Chocolate Milk is Poison!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a serious problem.

Despite vigorous efforts to eliminate Childhood Obesity, despite stricter and stricter guidelines around what is allowed in a school lunch, how many calories are allowed to be eaten, what is and is not allowed to be brought from home, despite some of the most invasive attempts we've made,

There are still fat children!!!!

As such, we shouldn't try to think about why the programs aren't working. We shouldn't consider the possibility that not all bodies are meant to be exactly the same size, that having enough food to concentrate in school is worth the couple of pounds that it might- MIGHT - make a difference on, and we shouldn't try to see about overhauls in the school lunch system so that more nutritious, tastier, fresher food might be served.

We should just keep doing the same thing, only more.

Schools May Ban Chocolate Milk over Added Sugar

There's a lot of gems in here. There really are. I'm not sure I know enough to point out all of them but by all means, if anyone wants to add to it in the comments or blog yourself, please share. Let me see what I can pull out on my own, without an entire MST-ing of the entire article.

Well, first and all, this fricking demonization of chocolate milk. I've talked about this a little bit before but I really think it deserves its own post some day - this idea that there are Healthy and Unhealthy things to eat, and that you can entirely contradict the Healthiness of something by adding an Unhealthy thing to it. Milk is Healthy - no one is going to dispute this. Especially for young children, milk is a great way to get a whole host of essential vitamins and calcium and good growing nutrients. Sugar is Unhealthy - yes, fine, it doesn't do a whole lot on its own. It isn't POISON, but it's not the world's best source of either nutrients or energy.

Therefore, Milk plus Sugar is UNhealthy. Because it has Unhealthy sugar in it. Which cancels out the good part of being milk.

"When you're telling kids that drinking chocolate milk is a healthy choice, it's sending the wrong message." - Concerned Parent.

Oh look, a wild Jamie Oliver appears! Jamie Oliver used Invasive TV Program Credentials! Jamie Oliver used Stupid Oversimplification!

"If you have flavored milk, that's candy," he told The Associated Press.

It's not very effective.

People. Food tastes good. That's part of how our bodies recognize that it's healthful. Sugar and fat taste good because both fat and simple energy are vital to our survival. When well-prepared, thousands of other foods taste awesome. Broccoli, zuchinni, pasta, couscous, fruits of all shapes and sizes, sweet potato, white potato, corn, baby corn, carrots, mushrooms, celery, beans, rice....food OUGHT to taste amazing.

But this is what we're teaching these children: None of these foods are acceptably healthy if they become more palatable to a small child. Celery with peanut butter? Well, unless it's organic, peanut butter is all fatty and Unhealthy, so no go. Corn or potatoes with butter? of course not. Beans and rice with cheese on top? Fetch my smelling salts!

Milk with chocolate? Nope.

Here's one more thing that might actually make me angrier than the whole rest of the article though.

Concerned Parent used Ignore the Facts!

"But 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...
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."

Except, you have proof there. You have studies. Lots of children DON'T drink non-flavored milk. They just don't drink milk at all.

Maybe if you still offered them WHOLE milk they wouldn't hate it so much, too. Skim or 1% is all that's talked about in the whole article. Skim Chocolate, or Skim White milk. As someone who grew up on skim, let me tell you that whole milk is DELICIOUS.

But there's fat in it.

That makes it Unhealthy.

Really this all just makes me so glad to have missed the hysteria when I was in elementary school.