Another school milk question - white or chocolate?

[ahisma]

What kind of milk does your elementary school offer?

Ours offers white or chocolate. Of course, DS wants chocolate. Every day. We do buy chocolate milk, but it's once in a blue moon. I'm irritated, because all three kids are fantastic white milk drinkers and I really, really don't want to start the constant chocolate milk battle.

Sigh.

[lil_acorn]

mine offers white, chocolate and strawberry milk. My son buys milk every day but he says he only drinks chocolate 2x/week adn white the other 3x.

[jenstring95]

I ate lunch at school yesterday with my kindergartener and was APPALLED at some of the lunch choices. Two kids sitting across from us that bought lunch each had nachos (not the healthiest, but I can deal with that), a Rice Krispie treat, an ice cream sandwich and chocolate milk. No fruit or veggie in sight. I'm not saying that any of those things is so bad on its own (or all of them for a party or something), but as an everyday school lunch? Yikes. I guess I will keep packing lunch...

I hear you on the chocolate milk. That's not a battle I want to have to worry about, either! Our teacher did say that you can flag your child's account as to what foods they are or are not allowed to have. Maybe you could do that? Or say chocolate milk on a special day? (Fridays, first day of the month, whatever.)

[crl]

Ours offers both. I told ds he could choose chocolate on Fridays only.

Catherine

[bcafe]

Ours offers both. I told ds he could choose chocolate on Fridays only.

Catherine
This is what we do as well.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Only white at ds1's school and I am not in live with that. Why? Because I feed him a good diet and wasn't bothered by the sugar in chocolate milk. The benefits that the milk offered him outweighed that. He doesn't always have a balanced diet when it comes to calcium and such. Instead of drinking the white milk, which I made him try for a month last year, he only drinks water. So no more calcium and protein boost at lunch time. I get the anti chocolate milk campaign but it just wasn't the fight I would have fought. The food service director observed mix success, btw. Fewer kids got milk and kids were bringing soda from home!!!

Beth

[ett]

They offer white, chocolate, and strawberry here. DS1 gets white mostly as he knows that chocolate is a treat. I told him he could get chocolate once a month, but most of the time he forgets so I think he only got it a couple of times last school year.

[Staraglimmer]

DD's school offers white, chocolate, and juice. DD doesn't like chocolate milk, but I let her teacher know that I wanted her to have milk.


Sent from my iPhone
Steph

[KrisM]

Ours has white, chocolate and strawberry. None of my kids like chocolate milk, so it's a non issue here. DS1 bought white milk daily last year and DD will this year.

[HIU8]

I honestly do not know. I assume just white (but my DS does not drink chocolate milk b/c he doesn't like it). He did tell me that the milk and oj they serve is in really small containers so he opts for the water b/c the bottle is larger.

[Kindra178]

Only white at ds1's school and I am not in live with that. Why? Because I feed him a good diet and wasn't bothered by the sugar in chocolate milk. The benefits that the milk offered him outweighed that. He doesn't always have a balanced diet when it comes to calcium and such. Instead of drinking the white milk, which I made him try for a month last year, he only drinks water. So no more calcium and protein boost at lunch time. I get the anti chocolate milk campaign but it just wasn't the fight I would have fought. The food service director observed mix success, btw. Fewer kids got milk and kids were bringing soda from home!!!

Beth

I completely agree with you, as does my ped. I either pack vanilla milk or he buys choc. or strawberry at school. Choc milk is better for a child than juice, imo.

[american_mama]

To the OP, my 4th grader has been drinking chocolate milk at school several times a week since Kindergarten and she does not ask for it at home, so it's not necessarily going to lead to whining for it. My kids are definitely the type to get a taste for something and whine about it - Lunchables are their obsession from seeing friends pack them - but they don't whine for chocolate milk.

Our school offers 1% white and non-fact chocolate. They briefly had strawberry a year or two ago, but stopped carrying it. My kids buy chocolate every time they buy lunch, and I have been powerless to stop them. My sister's school can flag the kids' payment account to only allow certain things, but our system doesn't do that.

Our school doesn't sell anything besides milk at lunch. They had ice cream on Friday;s for a semester or so, but got rid of it for a bunch of reasons. Kids at our school would not be able to buy what another poster said: when they buy lunch, they have a selection of four fruit or veggies, and they can choose any two, but must take at least one, plus the entree. They can decline the starch side dish. The lunch ladies, who are really the enforcers of this nutritional standard, really do their part and send the kids back if they don't choose one fruit or veggie. I believe this has worked well at forcing kids to put a fruit/veggie on their plate and thus eating more of it. This year, the standard B choice also changed from PBJ sandwiches to chef salad. It is very hard to get kids to eat more fruits and veggies, but teh nutrition dept. is really trying, as is our school (which has a USDA grant which supplies a fresh fruit or veggie snack to every classroom every day).

Back to the milk thing - I heard a talk from our district nutrition staff about an elementary school that eliminated chocolate milk for breakfast. It's the highest poverty school in our district, probably 80-90% kids qualifying for free or reduced meals, and their millk consumption went down big time when it was white only. So the nutrition dept. was in a quandry: put the chocolate milk back on the menu, since these were kids who really needed the protein and nutrition, or keep it off even if it seemed to mean the kids were drinking nothing? Or keep at it and wait for tastes to hopefully change over the course of the year? I am not sure what they deciced.

[ahisma]

I understand why they offer it, and the need to encourage milk consumption. I think it's a double edged sword though, and for us it is presenting a problem. We're not in a district where I'd anticipate any widespread dietary issues, I know that last year not a single kid in the district qualified for reduced lunch. Honestly, we're probably the closest family in the area to qualifying.;)

FWIW, we're sending milk anyway because DS needs whole milk (still not on that darn growth chart!) and I'd rather send organic anyway. He's cool with that but I know that he's going to want chocolate. I mean, he's 4 years old, of course he will!

I peeked at the photos from last year and 100% of the kids had chocolate. For some reason, you have to pick the same thing for every day so they can order it for the whole year and not adjust. So, it's 100% white or 100% chocolate.

In the grand scheme of things, life will go on. I'm just feeling cranky about it at the moment;)

[gordo]

ours serves white, chocolate and strawberry. They don't provide a hot lunch so I did not pay for the milk service. I know DD will choose chocolate everyday, regardless if I tell her she can have it once a week. Its just not a fight I want to battle, so since I have to provide her lunch everyday, I might as well provide her milk.

[JBaxter]

White and chocolate. We send our own in his lunch he drinks chocolate milk once a day its kind of like his treat. Like the other PP I cant get into the no chocolate program my boys have always eaten healthy and are no where near over weight. I would much sooner see a child drink chocolate milk that juice.

[egoldber]

To the OP, my 4th grader has been drinking chocolate milk at school several times a week since Kindergarten and she does not ask for it at home, so it's not necessarily going to lead to whining for it.

:yeahthat:

Our disterict used to serve chocolate, dropped it for awhile, and then added it back when they found a lower sugar option.

But I actually pack Organic Valley chocolate milk for DD in her lunch. :o It's like a little treat at lunchtime. I never send a dessert, so it works for us.

[amldaley]

Just out of curiosity...

Is the milk served in elementary whole, 2% or non-fat? Does anyone's school offer soy?

And, not to poke the bear with a stick, but I thought these articles were interesting.

http://www.doctoroz.com/blog/mike-roizen-md/add-sugar-get-milk-down-get-bs-bad-science-out-schools

http://www.peertrainer.com/LoungeCommunityThread.aspx?ForumID=1&ThreadID=45289

Not at all flaming parents who insist on giving kids milk or even chocolate milk, but there are alternatives. Dr Oz's own kids did not drink milk after (I think) age 2. They are incredibly healthy. Tens of thousands (millions?) of kids are dairy allergic, dairy sensitive, or lactose intolerant and get their calcium from other sources.

It is def. a concern for me with a DD who can not drink milk, but we just work very hard on getting loads of fresh fruit and veg in her and she drinks calcium enriched soy or almond milk (but not much...she won't drink more than a couple of ounces at a time and prefers water).

[egoldber]

Our district serves a choice of 1% and skim. I just checked the on-line menu and they seem to no longer offer chocolate again. The chocolate they served perviously was 1%.

Apparently they have Pearl Organic Vanilla Soy Milk available upon request. I remember the cafeteria manager mentioning that they did not always have it and to make sure to ask for it if your child needs it so they would be sure to have it in stock.

[jren]

DD hates milk. They only way she has EVER drank milk is if I added flavor. At home, though, I can add a tiny drop of vanilla or chocolate flavor versus "real" chocolate milk. Last year, she bought lunch but we had her NOT buy a milk b/c it's not organic. She just had water with lunch and drank her milk in the morning and at night. This year, we're packing lunch. She drinks OJ with added calcium for breakfast, cream cheese on her bagel, organic yogurt for snack time, provolone cheese on her sandwich at lunch, and dip made out of yogurt for her veggies. I make up any difference at dinner, but she rarely has milk anymore. She spends a lot of time outdoors, but I'll probably add a D supplement over the winter. Hope that's enough!

[Jo..]

Ours offers both. We buy milk only to go with DS's lunch from home (costs 50 cents). I let him do chocolate every day, because it's the only flavored milk he ever gets, so to me it's not a huge deal. At home, he drinks plain milk or water.

I'm not thrilled with the fact that it isn't hormone free, and am considering buying big jugs of chocolate milk from the local hormone free dairy and just sending in a small container every day. But his backpack is already so heavy with his lunch, nap mat, folder, water in a Camelbak, etc, that I would need a small, light, leakproof, safe plastic container to send it in.

Any recs?

[MaiseyDog]

Ours offers white, chocolate, and strawberry milk except on White Milk Wednesday in which case they only offer white. DD1 does not like chocolate milk so she drinks white milk everyday. But to be honest I really wouldn't mind if she did choose the chocolate. This issue just isn't a big deal for me.

[american_mama]

>> I would need a small, light, leakproof, safe plastic container to send it in.

After posting about it twice, the best solution is one I decided to copy from here, from Beth, I think. Rubbermaid Litterless Drinkbox, http://www.rubbermaid.com/Category/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?Prod_ID=RP091206. I bought mine at the grocery store and you can order replacement strawas from the Rubbermaid website. I always hated these containers for myself, because in the past I always thought they made the contents taste like plastic, but my kids have never said that.

But mine does sometimes leak, especially when DD1 started using a different lunch box that I guess tips things more. Leaks, and the fact that my kids stopped drinking the milk I sent, has led me to send them with plain water when they pack.

For anyone curious, I have to send in a drink whenever my kids pack because my kids won't buy milk. They have to wait in the whole long lunch line just to buy the milk, which is a pain, so they'll skip having anything to drink unless I pack them something.

[AnnieW625]

I believe the school only offers white milk, but since DD1 primarily drinks soy milk we have no option. I am debating about buying aseptic milk boxes and unfortunately chocolate is much more reasonably priced than vanilla or regular so I'll most likely go that route. I will buy some vanilla, and chocolate though and let her decide.

[Kungjo]

Ours does white, chocolate, and strawberry. My DDs know that they only get chocolate milk once a week.

What drives me crazy is that they have ice cream. Why on earth would you load kids up with sugar and expect them to sit still in class to learn? My DDs are only allowed toget ice cream every other week. I can log online to add money onto their account and see whta they are buying for lunch as well so that helps.

[maestramommy]

I think our district offer white and chocolate.

Starting the time I was buying the school lunch (6th grade) I drank the chocolate milk. For some reason the white milk always seemed warm and gross. But once I got to HS it was the reverse. The white milk was icy cold, and the chocolate milk was way too sweet, so I switched.

[citymama]

Ours is white on 3 days and chocolate on 2. I wish it was white all 5 days!