Chocolate milk may soon be banned from US school cafeterias
WASHINGTON (TND) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is considering outright banning flavored milk, including the ever-popular chocolate milk, from elementary and middle school cafeterias.
Saying that chocolate milk can contain as much sugar as soda, the USDA is pondering only allowing flavored kinds of milk in high schools, or at least limiting the amount of added sugars drinks served to students can contain, according to USDA.gov.
USDA is proposing to allow flavored milk for high school children only (grades 9-12)," the proposal reads. "This approach would reduce exposure to added sugars and would promote the more nutrient-dense choice of unflavored milk for young children when their tastes are being formed. The proposed regulatory text for this alternative would allow flavored milk only for high schools (grades 9-12). Children in grades K-5 would again be limited to a variety of unflavored milk."
The USDA first proposed changes to the United States public school systems' nutrition standards back in February "to give kids the right balance of nutrients for healthy and appealing meals." The USDA welcomed public comments on the proposed changes, and has so far since received over 90,000 comments.
A recent edition of the "Dietary Guidelines for Americans" claims that "most kids are consuming too much sugar, sodium, and saturated fat, and not enough fruits, vegetables, and whole grains," according to the USDA. The proposed dietary changes in school cafeterias would help fight "a rise in diet-related diseases."
A recent analysis of USDA’s School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study data found that flavored milk is the leading source of added sugars in both the school lunch and breakfast programs, contributing almost half of the added sugars in lunches and about 30% of the added sugars in breakfasts," the USDA says.
Those added sugars contribute to what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls "a serious health problem in the United States:" Childhood obesity. About one out of every five kids in America is affected by childhood obesity, the CDC says.
Therefore, the USDA is proposing new rules on flavored milk to "encourage consumption of fat-free or low-fat milk" which "contain essential nutrients that kids need to grow and thrive, while staying within the calorie and saturated fat limits recommended by the Dietary Guidelines."
On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that a decision on the flavored milk ban from the USDA is expected in early 2024, and would then take effect for the 2025-2026 school year.
There was a mixed reception to the news of a potential chocolate milk ban. Proponents say they think attempting to limit kids' sugar intake is a good idea, while critics worry that discouraging the consumption of flavored milk will lead kids to consume less nutritional options.
From a public-health perspective, it makes a lot of sense to try to limit the servings of these flavored milks because they do have quite a lot of added sugar,"public-health and nutrition professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public HealthErica Lauren Kenney told the Wall Street Journal.
Flavored milk is a challenging issue to figure out exactly the best path forward,"Cindy Long, administrator of United States Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service reportedly said. "We really do want to encourage children to consume milk and we also recognize the need to reduce added-sugar consumption."
Do we want kids to get the calcium, the protein, the additional nutrients that are part of milk?" the director of nutrition services for Littleton Public Schools in Colorado, Jessica Gould,rhetorically asked the WSJ. "Because when we were only providing white milk [during the COVID-19 pandemic] we did see a significant amount of students didn’t take milk in general."
Besides chocolate milk, strawberry milk is another popular kind of flavored milk served in schools. The USDA says it has concerns over the salt content in public schools' meals as well.