The Eye of the Storm
Choicelunch is kicking off the school year with a reduced-sugar chocolate milk, which begs the question – just how much sugar has been “reduced”? And how much is still in there? There’s a lot of talk floating around about chocolate milk, and as a parent, it’s difficult to discern fact from sound bites.
Ann Cooper has labeled chocolate milk “soda in drag”, insinuating that chocolate milk and soda are equals in their sugary sweetness. Jamie Oliver was successful in pushing for ban of it in LAUSD in the most recent season of Food Revolution. So why would Choicelunch, a company that prides itself on it’s ingredients, whole foods, and scratch-cooking methods, have such a villanized beverage even in its kitchens? This paradox cannot be reconciled without first understanding how our program varies by school, and by taking a good, hard look at the chocolate milk we source.
I’d venture to guess that most parents have at least heard rumblings on chocolate milk by now. Proponents of it claim it’s a healthy vitamin-packed beverage; opponents claim it contributes to childhood obesity. Proponents cite a study that concludes overall milk consumption increases when chocolate milk is made available. Opponents cite that said study was funded by the “Milk Board”. Flavored milk is, without question, the school lunch lightning rod of 2011.
Kid beverage choices are tricky, and there are critics of all of them (except for maybe good ol’ tap water). Juice is seen as sugared water (no protein, no calcium), bottled water creates petroleum-based landfill waste and may lack flouride, sodas are an easy target and even “alternative milks” like soy milk are blamed for a rise in GMOs and questions about excess estrogen.
We get it; chocolate milk is not universally loved by parents. But the spectrum of opinions on the topic is exactly why Choicelunch provides “choice”. We allow schools to control what options are available at their school from a list of four different beverages (white milk, chocolate milk, 100% juice and water). At some schools, we offer only one or two drink options, as the school community has determined that the limited selection is ideal for their families.
Here’s the down low on milk: it contains natural sugar, called lactose. In one carton of 1% white milk there are 14 grams of sugar. For this school year, we’re offering new chocolate milk that contains 19-20 grams of sugar (19g in NorCal, 20g in SoCal). Other chocolate milk can contain upwards of 28 grams. The calorie content in our milk has also reduced from 150 down to 120 kcal. Even sodium has decreased. All of these positive changes have been made to this new carton of chocolate milk while still proving 30% of the RDA of bone-building Calcium, 25% of the recommended daily amount of Vitamin D, and 9 grams of Protein. Milk also contains as much vitamin A as two whole eggs, as much riboflavin (vitamin B2) as ¼ cup of almonds, and as much iron as two boxes of raisins found in our snack bin.
Is chocolate milk a better option than white milk? No. Is there sugar added? Yes. White milk has 14g of sugar from lactose, and the additional 5-6g of sugar in chocolate milk (sucrose) is added. As a frame of reference, a small packet of Heinz Simply Natural Ketchup has 4g of sugar. The added sugar in the chocolate milk is the equivalent to the sugar in 1 ¼ to 1 ½ packets of ketchup. For another data point, check out a package of M&M’s, which comes in at 31g of sugar. In an ideal world, our kids wouldn’t need the added sugar to drink milk. And they also wouldn’t need to put ketchup on roasted red potatoes. Part of our philosophy at Choicelunch is to make sure that if we’re serving something, it’s the best possible alternative out there. We’re always pushing the envelope, and it’s no different with our milk. Five years ago, we had a milk provider that would not guarantee hormone-free milk (you know those rBST free labels on the milk you buy now a days? It wasn’t so common back in 2006.) We switched milk providers. Fast forward to 2008 and we had a local dairy that had HFCS in their chocolate milk. When the dairy wouldn’t listen to our requests to remove it, we switched milk providers. And this summer, we switched again. We knew that two local dairies were developing fat free, lower sugar chocolate milk. These local dairies were answering the call from customers that were demanding they raise the bar. This is what Michael Pollan talks about when he writes that we are voting with every food dollar we spend.
We don’t expect to change anyone’s opinion on chocolate milk. In fact, a majority of our parents who responded to our summer survey seemed happy with all of our drink choices. Nevertheless, we’re proud to continue to push the envelope in our sourcing, and offer a “better than ever” chocolate milk this year. Even still, I encourage you to sit down with your kids and find out what they’re drinking at lunch. If chocolate milk is the only thing that does it for them, challenge them to change it up a bit. At the very least, if chocolate milk is a must have, encourage them to go easy on the ketchup that day!
