School Bans On Chocolate Milk May Backfire

In elementary school, milk the the ONLY thing served (that i remember). Be it white or chocolate. - High school had both as well, but they had other drinks at higher cost available. The milk just came with the lunch.

I liked school lunch because they were better then my moms cooking lol.

Part of the issue is that the parents aren't feeding their kids because they are spending the money on unnecessary items, like new cars, new TVs, cable, internet, the latest gadgets, and so on.

Mind you, it isn't a lot of people who do this, but it is enough.

Oh i will never argue against other ppls greed and stupidity. ^Its quite true

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On a different note:
When did it become a schools job to tell kids what they have to eat and drink (in terms of what they serve)? They are there to educate not enforce there beliefs (even if its a health belief.) To say you're not allowed to have chocolate because i don't think you should have it... isn't that supposed to be a parents job not the schools?

Sometime in the 50's when they decided they needed to churn out productive members of society in the form of education and physical fitness. We can get into the nuances of government entities dictating diets and how we personally feel about it, but it doesn't change the fact that diet plays a big part in physical and mental health.

Because it's a school lunch and not a buffet line?

I've gone to a lot of different schools and the variations on school lunches is impressive.

In Houston, TX they were experimenting with a chef at my elementary school in the late 80's. Had such awesome food the parents regulary came to visit during lunch.

Orlando....horrible "normal" lunches. Canned veggies that had added sugar, square pizza every friday, meat that really was not meat, etc. For elementary we only had the "normal" lunch line. Starting in middle school pizza hut pizza was available and another fast food place (can't remember who since I never ate that one). High school we had chick fila, pizza hut, "normal" hot lunches, a bagel place, and I'm sure something else. I usually brought my lunch so I was not as familiar with that.

From middle school onwards we had soda machines and snack machines all over campus. I know for colleges coke would pay for that privilage of being on campus, I'm not sure if they did for middle/high schools.

I had a point...my point is that I've found there is a lot of variety in school lunches based on state, county, and principle.

Typically school boards who make the rules are made of local parents.

I was pretty poor as a kid, and was damn happy with just about anything anyone was willing to give me, school lunches included.

I would've happily drank goat milk, chocolate or not. seems like a silly issue to me.

We don't live comfortably, but...

Immigrants come to the US all the time. They have been doing so steadily for several centuries. That's kind of insane if you think about it. When immigrants arrive in the US, poor as churchmice and barely capable of speaking the predominant language, they have been asked why.

"Because in America, even the poor people are fat."

Now, some kids do starve. My mother and her siblings went without food on occasion and that was back in the '50s and '60s. But, for the most part, we as a nation have very little tolerance for letting people starve (though we have plenty of reactionaries who treat one case of starvation as though everyone under the age of 15 is unfed). In my city, it's entirely possible to live without buying food, though you'd be giving up your dignity or need to be rather impoverished to do it (free kitchens for the former, food pantries for the latter). Dunno if that is true or not of other First World nations, but the US feeds itself.

That said, milk is not the cause of childhood nor adult obesity. I drink a fair amount of milk and cook with it all the time, but I got fat on sugar. Milk does have a surprising amount of sugar in it, as does chocolate milk, but it's nothing on the nutrition-free caffeine-laced crap that is actually at the root of our problems. And let's not even get into kids who are OD'ing on caffeine because their parents buy them multiple Monsters a day.

Actually, for the most part, school lunches are not a meaningful contributor to obesity problems, period. Some of them promote rather bad habits, I'm sure. My grade schools nor high school provided vegetables that were ever cooked well. I know some people enjoy having the nutrients and flavor boiled out of their vegetables, but I'm pretty sure we feed better greens to prisoners.

Milk is wonderful, though. It's basically the perfect recovery drink for athletes (though, and I will stress this, not a good choice for rehydration). It's my go-to refuel after putting miles on my bike because it's a reasonably good blend of macronutrients. But chocolate milk is actually better exactly because of the added sugar.

Also, every carton of chocolate milk I've seen in schools or grocery stores is made with 1%. This might vary around the country. I know the premium stuff at my local supermarket is whole milk, but the store brand is 1%. I personally can't stand whole milk, anyhow.

Also also, banning all milk but skim and they're surprised no one wants to drink milk anymore? Skim milk tastes like polluted water and the mouth-feel is all wrong. Give the kids 1% (or their chocolate).

Milk used to be provided in New Zealand schools a very long time ago, but the Government put an end to it in the late 60's because of the cost. NZ's largest dairy manufacturer has recently started a program to reintroduce milk in schools though, although I don't know how extensive the program is.

When I went to school in the 80's, nothing was provided to students - most kids either took their own lunch to school, or bought it at the school canteen. As far as I'm aware, there are no programs in NZ schools requiring parents to maintain a lunch fund for their kids or anything like that, kids either have money or they don't.

I wasn't aware of anyone too poor to eat when I was in school, although admitedly, there was a girl who always wanted to eat my apple cores. But she was just weird.

Oh, Coke and Pepsi definitely do. There's a rather infamous episode of Daria that satirized it.

Were you one of those that put the tater tots/french fries inside the hamburger?

I think it was more along the lines of "the richest country in the world and you can't do better than a third world country in terms of disaster relief and caring for your poor?"

At least that was the shocked reactions I've encountered.

Edit: a top gear episode that ended with the cars being given away I think describes what I'm trying to convey better

That too.

O hell no! I savored those rectangle pizza & .50 cheeseburgers.

1 year we had a milkshake machine & you could get one for a buck or two, & we'd dip fries in the milkshakes. O wow that whole year revolved around hustling up a buck for a milkshake.

yeah, the US has a lot to aspire to, yet they can't even get healthcare down...

too much emotional "tradition" in politics, etc.

Did you guys have "Chalupas"? It was like a boat shaped tortilla shell filled with taco meat, and covered with cheese.

I'm curious if it was an LA county only meal.

no, I think I was too far north for that. Americanized tacos were the closest we came to Mexican.

I remember Nachos were on the menu at my college (NZ highschool), although I never touched the stuff. Too much damn cheese.

It's here in Texas also. It's kindof like a puffy taco, except less puff.

Oh you mean Chingaderas, those are pretty good. Had those on Tuesdays.

If I recall it was something like this for LA County:

Monday=Fried Chicken Sandwich, Tuesday= Chingaderas, Wednesday= Was random, usually Chalupas or Spaghetti and meatballs or Fried Chicken, Thursday= Hot Dogs, Friday= Pizza.

edit:
Speaking of county lunches:
I used to sell my homemade lunch for $5 in the morning, then buy a breakfast and lunch ticket for $1/ticket. I can't be the only one that did this..

In Sweden they have milk or water and you can choose between green/red milk (we have different colored cartons to show how much fat is in the milk, yellow is 0.1%, blue is 0.5%, green is 1.5% and red is 3%).

Lunch is free of course but if you want breakfast (in high school) you can usually buy a sandwich or some coffee/juice. Schools don't really offer breakfast until kids are older since they usually skip breakfast.

We also have lots of salad and vegetarian food for those who want it (no one lol).

lol, free lunch for everyone? that's unheard of here.

I should also add that this was one of the only hot lunch options at my school. Before they started making Nachos, the only real lunch options at typical Kiwi schools were a few varieties of hot pies, sausage rolls, and iced buns.

According to everyone's personal accounts, the milk may just have been the only nutritious part of school meals.

in high school we totally sold our lunch cards to other football players for party supplies.