Chocolate milk has all the calcium of regular milk, in a form that most kids will drink. I think you’re going to lose that battle.
We have skimmed milk and chocolate soy milk in the house at all times. I drink the chocolate soy for the phyotestrogens (it’s the only form of soy I can stand the taste of - and only Silk brand - the rest taste like garbage). My husband drinks a couple of cups of cow milk per day; I’ve had to lay off the cow milk since I became somewhat intolerant of dairy (I find I can have some, but not lots).
Chocolate milk has all the calcium of regular milk, in a form that most kids will drink. I think you’re going to lose that battle.
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Given the recent emphasis on childhood obesity and removing junk food from the schools, the number of parents who’ve expressed displeasure over the school offering something so high in HFCS/sugar in general AND the fact that we just lost PE due to budget cuts, I guess my goal has a fair to good chance of success.
This is a school which serves vegetarian meals daily, composts, gardens, bans soda and candy sales, and has strict rules re’ what foods can be brought in for special events…not a huge leap to point out that the chocolate milk is as high in sugar as candy or soda and should not be part of the menu.
And to raise the issue that if the chocolate milk were not there, the kids who drink cow milk would drink it plain OR just drink choco-milk at home, like the kids who drink soy/rice milks do.
Hi, Interested Observer. Ban chocolate milk? Jeez, that’s cold. I’m guessing you’d take away Maggie Simpson’s binky, too. :^)
I don’t drink it myself and have looked down on it since 7th grade, but a cup has got 8 grams of protein and a hefty dose of calcium. Getting my daughter to eat protein is a struggle. And as you’ve reported there are kids who will drink chocolate milk but not other kinds.
I voted almond milk and other, the other is for Lactose-free cow’s milk. I usually buy the skim Lactaid because I don’t use a lot and that’s the only kind they have in the quart size. I mostly just use it for cereal or lattes because the almond milk just doesn’t taste right in those. I use the almond milk for smoothies.
Let her drink a small carton of choco milk every day. i wont hurt her. If you get the school to remove it, all the kids will know her pricky dad was the reason. They will resent it.
Interested Observer, check what type of chocolate milk they get. I know when I went to public school, they served packets of regular milk and chocolate milk. They included the nutritional facts on the back.
It turned out, the chocolate milk was made with 1% milk, versus 3.5% of the regular milk, which was whole. The total nutritional difference came about even, with perhaps an extra 20 calories in the chocolate milk. Seriously, it was less than 100 caloric difference. It surprised me.
Since I don’t like how whole milk tastes anyways, I spent most of my high school drinking chocolate milk for lunch.
“Hey, Ma, I’m going out to the barn now to milk the soybeans!”
This isn’t the poll I was expecting at all. When I clicked on the thread, I was expecting the choices to be skim, whole, and 2%. That’s what “kind of milk” means to me. I never even heard of people drinking “soy milk” or “rice milk” until relatively recently. I’m too old and set in my ways; anything other than good old dairy cows’ milk seems… unnatural.
I drink the protein- and calcium-enriched skim stuff. I drink enough milk that the reduction in calories makes a real difference, and I prefer the taste to regular skim, which tastes like water to me.
InterestedObserver, you may be interested in this 2009 Rule from the Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA. It states that the sale or marketing of fluid milk (which includes flavored milk) cannot be restricted by schools that participate in the school lunch program. And here is an article in the New York Times about the issue of sugar-sweetened flavored milk. School districts that participate in the federal school nutrition program are required to serve cow’s milk. Failing to do so means the district’s program falls out of compliance, which means they risk losing their reimbursement from the federal government. This is a very real concern to districts, whose lunch programs are already operating on very thin margins, and the money they receive from the USDA, among other sources, can mean the difference between being able to provide a lunch program to all of its students and having to price itself out of the reach of the poor students. Here is a radio program from my local NPR station about school lunches that is also very enlightening.
The upshot of all of this is that you may win on the issue of removing flavored cow’s milk, but you will certainly lose on the issue of removing all cow’s milk, because it’s not possible. You might also find out if your daughter’s school has an online system that will track your daughter’s purchases in the cafeteria; this will help you monitor things.
That being said, my son won’t drink milk for love or money. He might drink chocolate milk, maybe. He does like yogurt, but the regular stuff has as much (or more) sugar than chocolate milk. So we keep sugar-free yogurt at home for him to snack on. He gets his calcium and protein, and a lot less sugar in the bargain. It’s a good compromise.
UHT skimmed cow’s milk, just to go in my tea because I don’t like to drink it black. The creamy taste of full fat milk makes me gag and I don’t find semi-skimmed much better.
I’m surprised that there’s no votes yet for “other mammal”, given that a great many (possibly even a majority) of households do in fact use milk from a mammal other than cows or goats.
UHT milk tastes nasty. Even when cooked in stuff, it can taste weird. It tastes like when mom would overcook her gravy.
I used to not only be allergic to milk, but hate the taste. But now that I’ve gotten older, I crave it sometimes. The problem with soy or rice milk is that it’s either too sweet (vanilla flavored) or tastes nothing like milk. And either way it leaves a sickly sweet aftertaste in my mouth.
That said, my sister is somwehat allergic to milk (and soy), so we’ve had rice milk on occasion, so I guess I do “use” it.
One of the great mysteries of life to me is how people can stand skim milk. It’s just so nasty! I prefer whole milk- I don’t drink enough for it to make a difference calorie-wise- but I can go along with 2%. That’s as low of a milkfat as I’m willing to go. From a cow.
I only use heavy cream (from cow’s milk) as I’m on a high-fat and high-calorie diet whole-foods diet. I consume at least 1/2 pint daily. I like whole milk but it seems like I break out more when I drink it, so I don’t.
Several years ago I stopped using real dairy and switched to soy products for almost a year of dairy-free vegetarianism. It appeared to contribute to a royal fuck-up of my delicate hormonal balance (irregular cycles, annovulation, ovarian cysts, constant spotting, more pain, worse PMS) and it took more than year after I changed my eating habits for things to get back to normal. I’m a bit scared of the humble soybean now.
I was allergic to cow’s milk until after first grade. I wasn’t allowed to get it at school. After that, I drank the 8 ounce carton at school because it was all we had to drink. I never really developed a taste for it as a beverage unless it was flavored up such as chocolate milk or a milkshake. I don’t remember the last time I drank milk, but I’m sure it was chocolate milk at school since I was a teacher until March 2010, but I usually just drank the tea they had for teachers.
Cheese, however, is one of the best foods ever created. Ice cream and butter are fine, too. For milk as a cooking ingredient, I keep non-fat dehydrated milk around.
We get both cow’s milk and soy milk. My mother drinks skim, but everyone else drinks whole. (I, personally, am of the belief that skim is milk-flavored water. I don’t care how low-fat it is, it’s gross and I refuse to drink it.) We also occasionally get a carton or two of Silk. I actually prefer chocolate Silk to regular chocolate milk, because it tastes richer and more fudgey.
Legally speaking it’s a “dairy product”, not milk. Lactose-free cow’s milk, if available, preferably skim or 2%. I can have a glass of not-lactose-free milk without getting sick (gassy but not, ehrm, urgently sick), but a second glass will have… consequences… and I tend to have my milk by the carton (oops, where did it go? Ah, here poke tummy)
I first discovered I had problems with lactose the last time I was living in the USA, in 2002 if I’m not miscounting; lactofree was not available, but lactase pills were available OTC so I’d have those when I knew I was going to eat the kind of dairy that gave me problems. I discovered lactofree when I was living in Switzerland, they had lactose-free Président in the French supermarkets (as in they actually were in France, I was at the border). Lactofree entered the Spanish market a couple years ago and it’s slowly growing, supermarkets are starting to sell it as part of their white brands, but lactase tablets are “prescription only” and involve getting an official diagnosis.