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Lawmakers ban chocolate milk from school menus

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HARTFORD, Conn. – Stuffed into a bill that makes “minor revisions” to education statutes that passed both chambers on the final night of the legislative session was a provision mandating what type of beverages can be served in schools.

The amended bill says “low-fat milk that is unflavored or fat-free milk that is flavored or unflavored that contains no artificial sweeteners, nonnutritive sweeteners or sugar alcohols, no added sodium and no more than four grams of sugar per ounce” will be able to be served. Also, the milk must not receive more than 35 percent of the calories from fat per portion and no less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat per portion. Fruit or vegetable juices must have no added sugars or sweeteners or caffeine.

The legislation also dictates the size of beverages. Aside from water, no beverage shall exceed 8 fluid ounces for elementary schools and 12 ounces for middle and high schools.

Pat Baird, a nurse and the president of the Connecticut Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, said that the language means that chocolate milk would be eliminated from school lunches because there is no chocolate milk without sodium.

See the complete story at CT News Junkie.

Comments

9 responses to “Lawmakers ban chocolate milk from school menus”

  1. srb

    Foolish, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/banning-chocolate-milk-schools-creates-unexpected-negative-repercussions-180951141/?no-ist

  2. Tobias

    I juat hate how the Government chips away at our personal freedoms of choice. What if I want my kid to drink chocolate milk? Next they will ban Jell-O because it is found to be too wobbily for people to trust it.

    Truthfully I think that if kids will get pink slime beef served on synthetic grain bread that has low fat milk that gives them wierd feelings from the hormones contained in it from the antibiotics…. They should be able to live a little and have some Chocolate Milk!

  3. EveT

    Parents can give kids all the chocolate milk they want at home and in their brown bag lunches. The point is that our tax dollars will no longer be spent buying chocolate milk. I applaud this legislation.

  4. lilly deacon

    @Eve –
    BS – all my tax money goes to all the offspring of people who can’t afford kids and now if my child – who is height & weight proportional – wants chocolate milk – he can’t have it?

    Sounds like you a an eternal liber or a not a parent

  5. Ergo

    EveT, you do know that most parents PAY for their child to receive hot lunches, right? The amount of money that you personally pay for low income children to eat a well balanced hot meal once a day is extremely negligible. You know, that one and only meal they may eat the entire day. But way to be a Scrooge about it.
    ,
    I take issue with the fact that this was snuck in. Regardless of the why, chocolate milk has been an option since I was in elementary school, wayyyyy back in the day. Seems underhanded and sneaky. I also think that parents should be able to choose what is best for their family without the government telling us what is wrong. The assumption is that the chocolate milk is unhealthy. The changes to the lunch menus a few years back was much needed. But this seems to take it a bit far, IMO.

  6. Lifelong Teacher

    If you want your child to have chocolate milk, pack it and send it in their lunch box. We won’t be paying for it.

    Next, they should take a look at the carb heavy crap that makes up the rest of school lunches here in Norwalk. Garbage.

  7. Marjorie M

    For some children, chocolate milk is easier to digest than white milk. If all that is available is white milk, there might be children with stomach aches in school. ( I am not sure of the scientific reasoning behind this claim, but I remember reading about this in a very reputable medical publication)

  8. TG

    Chocolate or not, the milk served in cafeteria is not exactly a good for you food. No doubt it is full of antibiotics, and possibly hormones as well. When you turn it “skim”, you only process it even further. So, it’s not like it’s good for kids. You might as well as let it be chocolate, and make it like a dessert. Then take out actual dessert and serve fresh fruit instead. Honestly, the crap server on lunch trays could better be considered “food type items”, not real food. We could do so much better.

  9. Lifelong Teacher

    I see it every day, served to Norwalk’s most vulnerable children, and it makes me so sad and so mad. The only fresh item? Iceberg lettuce. Zero nutritional value,something I wouldn’t even out in my grocery cart.

    “Breakfast for lunch,” sausage links, French toast sticks, and maple flavored high fructose corn syrup. Maybe some tater tots thrown in. Brown on brown on beige, and disgusting.

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