Milk. That silky, unstained foamy substance that comes from blue collared cows 4 has become a $.50 accessory accompanying many of Tahoma’s school lunches. The word milk has a Germanic origin and still sounds practically the same. (You can tell your parents you learned this in school today if you didn’t pay attention in any of your classes). The nice thing about this beverage is that you can indulge yourself in more than 8 versions of cow milk, not counting the many plant substitutes. If you’re feeling brave, go try some camel milk or steal one of Santa’s reindeer. Seriously, you can buy reindeer milk; don’t tell poor Rudolph though. But, one of the most important questions that many students seem to have weighing on their minds is if Tahoma serves us the best type of milk?

Every day, students have to make a choice. One choice out of about 35,000 that they will make that same day. What they don’t realize is that this choice can have a lot of impact on their future health. They can choose between fat free chocolate milk or one percent white milk. As they read the labels to determine which option is the healthiest they lean toward the one that says “Fat-Free”. The reason why is quite simple, in our society fat has become a feared stigma associated with obesity, heart disease and diabetes. That’s why almost everything in stores is labeled in grand and bold letters fat-free or low fat. Therefore it’s obvious if you don’t want to be fat then don’t eat fat. After all, you are what you eat right? Not so much, and unfortunately many students are making the wrong choice every day.

For many decades, saturated fat, which is found in products such as dairy, lamb, pork and beef has been blamed by the USDA as a cause of Heart Disease. Therefore, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans have warned and recommended us to stay away from fattier milk. Their most recent edition asserts “Move to low-fat and fat-free milk or yogurt”. Yet, certain studies found in Peter Whoriskey’s Washington Post article, “For decades, the government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?” tell us that our health could have benefited more with saturated fat being a part of our diets. One study that he cites was done by the U.S. National Institutes of Health on 48,000 women. The manipulated variable of the study was saturated fat intake, “Some had counseling to eat less fat and more vegetables and fruits; others continued, more or less, with their normal diets.” Yet the results pointed out, “…when it came to heart disease, researchers found no significant difference between the two groups.”

With the discovery of this new information, we now know that fattier milk is actually better for our health. Therefore it’s safe to say Tahoma’s “non-fat” and measly “one percent” options don’t qualify as the best. Strike one for Tahoma, yet unfortunately, there is a bigger problem with our chocolate milk fat-free option. It comes in an addictive white crystallized substance that is a gateway drug for many sweets, drinks and pastries: Sugar.

Our Smith Brothers Fat-free chocolate milk contains almost the same amount of sugar that you can find in a 8.5 fl oz bottle of coke. Interestingly enough they contain about the same amount of liquid as well (give or take 0.49 fl oz). The chocolate milk contains 8% of our daily sugar intake value, which according to a new World Health Organization guideline is all that we should have. From a press release on the WHO website titled  “WHO calls on countries to reduce sugars intake among adults and children” Dr Francesco Branca the Director of WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development says “We have solid evidence that keeping intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake reduces the risk of overweight, obesity and tooth decay”. He cites evidence found on the same press release that says “…research shows that children with the highest intakes of sugar-sweetened drinks are more likely to be overweight or obese than children with a low intake of sugar-sweetened drinks”.  The article also provides information for any dentists or students who brush their teeth scrupulously, “evidence showing higher rates of dental caries (commonly referred to as tooth decay) when the intake of free sugars is above 10% of total energy intake compared with an intake of free sugars below 10% of total energy intake”. All milk contains natural sugar in the form of lactose, yet because this sugar is natural and not added vigorously as in the case of chocolate milk, it is healthy. This is clearly addressed in the same press release mentioned above, where it writes “The WHO guideline does not refer to the sugars in fresh fruits and vegetables, and sugars naturally present in milk because there is no reported evidence of adverse effects of consuming these sugars”. So if you are a fan of dried fruit snacks from the healthy section in Fred Meyer don’t worry, your mom can still purchase them.

This revelation about our sweet chocolate milk is the second strike for Tahoma yet there are loyal parents and influential people still supporting its degenerative presence in schools. But why?

According to a New York Times article titled “A School Fight Over Chocolate Milk”  there is a statistic that shows us “71 percent of the milk served nationwide is flavored”. Proponents of chocolate milk claim that taking out the milk will cause a decrease in overall milk consumption which provides vital nutrients that school children are already lacking. And they are right because if we are all honest the plain low-fat milk tastes bland and monotonous. Its like water just white. The empty plastic carts which house chocolate milk and the untouched carts of plain low-fat milk are a testimony to Tahoma student’s unwillingness to drink it. This milk dilemma for nutritionists and parents is exposed in an article by Carey Goldberg titled “In Long Fight Over School Chocolate Milk, Perhaps A Whole New Flavor” she writes “You want to get healthy nutrients into your child, and a spoonful (or more) of sugar helps. But sugar, at least in excess, is looking increasingly bad for our health”. The situation seems hopeless, yet thankfully she provides a solution in the same article. It’s found in her interview with Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian who is the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, where he says in response to the dilemma, “Bring back whole milk in the schools”. The reason this solution will work is, instead of making milk appealing and tasty by using harmful sugar, you use fat which is a healthier alternative. Whole milk has been adored by generations of US drinkers until it was condemned by the US Dietary Guidelines and banned by Federal Law from schools.

Unfortunately, for the student of today, it seems that chocolate milk’s pervasive flavor has attached to their diets for good. When sophomores Mary Hazelwood and Zach Gage along with freshman Blake Wilson where asked if they would give up their habit of indulging in chocolate milk because of its supremely unhealthy aspects, the students responded unanimously, “Probably not”. This is due to the fact that at Tahoma schools students can start drinking chocolate milk in elementary schools, creating a habit that is unbreakable. The only way to reverse this trend would be to provide healthier milk at the elementary level so that the generation of tomorrow might not have to depend on chocolate milk to get through their 8 period day at highschool.

It’s your choice as to what milk you’ll be drinking today, but for your future self, make sure to make the right choice.