Chocolate Milk has been in the news lately, claiming that it isn’t such a bad guy after all. The New York Times ran an article claiming that chocolate milk may help reduce the risk of heart disease. That all sounds pretty good, but where did all this come from? When a study like this comes out, I always like to ask myself who paid for the research? Not that I throw every bit of science I see out the door if I don’t know where it came from, but it’s good to ask. In this case, I have to wonder, with the Child Nutrition Act up for re-authorization, and so many schools and parents taking a hard look at what kids are eating, might it be milk companies that paid for this research? Science isn’t free, and experts saying nice things about chocolate milk is just so timely and so helpful for people who want to sell more of it. But I shouldn’t be so critical. The facts are these: a study showed that chocolate milk seemed to help in preventing atherosclerosis (though the scientists stressed that more studies are necessary before any real conclusions can be reached) and milk companies jumped on it. There are now ad campaigns focused on keeping chocolate milk in schools, and milk company press talking about the nutritional benefits of milk that far outweigh the harm of chocolate. So what’s wrong with regular milk? According to the milk companies,kids won’t drink it. According to chef Ann Cooper, who recently removed chocolate milk from her entire Colorado school district, nothing. Kids are fine drinking plain old white milk, and its sugarier cousins are gone.
