The study held an education and awareness day to help students understand the differences between white milk and flavored milk. This initial lesson was reinforced for the following two weeks, and then an incentive program (a sticker and a bell to ring) was introduced. The results are encouraging, noting:
More than 70 percent of the students in all grades are choosing white milk, a dramatic increase from 20 percent in October. Kindergarteners led the way with 93 percent choosing white milk over flavored milk.
Appropriate Choices
Chocolate milk certainly has its place. It tastes great, is filled with calcium, and has only 56 more calories and 12.2 grams of sugar than its 1% white milk counterpart. Consider it a dessert in place of a cookie in the lunchbox, enjoy it as an after school snack or post-workout refreshment. At the same time, let’s make sure our schools offer low fat (1%) and skim milk and educate our children about healthy choices.
What do you think? Let us know below!
More about Amy and Scott Dawson, creators of Lunchtaker.com: One of our core focuses is on nutrition and fitness. Our children both attended a parent cooperative pre-school where the morning snack was as healthy as possible, and our family liked the opportunities for new foods that arose in pre-school. As our children go through grade school, we are focusing on continuing the trend of ensuring we feed ourselves a variety of foods, all good for our bodies... read more...
Posted Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 9:40 am and filed under Dietary Guidelines, Education, Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I was reading your blog entry and did some more looking. I found this website about flavored milk, provided by the dairy council. http://www.nutritionexplorations.org/parents/flavored.asp
I wish that we could encourage children to drink unflavored milk when they are young, to develop a taste for it, and then hopefully they won’t need so much added sugar just to keep liking milk as they get older.
There is lots of talk out there in the running community as well as in organized sports about the benefits of chocolate milk as a recovery drink. One school has even switched from providing their athletes with Gatorade after practice to providing them with chocolate milk. Cheaper for the school to provide. Check out these links:
http://runningdoctor.runnersworld.com/
http://www.ketv.com/health/21787605/detail.html