Candy Dish Blog

America’s dairy farmers and milk processors have teamed up to produce a new campaign aimed at keeping chocolate milk available to kids in schools. The Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk campaign comes on the heels of evolving legislation designed to limit or eliminate soda and other sugary drinks in schools. The campaign maintains that children love chocolate milk, no surprise here, for its flavor. They say that removing chocolate milk from the lunch menu will drive kids to other sweet drinks, and not regular white milk.

Kids can get a good amount of the goodness of milk in flavored milk options, and that is what the point is. They love it for the flavor and parents love the nutritional value of chocolate milk. Even for older kids, chocolate milk has been shown to have benefits. Researchers at George Mason University and Indiana University have found that drinking chocolate milk after exercising helps muscles heal and rebuild just as effectively as the popular sports drinks do.

“[Reduced-fat chocolate milk] contains 170 total calories, with 29 grams of carbohydrates and 8 grams of protein, a 3.6-1 ratio. Optimal recovery ratio for carbs to protein is between 3-1 and 4-1,” Cheryl Zonkowski, director of sports nutrition at the University of Florida, said. Other valuable nutrients found in milk include vitamins A, D, B-6 and B-12, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and zinc.

Here are the top five arguments from the Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk campaign:

• Milk provides nutrients essential for good health and kids will drink more when it’s flavored.
• Flavored milk contains the same nine essential nutrients as white milk and is a healthful alternative to soft drinks.
• Drinking lowfat or fat free white or flavored milk helps kids get the 3 daily servings of milk recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and provides three of the five “nutrients of concern” that children do not get enough of – calcium, potassium and magnesium as well as vitamin D.
• Children who drink flavored milk meet more of their nutrient needs; do not consume more added sugar, fat or calories; and are not heavier than non-milk drinkers.
• Lowfat chocolate milk is the most popular milk choice in schools and kids drink less milk (and get fewer nutrients) if it’s taken away.

Chocolate Milk by hleo.