Dairy Groups Fight To Keep Chocolate Milk On Menu
by Jeff Brady
December 9, 2009
Source: www.npr.org

Some school lunchrooms have turned into virtual battlefields in recent years as activists push for more healthful menus. Remember the soda wars and ketchup as a vegetable?

The latest fight is over chocolate milk. Critics say it has too much sugar, and they have persuaded schools across the country to get rid of it.

In response, the dairy industry has launched the “Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk” campaign. There’s a Facebook page and an online petition to keep chocolate milk in school lunchrooms.

“We know that when flavored milk is taken out of the school, kids’ milk consumption goes down,” says Ann Marie Krautheim, senior vice president of nutrition affairs for the National Dairy Council. (more…)

Fast-food standards for meat top those for school lunches

By Peter Eisler, Blake Morrison and Anthony DeBarros, USA TODAY

In the past three years, the government has provided the nation’s schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn’t meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants, from Jack in the Box and other burger places to chicken chains such as KFC, a USA TODAY investigation found.The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the meat it buys for the National School Lunch Program “meets or exceeds standards in commercial products.”

That isn’t always the case. McDonald’s, Burger King and Costco, for instance, are far more rigorous in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens. They test the ground beef they buy five to 10 times more often than the USDA tests beef made for schools during a typical production day.

And the limits Jack in the Box and other big retailers set for certain bacteria in their burgers are up to 10 times more stringent than what the USDA sets for school beef. (more…)

School Lunch – A Sad Reflection of Our Nation’s Screwed Up Priorities

Author of: Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do To Fix It
Website: www.lavidaloavore.org

With the epidemic rise in diet-related chronic illnesses in the past few decades, many are looking to school lunch as a way to nourish children while simultaneously teaching them healthy dietary habits. It makes perfect sense, right? In fact, why would we choose to serve children anything BUT healthy food for school breakfasts and lunches? Healthy food costs more than junk food, but it’s money well spent because it’s an investment.

First off, it’s an investment in the children’s immediate health as it provides them with the nutrients they need to grow strong and healthy. Second, it’s an investment in their future health, as it teaches them what it means to eat healthy food. Third, it’s an investment in their education, as children are better able to learn when they have a belly full of good-for-you food instead of a bellyache from junk. (This is especially true when you consider that artificial food dyes are proven to cause behavioral problems in children, yet they are still legal to serve in school breakfasts and lunches. Why on earth would you purposefully make a child prone to behavioral problems and then send them back to class for their teacher to deal with them?) (more…)

Colorado schools face cartons of controversy over milk

Jamison Castillo picks chocolate milk during lunch at Lincoln Elementary. As school districts ban flavored milk, citing the high sugar content, the milk industry has countered with its “Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk” campaign, touting its nutritional value. (Matt McClain, Special to The Denver Post )

Six-year-olds Lilly Clark, left, and Zoe Burger talk during lunch at Lincoln Elementary School in Denver. The first-graders personify the ongoing debate: Zoe’s family sees chocolate milk as a healthy option; Lilly says, “My mom says I have to have white” milk. (Matt McClain, Special to The Denver Post )

Cole O’Connor doesn’t always choose the hot lunch at Denver’s Lincoln Elementary School. But when he does, the second-grader pairs it with a nice strawberry-flavored milk.

Third-grader Riley Finch is a chocolate-beverage kind of guy. White milk, in Riley’s estimation, “gets kind of old.”

So, what if those chilled bins in the lunch line contained only white milk — no flavor options?

Riley wouldn’t go for that. Cole enjoys white milk on cereal, “but by itself, I think, not that often.”

There you have it: a concise summation of a dilemma that has grown-ups around the country locked in a debate stirred up this month by the dairy industry’s new “Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk” campaign. (more…)

The landscape of health has changed. No longer are our families guaranteed a healthy livelihood, not in the face of the current rates of cancer, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s and allergies. In the words of Elizabeth Warren, Harvard University law professor who is head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, “We need a new model,” and we need a new food system. It’s our health on the line.

8 Steps Obama Could Take to Save Food (more…)