"Let Them Drink Chocolate"
Mark Oppenheimer writes for The New York Times about stupidity in the name of dietary health for children:
When the district took away chocolate milk, it substituted skim milk. (The district already offered 1 percent milk.) If the goal was, as the researchers suggested, to make white milk more "attractive," why didn't they consider offering whole milk, the tastiest, most satisfying white milk, rather than the watery stuff that I, for one, can't go near?The answer, surely, is that the milk study wasn't just about milk. It was about virtue. To the anti-chocolate mind-set, whole milk is still too decadent. It's creamy, fatty, enjoyable. Even if it's healthier than chocolate milk, it's still too sinful.
I do think government should take obesity seriously and try to nudge people toward healthier behavior. Our farm bills should not favor corn, and thus cheap corn syrup. We should build bicycle lanes, not more highway lanes. And we should ensure that all Americans, even those without cars, have access to markets with affordable fruits and vegetables.
But food is in its own category, and we don't want to be too puritanical about it. For one thing, while we all know that, say, exercise is good, the conventional wisdom is always changing on which foods are bad. Some research has indicated, for example, that drinking whole milk is associated with being thinner. And as the Cornell team was forced to conclude, hooking children with a temptation like chocolate milk ups their overall milk consumption, as well as the likelihood that they'll take the healthy school lunch. In all sorts of ways, then, skim milk may be bad for the student body's nutrition.
But more important, sweets, unlike commuter miles in an S.U.V., are necessary to the good life. We wisely use sweets to celebrate milestones. Sweets help make family rituals: My father believed that one was remiss not to drink Coca-Cola with our Friday-night pizza. And, as I am reminded this week, foods sanctify religious occasions. Right now, my family's special collision of vegetarianism and Judaism necessitates a good bit of chocolate. But when Passover ends, that doesn't mean we should put the chocolate cake, or the chocolate milk, away.
I don't eat starchy carbs -- no sugar, flour, rice, potatoes, bananas or any fruit -- but I eat either a small chocolate bar or a scoop of gelato once a week. Without that I'd feel deprived.
As a kid, my mother worked the deprivation strategy. What it turned me into was a kid who'd dive into raw sewage after an m&m. (Wipe it off with a Kleenex and it's good as new!)
A healthy diet is a good thing -- filled with a lot of fat and nutrients (for example, whole milk, which is actually the most nutritious kind, and chocolate milk from time to time). A Puritan diet is not a healthy thing, because it causes you to always feel like you're missing something -- leading to your sticking your face in a giant Oreo bag and never coming out.
via @WalterOlson
Lustig's takedown of chocolate milk in this video is brutal.
Brutal.
Do not take chocolate milk into your body.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 21, 2014 11:06 PM
"I do think government should take obesity seriously and try to nudge people toward healthier behavior."
NO, no, no, government should not be in the business of "nudging" anyone on anything.
What I eat, or don't eat, what my kids eat or don't eat isn't anybody else's business. And it certainly isn't the business of the government.
Government should take less of OUR money and shut the hell up!
Charles at April 22, 2014 2:19 AM
> NO, no, no, government should not be
> in the business of "nudging" anyone
> on anything.
Dood, too late to be a virgin.
If your libertarian enthusiasm is sincere, you should deeply resent the commercial and regulatory distortions which the ag businesses have demanded from government.
There's nothing about today's children that's making this happen when it didn't for their parents or grandparents. These kids aren't having their internal organs crushed under their own weight because they're leading lives of vigorous liberty.
Policy did this to these children. They're being governmentally "nudged" into lives of sluggishness, illness and enormous expense.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 22, 2014 2:45 AM
Charles: Follow the Money.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 22, 2014 3:26 AM
Here's fun headline.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 22, 2014 3:48 AM
Here, you can get UHT (overly pasteurized milk which sits on a shelf for months, I don't buy it because as a veg I count on dairy to give me the Bvitamins I need, not to be found in the UHT) or fresh.
Fresh comes in whole milk, or reduced fat "Drink" milk. Get this... the "Drink" milk is 2.9%. Skim yoghurt is very hard to find as well. Forget frozen yoghurt, maybe in a shop that caters to foreigners. They do have yoghurt flavored ice cream, though.
On the other hand, maybe the rest of the food served to the kids is so high in fat that the fat in milk would be too much? I dunno.
NicoleK at April 22, 2014 4:20 AM
High fat food is good for you -- if it's meat fat, avocados, etc. In fact, dietary researcher Dr. Jeff Volek, on my radio show, called for people to eat plenty of fat and some protein.
And Crid, chocolate milk every now and then is like chocolate ice cream every now and then or a cookie every now and then. If the milk is fat-free, then there's a problem.
Lustig on Diane Rehm's show:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-01-07/dr-robert-lustig-fat-chance-beating-odds-against-sugar-processed-food-obesity-and-0
Amy Alkon at April 22, 2014 5:19 AM
Whole milk? Healthy? B.S.
Milk is not human food. It's baby formula for cows. A person's ability to digest lactose is gone by the time they're six years old.
Patrick at April 22, 2014 5:19 AM
Patrick, some people can digest lactose; some cannot. I can. I can't, however, eat roquefort cheese. It makes me deathly ill. So I avoid roquefort cheese. The same should go for those who can't deal with milk or any other food.
And no, I'm of course not for the government up in what kids eat. This is how we got into such an unhealthy diet in the first place, as my radio show guest for this weekend, the incredible Denise Minger (of The China Study debunking fame) notes in detail in her new book, Death by Food Pyramid: How Shoddy Science, Sketchy Politics and Shady Special Interests Have Ruined Our Health.
Amy Alkon at April 22, 2014 5:26 AM
It would be interesting to see just how many kids would be in poor shape if they had to do CHORES every day after school. Many have said that the inventions of the dishwasher and the washing machine led, in part, to the national obesity problem - but one can do extra dusting and vacuuming to make up for it, maybe.
lenona at April 22, 2014 6:47 AM
Everything is human food if you can digest it. I never bought the "cow's milk is designed for baby cows" argument. We're as wildly successful as we are, as a species, because we can adapt like few other species can.
On a different note, we get our milk from a local farm. They deliver it every week in glass bottles. It's so good. Get it locally if you can.
Yogurt doesn't have to be gross and sweet. Plain yogurt made with whole milk is delicious. It's not that hard to make yourself, but you can get it at any supermarket, too. Add just a touch of sugar if you prefer it sweeter.
MonicaP at April 22, 2014 7:02 AM
What "government" means: out-of-control, special-interest driven, money-following greediness.
What "government" should mean, and often does mean at the local level: people, just like the rest of us, trying to make things better for everyone.
Local government is accountable (people tell you that you suck, if you do, wherever they see you - at the grocery store, at the oil change place, at school functions). It works reasonably well.
The problem is not government, per se. It is that we give over things that should be local decisions, to people who have no accountability to us, personally. If we think we should serve fruit from the farmers market, and whole milk, to our kids in school, it should be local government's job to decide that.
I am not anti-government. I just believe that local government generally does a better job at most things.
flbeachmom at April 22, 2014 7:02 AM
leading to your sticking your face in a giant Oreo bag and never coming out
The only way out is thru the bottom of the bag.
Wut? I'm fortunate to have developed an allergy to chocolate in my 20s. Let's just say the symptoms are...unpleasant, but not life threatening.
I R A Darth Aggie at April 22, 2014 7:40 AM
Egad.
Commercial chocolate milk is made with skim, 1percent, or fat-free milk - look at labels at the supermarket. Schools do not mix it themselves. Why they would drop it entirely, in all forms, I do not know - perhaps the community is largely non-European, and thus mostly lactose intolerant?
Losing ability to digest by age six: if you are not of European origin, cow milk is only digestible until about two or three years, true. but if you are of European ancestry, digestibility is life-long.
Recent research does show eating fats - or drinking it in milk from various animals (goat milk, even horse milk) - is not as bad as we had been told, more likely to be a good thing.
UHT milk: I use it because I do not go shopping and I am lucky enough to live where a couple of markets will deliver. I started when I was living without refrigeration, and have kept on since it will keep the two or three weeks (rated at over a year) between deliveries while fresh milk goes bad at three to four days even with refrigeration.
John A at April 22, 2014 7:46 AM
"Commercial chocolate milk is made with skim, 1percent, or fat-free milk..." - John A
This drives me nuts at the store! What Federal regulation says that chocolate milk manufacturers can't use whole milk? I know I can make my own with chocolate syrup or Nesquik and whole milk, but it doesn't come out the same because I can never mix it well enough. The low fat version is simply nowhere near as satisfying.
Fayd at April 22, 2014 8:00 AM
From the >ACSH:
Jim P. at April 22, 2014 8:59 AM
It would be interesting to see just how many kids would be in poor shape if they had to do CHORES every day after school.
Chores probably aren't enough to make up for super-sized burgers, fries, soda and all the cake you can eat, unless your chores happen to include cleaning out the stables.
Fitday estimates that washing dishes by hand for 30 minutes burns about 160 calories. That seems a little high to me. That's probably an estimate for adults of average height and weight. I know I don't work that hard washing dishes, and it rarely takes me half an hour.
MonicaP at April 22, 2014 9:47 AM
> chocolate milk every now and then is
> like chocolate ice cream every now and
> then or a cookie every now and then. If
> the milk is fat-free, then there's a problem.
Preposterous— A few grams of fat in no way diminishes the hazards from hundreds of calories of added sugar.
You're often to eager to be right about stuff in a hurry.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 22, 2014 12:06 PM
Eat and drink what you like. If it starts disagreeing with you, stop eating it. If a loved one gives you shit, pat them on the head and tell them it will be okay. If anyone else gives you shit, take a huge bite of whatever they don't want you to eat, and get in their face. Make yummy sounds. Try not to choke, it ruins the effect.
In the words of Weird Al:
La-la-la-la-la-lasagna
Don't you get any on ya, you sloppy pig
Have some more ravioli
Make you get roly-poly, and nice and big
Like you cousin Luigi
Luigi, Luigi, I know you like,
I know you like, I know you like
La, lasagna...la, lasagna...la lasagna...
Or words to that effect
Pricklypear at April 22, 2014 1:17 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/04/22/let_them_drink.html#comment-4524116">comment from MonicaPUnsweetened yogurt only tastes terrible when it is fat-free, in my experience.
(Comment from earlier, but I forgot to hit "post.")
Amy Alkon at April 22, 2014 1:40 PM
My husband and I both became lactose intolerant around age 25. Any other dairy product is fine, though; I get sick only if I have something like a donut or cake that has a lot of sugar and carbs.
My kids drink whole milk. My husband tried to get me to switch to 2% a few months ago. It probably doesn't make much of a difference, but I refused.
Sosij at April 22, 2014 3:34 PM
"Policy did this to these children. They're being governmentally "nudged" into lives of sluggishness, illness and enormous expense."
Right. Let's not forget that, without government subsidies and price supports on cane sugar, the market for HFCS wouldn't exist. Even ignoring the possible health effects, it's an inferior sweetener and more expensive to transport because it's bulkier.
None of this is an anomaly or an accident. It's how Big Government rolls. As the govenment slowly nationalizes the food industry by facism, expect a lot more of this sort of thing.
Cousin Dave at April 23, 2014 6:46 AM
John, I've nothing against UHT milk, I buy it before vacations. It's just that as a vegetarian, it's a source of several things for me that get destroyed with the UHT process. If you're not a veg, you're getting those vitamins from other sources and don't need them from your milk.
NicoleK at April 23, 2014 9:07 AM
Fayd: stick it in the blender. Then you can even use just the powder and sugar, the blender will mix it well enough. You can determine how much or little sugar to add, odds are even if you have a sweet tooth you will use less than the commercial stuff. You can also add vanilla, cinnamon, etc.
NicoleK at April 23, 2014 9:08 AM
My kids are still on whole milk, and on whole milk they will stay. They're SKINNY little things. We don't do a lot of sugar. It's not that I deprive them, I just don't (and never did) buy the sweetened versions of lots of things, like applesauce with added sugar (WHY?? It's loads of sugar as it is!!)or added sugar peanut butter. They got tons of candy on easter. They get a few days of eating as much as they care too, then the leftovers just....disappear. They've yet to complain. Dessert is occasional here, not daily. At a bday party? Have what you want. Normal day? Normal food.
I gave up sugar completely nigh on a year ago, after easing in to low-carbing for a long time per Amy. I don't miss it. My indulgence is a good beer. If I try to eat sugar now, I have to spit it out. It just tastes grossly sweet. I rarely eat fruit, either.
If I could find a good local source of raw milk that wasn't $8 a gallon (we go through 5 gallons a week here, it adds up) I would buy it in a hot second. Alas, I've yet to find one. If you've got a hookup in central texas for raw milk, let me know!
momof4 at April 23, 2014 7:33 PM
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