Cut Me to the Quik
LA schools have decided to ban “flavored milk,” permitting only milk-flavored milk. The issue, of course, is childhood obesity. Flavored milk has extra sugar. Regular milk is healthier. Don’t even ask about menthol milk; it’s been banned for years. This objection by a school board member makes sense to any parent who’s ever read the nutritional label:
(Galatzan) noted the district serves fruit juices containing 27 to 29 grams of sugar per serving, more than the amount of sugar in flavored milk – 20 grams in 8 ounces of fat-free chocolate milk and 27 grams in fat-free strawberry.
But it’s juice! Therefore it’s healthy, especially if it’s organic, and the fruit was fertilized with night-soil gathered from free-range goats. Here’s the quote that makes the shoulders sag with an almost inexpressible weariness:
The board's decision was applauded by several proponents in the audience.
"Thirty percent of our kids are obese or are on track to diabetes," said Jennie Cook of Food for Lunch, a coalition advocating nutritious school food. She has been pushing the district to eliminate flavored milk for the past year. "This is a social justice issue."
What isn’t? You could say that calling the grave peril of chocolate milk “a social justice issue” means all the others have been pretty much solved, but of course that’s not the case. Any desirable situation that has not yet come to pass is a “social justice” issue. The more injustices there are, the more we need the firm, wise hand of the State to herd us to a future that’s 47% more just - which will still be 83% more unjust than the future beyond that one.
One more point: who’s been serving up pizza and tater tots to the kids for decades? Public schools. A huge system with standardized menus and big suppliers takes forever to modify. Individual private schools, with vouchers for all, would be much more nimble and responsive, and serve the students and the parents much more efficiently.
Assuming that’s the goal of modern education, of course.
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Jun '11
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
How long before we hear of DOE swat teams taking down kids with baggies of Nestle Quik hidden in their backpacks...
Mar '11
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
Assume away.
Mar '11
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
"Thirty percent of our kids are obese..."
My kids are my own. I'm not sharing.
Jun '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
James: Thanks for ruining my day. My oldest daughter has three boys (7, 4, and 2). We go with some degree of regularity to McDonald's where I buy each a Happy Meal (with toy included), and--I shudder to mention it--each of them always wants chocolate milk. I've been buying it for them, and they've been drinking it.
None are obese (or anything like it), so I haven't worried about that. But to find out that I've not only been a bad grandfather but have committed an act of "social injustice" hits me where it hurts.
Should I be in jail?
While I'm in a confessional mood, let me also say that I recently ran my home sprinkling system during the day (we're supposed to run them at night). Your thoughts: is this another act of social injustice or is it merely a sacrilege to Gaia? I need some spiritual guidance.
Edited on June 15, 2011 at 8:48pmJun '11
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
And will there be a different sentence for powdered Quik vs. liquid Quik?
Aug '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
Er... and what about flavored soy or rice milks?
Dirty little secret: one reason some kids (and even adults) prefer soy or rice milk to regular milk is these "milks" are typically sweetened and flavored to make them palatable.
I remember once being put on a dairy- and sugar-free diet by my allergist (for chronic sinus problems). It was extremely hard to find unsweetened soy milk, and when I did find it, it tasted awful. Bleagh!
Edited on June 15, 2011 at 9:02pmDec '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
Fruit sugar, interestingly enough, works quite nicely for fattening up bears as they prepare for their annual winter nap (i.e., blueberries).
Once again, I'm happy to have grown up in Duluth (Mark Twain's much-aligned arctic zone) back in the late 1960s when the lunch ladies (yes, it was PC back then -- and required -- to call them lunch ladies) served up "hot lunch" - without nutritional labels - for 35 cents, including the 8 ounce milk. Fast forward to high school in Two Harbors (think: COLDER, up the north shore of Lake Superior) where we bribed the now monikered "lunch attendants" (actually, one nice older woman was affectionately known to our group as "Mom") to give us extra toastie dogs or pizza slices, and paid the extra fifty cents for the obligatory chocolate malt and EXTRA milk.
Jan '11
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
I propose that we adopt the principle that so long as it's good for the children, that alone empowers us to trample anyone's values and impose our expert advice so that all schools and parents must follow our demands.
After all, it's for the children.
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
James you and I should live dangerously and get together for a couple of chocolate milks.
You buy.
If my kids don't get chocolate milk in the morning they are as mean as when my wife doesn't get coffee.
Aug '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
While I wholeheartedly agree that banning chocolate milk in school is just plain stupid, I have sometimes wondered why I've never seen "no sugar added" chocolate milk for sale at my local grocery store.
I'm no food expert, but surely milk contains enough natural sugars (lactose) that one shouldn't need to add refined sugar (sucrose) when one makes it all chocolaty-awesome.
If cocoa + lactose simply isn't sweet enough, there's gotta be an enzyme they can use to break the lactose down to release some of the sweetness. Failing that, there's always Splenda (sucralose)!
I'm a total chocolate milk addict, but when I compare the "sugars" in regular milk and chocolate milk, I do tend to wonder...
I've experimented with mixing plain cocoa with skim milk, but even in a blender it doesn't mix very well. The cocoa particles don't dissolve.
There must be sort of magic going on in store-bought chocolate milk that keeps the solution from separating....
Dec '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
Time for those kids to put their school lessons to practice.
No chocolate, no peace! No chocolate, no peace!
Hey hey, ho ho, chocolate milk is just as good for stronger bones!
Hey hey, ho ho, chocolate milk is just as good for stronger bones!
Edited on June 15, 2011 at 9:41pmNov '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
What but a government program could manage to produce something simultaneously as unappetizing and unhealthy as a school lunch?
Nov '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
Cocoa solids, containing several alkaloids, are extremely bitter.
Misthiocracy:
I've experimented with mixing plain cocoa with skim milk, but even in a blender it doesn't mix very well. The cocoa particles don't dissolve.
There must be sort of magic going on in store-bought chocolate milk that keeps the solution from separating....
Well, you have several things working against you. For one thing, you've taken all the fat out of your milk. Chocolate is much more lipid-soluble than it is water-soluble. And I assume you're blending cold milk -- the solubility usually increases with temperature. Try using hot milk, along with Dutch-process cocoa (more soluble), or maybe lecithin as an emulsifier (drop an egg yolk in there).
Jun '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
This may help answer the question. The Lunch Lady Land musical skit on SNL, starring Adam Sandler and Chris Farley. Here.
Jun '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
James Lileks:
Casey: "Thirty percent of our kids are obese..."
My kids are my own. I'm not sharing. · Jun 15 at 11:45am
Great point, Casey. Why doesn't Jennie Cook teach her own children to drink regular milk and let other parents manage their own children's lives? Probably a silly question: the default setting of liberals is to compel the rest of us to conform to their "enlightened" view of the world. They have a hard time understanding why we aren't grateful.
Jul '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
Jaime Oliver is a tool. Can we deport him at least?
Misthiocracy: I've experimented with mixing plain cocoa with skim milk, but even in a blender it doesn't mix very well. The cocoa particles don't dissolve.
There must be sort of magic going on in store-bought chocolate milk that keeps the solution from separating.... · Jun 15 at 12:29pm
You ever try making a roux with cocoa powder (in place of flour) & butter?
That might be worth a shot.
Jun '11
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
I'm young enough to remember when chocolate milk started being introduced into schools. Personally I was against it. The kid who lobbied for it was annoyingly sanctimonious about it, and I always, throughout elementary, middle, and high school got the traditional white milk in stubborn protest. I'm not a health nazi by any stretch...if a district wants to serve kids traditional small beer or milk stout more power to em. But I do get annoyed by the idea that sodas are unacceptably unhealthy, but sugar-packed chocolate milk is healthy. Yes, I admit, this is just a decades-old grudge at the smarmy sanctimony of a fellow 4th grader who campaigned for the "right" to have chocolate milk in school.
Jan '11
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
I work in the education media, and I've been using this example for months to demonstrate how upside-down and twisted priorities are not only in public education, but in the outfits that cover ed. I was saying just yesterday that in April, if you wanted attention for your school or district, all you had to do was tell the local paper that you were banning flavored milk.
It sounds flippant, but I wasn't kidding.
As the latest round of NAEP results have come out, we've seen that only about 9% of 4th graders can identify Abraham Lincoln visually (does it get much easier than his image/profile?!). But hey -- at least they'll have 10g less sugar pumping through their historically-illiterate bodies.
Jan '11
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
Nic, any idea what the kid does with his life now?
Dec '10
Re: Cut Me to the Quik
Typical leftist stage-one thinking idiocy. Chocolate milk provides some very important nutrients kids need. Think calcium for bone growth, protein for muscle development and, early on, fat for brain development.
One of my kiddos won't even eat cereal with plain milk, choosing to eat her mini-wheat cereal dry (oh no! more sugar!! -- yeah, but some of the only fiber she'll eat). She's smart as a whip and skinny as a rail. And she's getting her chocolate milk if I have to smuggle it in her stainless steel water bottle every day.
How about parents take responsibility for their own kids and the buttinskies get out of our kids' lunch boxes?