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Sep 29, 2023

Is Chocolate Milk Really Hurting School Lunches?

A glass of chocolate flavoured milk with a red and white straw. I suppose most

A glass of chocolate flavoured milk with a red and white straw.

I suppose most of us know by now that USDA wants to reduce sugar in school breakfast and lunch programs.

One proposed idea is the elimination of flavored milk in elementary and middle schools, and limiting the amount available at the high school level.

While USDA spokesperson Cindy Long states that the agency wants to promote consumption of milk in its breakfast and lunch program, she also says USDA recognizes the need to reduce sugar in foods that are offered to children.

Response by the dairy industry has been quick.

Members of the International Dairy Foods Association pledge to ensure that flavored milk beverages provided to schools by the 2025-2026 school year would contain no more than 10 grams of added sugar per 8-ounce serving.

Note that the association surveyed a group of its members that provides 90% of school milk in the country and found the average added sugar content in 8-ounce flavored milks is 8.2 grams, ahead of nutrition guidelines established by USDA.

I say "added sugar" because 8 ounces of low-fat (1%) milk naturally contains about 12 grams of lactose, or milk sugar.

Lactose is present in all fat levels of milk unless it is removed with an enzyme or ultrafiltration.

The association said in a statement that its "Healthy School Milk Commitment combines dairy's passion for product innovation with a longstanding promise to provide healthy, nutritious dairy options to schoolkids everywhere."

Meanwhile, USDA indicates it intends to decide soon so schools will have time to plan for the 2024-25 school year.

What about the sugar content of other things that are predominant in the typical school breakfast and lunch menus?

Let's take a look to compare, keeping in mind that 1 gram of sugar is equivalent to 1 gram of carbohydrate.

Counting both lactose and added sugar, an 8-ounce serving of low-fat chocolate milk has on average 20-22 grams of carbohydrates.

I randomly picked a school district in the commonwealth to look at its elementary school lunch offerings for the first Tuesday of May. Here is the result:

Fish sticks with one slice of bread, 39 grams of carbohydrates (2 grams sugar); steamed broccoli, 3 grams (2 grams sugar); applesauce, 13 grams carbohydrates (11 grams sugar) — totaling 55 grams of carbohydrates, including 15 grams of sugars.

While I can see that the chocolate milk has more sugar than the other lunch items, I think it is important to factor in the nutrition that milk adds to the lunch described above.

Let's look at protein. Chocolate milk has 8.7 grams, Tuesday's lunch has 18 grams. Children in elementary school need 19-34 grams of protein per day, based on varying grade levels that are in elementary schools.

For those children who are food insecure — 1 out of 7 in Pennsylvania — school lunches containing milk may provide the only milk they have for the entire day — and it must be consumed to provide any benefit. We know many children reject low-fat and nonfat milk.

The other nutritional components in milk are well known. For our comparison, the fish sticks and bread entrée in my lunch example has zero units of vitamins A and D, while the low-fat chocolate milk provides one-third of the daily requirement for vitamin A and about 15% of the requirement for vitamin D.

The broccoli and applesauce provide much less of the needed vitamin A (7% and 6%, respectively) and no vitamin D.

Calcium is another important nutrient for children, and the 8-ounce serving of chocolate milk provides about one-third of the daily requirement, 10 times more than the serving of broccoli or the fish sticks and bread, and 20 times more than the applesauce.

And having the full nutritional benefit of a well-planned school lunch assumes that the child will eat all of the things offered. Some children will not eat broccoli.

Keep in mind, some children may also bring a beverage from home that could contain far more sugar than flavored low-fat milk and virtually none of the nutrition.

I hope I am making sense with this. I think we might be in danger of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Industry professionals are working hard to reduce added sugar in flavored milk products. They need to be provided with the trust and the opportunity to do that.

The Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board supports USDA's school nutrition program in its desire to improve the nutritional offerings in our schools, but we encourage the agency to work more closely with schools, parents and the industry to find solutions that work — solutions containing flavored milk that we know our kids will like and drink.

We have heard too many stories of unopened, unflavored 1% and skim milk containers filling up school trash bins.

We are available to respond to questions and concerns. I can be reached at 717-210-8244 or by email at [email protected].

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Monthly roundup of the latest dairy industry news.

Organized by the International Dairy Foods Association, the Healthy School Milk Commitment is an attempt to counter USDA's proposal to remove flavored milk from elementary schools beginning in 2025.

USDA is seeking comment on a proposal to allow flavored milk only in high-school, and maybe middle-school, meals as a way to improve children's nutrition. Younger students would be allowed only plain milk.

USDA needs to rethink its recent efforts to potentially ban flavored milk options in school cafeterias by making changes to School Nutrition Standards.

Carol Hardbarger is the secretary of the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board.