Comments on: Just Say No: D.C. Needs to Man Up to Sugar and Flavored Milk in Schools

By: Ed Bruske

Ed Bruske — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:43:32 +0000

Mom, as a parent, you are in a position to monitor everything your son consumes, so maybe he is not getting a lot of sugar and refined carbs from other sources. That’s certainly not the case in schools, where kids are being exposed to huge amounts of sugar every day from a variety of processed foods with no parental supervision.

By: momtoapickyeater

momtoapickyeater — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:32:10 +0000

I would want to weigh in on the side of flavored milk. Unbelievably. But I have one milk drinker and one non milk drinker…my milk drinking child is 2 and a half years younger than his brother and at 7 he is now the same height as his brother.

My elder child has never drunk cow’s milk, he always hated it…the younger one always loved it and craved it….

I decided to allow chocolate milk because the elder would drink it….

He is vegetarian and extremely picky and I eventually decided the greater good was that he needed the calories and calcium and protein that the chocolate milk had to offer…

So all I am asking is please dont make flavored milk the bogey man here…insist on real food. real fuit and vegetables and breads etc…
eliminating flavored milk is no panacea to learning to eat right.

my son is learning to deal with vegetables and whole grains but the chocolate milk we get delivered weekly from a Maryland farm helps in getting him the calories, calcium and protien he needs.

By: Aerangis

Aerangis — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:38:53 +0000

Keep up the great work. My wife and I have discussed this with our kids and our case study says that pre-school and kindergarten kids will choose Chocolate 9/10 times when given the choice between sweetened milk and regular milk. We’ll keep trying to get them to make a healthy choice and providing healthy meals at home in the meantime. BTW look for some interesting things along this thread in the coming week ;^) So happy to have found your blog!

By: MzT

MzT — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:05:10 +0000

A piece of the puzzle that I find interesting is the eating habits of the teachers in schools. I had occasion to work in an elementary school for a couple of years, and was truly astounded by the sheer volume of junk that teachers consume. If ever some horrible over-processed-gazzilion-ingredient “treat” crossed my path, I could just deposit it in the teacher’s lounge and watch it disappear. I have since heard from many others in other school settings that atrocious eating habits are commonplace among school staff. While I’m much more concerned with what the children are consuming, I find it intriguing to wonder at the relationship to how the adults staffing schools relate with food. I certainly don’t know what conclusion to draw!

By: libster

libster — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:32:06 +0000

I agree there is too much sugar served in the cafeteria, and I think they should limit or discontinue the flavored milk. My kids’ preschool class only gets it on Friday (so they tell me), but I would be happy if they didn’t get it at all. Plus, I see absolutely no reason why Froot Loops or similar sugary cereals should be served…ever. This is a hard one, though, because mom-approved food like Raisin Bran also contains high-fructose corn syrup and 19 grams of sugar (making me want to discontinue it in my house, tho’ some of the sugar probably comes from raisins), so writing the regulation to exclude high sugar items across the board might be difficult.

Cereal manufacturers have gotten sneaky – kids won’t eat regular Special K, so let’s make it with strawberries and coat each flake with sugar! Parents love things that say “Multigrain,” so let’s make “multigrain” Cheerios that are also sugar coated!

I do think that the food at Cooke is still a step above the mystery trays, but I agree it has a long way to go. It is hard getting kids to eat vegetables, and I admire them for trying to hand them out as snacks, even if the kids are throwing them away. My kids teacher must be making eating the snacks a game – my son comes home saying “we ate crunchy green peppers today!” Funny, ’cause he won’t eat them for me.

So, in terms of things we should change right away, I’d say GET RID OF THE FLAVORED MILK! Plus, could we do something that says cereals served must have less than 6 grams of sugar per serving, with an exception made for cereal with more than 5 grams of fiber? This may be splitting hairs, but I do see a difference between Raisin Bran (which at least has whole grain & raisins) and Froot Loops, and kids do need SOME choice other than cheerios and corn flakes.

By: simoncitosmom

simoncitosmom — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:12:25 +0000

Thank you for providing all this invaluable information on what’s going on in the lunchroom and the politics behind it. I’ve been very upset about all the sugar, particularly the flavored milk, but didn’t know where to start the fight. Our principal says she has no control over the cafeteria, and has to accept the menu as is, including the flavored milk.

That said, here’s some food for thought: I worry that an attack on Chartwells might just get us a reversion to the packaged mystery food the kids were getting before “Fresh Cooked.”

By: Ed Bruske

Ed Bruske — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:35:53 +0000

Cwhite, first, congratulations on your grassfed milk, as well as your pastured pork. We are big believers in naturally-raised meats and dairy. Are your cows really kept on pasture most of the time? We get most of the meat we eat and all of our dairy from a grassfed dairy in Maryland. As far as chocolate milk goes, I am sure yours is a better product than what kids are getting in school. Not just the milk itself, but the other ingredients you are adding. Nutritionally, there’s really no difference between high-fructose corn syrup and can sugar. We don’t support high-fructose corn syrup because of how it is produced. Plus, fructose is metabolized somewhat differently in the body in that it goes directly to the liver and may be implicated in a surge of fatty liver disease and other health problems. That said, I would not be able to recommend your product for schools, because I come down the same place as the experts I quoted in this blog post: if parents want to feed their kids flavored milk at home, that’s on them. But not in school.

By: cwhite12

cwhite12 — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:14:45 +0000

I sell chocolate milk from a local grass fed dairy. The chocolate milk is made with 100% cocoa and pure cane sugar. I am interested in your thoughts on this type of chocolate milk. Good, bad, or better than conventional?