Chocolate milk

1st grader stands up for Chocolate Milk and choice

Chocolate Milk image by anthimeria via Flickr

Washington D.C. first grader Aidan Kohn Murphy from Lafayette elementary does an awesome job explaining why he and other children are actually better off keeping chocolate milk in schools.

Aidan’s Testimony

This young man did hid homework and polled fellow students and a doctor. His conclusion, the nutrients available in chocolate milk are “real food” and even with a little sugar are better than a soda.

I commend this young man for standing up for choices.

Related articles

• What’s wrong with a little chocolate fun? (raylindairy.wordpress.com)
• Child advocates push to ban chocolate milk in schools (charlotte.news14.com)
• L.A. School District Bans Chocolate Milk at Schools (shoppingblog.com)

What’s wrong with a little chocolate fun?

Chocolate milk provides great nutrition with awesome taste

Currently there is a large movement to ban flavored milk such as chocolate or strawberry milk in schools. The evict flavored milk from school’s movement is based on the obesity epidemic we’re faced with in today’s youth. Personally as a parent and a school board member I do not agree with regulating away products and services just because good eating and exercise habits are not being taught to children at home.

First and foremost children should be taught good eating habits at home so they can use those skills later in life. Second children need to be taught good exercise habits so they know how to work with their diet choices to live a healthy life. Schools have a responsibility to augment the skills learned at home however too often I see the school replacing the home learning in the area of life skills development. What has happened to self accountability and parental responsibility? I firmly believe that if kids look to physical activity before they pick up the Nintendo DS‘s, Television Remote, or Video Game Controllers along with healthier eating habits the road to healthy children will get shorter.

As parents my wife and I watch what our children eat very closely, are we perfect, no, however we do our best to teach them good choices. We limit the soda’s they have to very few and use them as a treat just like the occasional candy or cookie. The dairy farmer in me tends to err on the side of the 9 essential  nutrients the milk has , such as calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamins A, D, B12, riboflavin and niacin (niacin equivalents), and not focus on the 1 negative, minimal added sugar in flavored milk. The most consist beverage in our children’s lunch is water, however on occasion our son and daughter like to enjoy a milk at school. They sometimes choose white milk and sometimes chocolate milk. Because of challenges keeping milk cold we prefer milk from school because it is kept refrigerated right up to consumption. There is nothing worse than having a cooling issue with milk in a lunch and ending up with sour milk. If schools remove flavored milk my right to let my children enjoy flavored milk is taken away.

As this diagram below shows very few beverages including juices contain as much nutrition as flavored milk.

Chocolate Milk Good, Evil, or in between?

I feel offended that my parental right to let my children enjoy food and have some fun while still receiving nutrients can be legislated away because of a small negative when weighed against the positives. I am a firm believer that if the good outweighs the bad then something should not be labeled as evil. Do we need to look at reducing sugar in flavored milk, yes we do, and I as a dairy farmer feel it is long overdue. There are low calorie non sugar sweeteners available that can be used such as stevia. 

My mother has worked in food service at a local large school district and witnessed the tremendous increase in milk consumption at the Jr. High School level when flavored milk was introduced in the school  instead of white milk as the only choice. White milk is great and nutritious but how fun is just plain white add a little color and flavor and you create a masterpiece of flavor and nutrition that is second to none!

So as parents, school leaders and society let’s advocate for a little fun and make school a more enjoyable experience for our kids to achieve the maximum learning possible!

Related articles

• Time to modernize chocolate milk industry (dinogiacomazzi.com)
• Preschoolers need just 2 cups of milk a day: MD (cbc.ca)
• Flavored milk no longer a choice in LA schools (seattletimes.nwsource.com)