Local Activists Stir Up Opposition to Chocolate Milk

Chocolate milk has been a staple of school lunches for decades. But now local activists are pushing for changes that include eliminating chocolate milk from Los Angeles schools.

Food For Lunch, a grassroots group led by Echo Park resident and caterer Jennie Cook and Silver Lake neighbor Rebecca Crane, is putting the pressure on LAUSD.

Food For Lunch hopes to cut the cost, both physical and financial, of childhood obesity and poor nutrition by changing the way Los Angeles feeds its students.

“The lunch food is highly processed,” explained Crane.  A pediatrician, Crane noted that processed foods tend to be less healthful than whole foods because processing “removes fiber and natural enzymes that are healthy” while adding “sugar, salt and fat” to keep flavor. 

Food For Lunch would like to see more unprocessed fruits and vegetables served, as well as the removal of foods that contain added sugar and high fructose corn syrup.  The health problems associated with childhood obesity and diabetes are two of the biggest concerns of the group.

Chocolate milk has become a target of Food For Lunch because according to Crane, “chocolate milk adds 45 grams of sugar to a kid’s lunch.  So, in one carton of chocolate milk a kid is getting almost half their daily allotment” of sugar.

“We can’t change the whole system,” Crane explained, “but we can start by advocating for little things. So we decided to pick one item that would make a difference.”

Cook agrees that it’s critical to “work with the system and get healthier choices available.” 

Cook, a caterer and dedicated permaculturist, leads the Mystery Lunchbox Challenge, a program which teaches cooking skills to high school students with a focus on recipes that help get in five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

She also participated in a Valentine’s Day rally during the LAUSD’s Cafeteria Improvement Committee Meeting, in which participants brought along gallon milk jugs filled with sugar to represent the amount, on average, that a child ingests each year through the consumption of chocolate milk.

Representatives for LAUSD Food Services acknowledge the group’s concerns and also note that the district’s dairy contract is expiring in June.  Vendors have been asked to provide new proposals with attention paid to products that contain no added sugar.  But David Binkle, Deputy Director of Food Services, also stated that schools already offer low-fat, white milk with every meal.

Binkle also explained that many times opponents of chocolate milk don’t distinguish between natural lactose sugars and added sugars when referring to total sugar content. 

“You have to define the term processed,” Binkle said.  “What is processed food?  It’s kind of a broad statement.  If you didn’t want processed food you wouldn’t have milk or bread.”

Dennis Barrett, Director of Food Services for LAUSD, explained that the School Board and the Superintendent “have asked us [Food Services] to limit sugars in the whole meal.  Our responsibility is to be aware and average it on to the whole meal.” 

Barrett also said that serving of chocolate milk in schools has been endorsed by the American Heart Association, American Diabetic Association, and the Institute of Medicine.

“Kids need calcium and Vitamin D and other nutrients,”  Binkle said. “We would rather give then a little bit of sugar rather than take away milk.  Most adolescent teen girls don’t get the right amount of calcium.”

Crane argues that “one can get calcium a lot of ways,” not just from cow’s milk.  “It is mainstream idea that milk is important,” she said.  “The dairy council is a powerful lobbyer.” 

Barrett and Binkle both pointed to huge steps LAUSD has taken in recent years to make changes and to promote healthy eating, despite the burden of drastic budget challenges that limit spending to 77 cents per meal while demanding compliance with new, federal food requirements.

This fall, LAUSD will roll out a new menu promoting a plant-centric diet: missing will be choices such as pizza and chicken nuggets.   Whole grains are a focus, as well as the limiting dyes, MSG, and sodium. 

According to Barrett, the district “leads the country in sodium reduction” in student meals. 

Additionally, he said, Los Angeles schools already “have to offer a full cup of fruit and a full cup of vegetables at every meal.  Students must take one or the other."

“We make every effort to have a good, wholesome meal available for kids to chose from,” Barrett said.  “We’ve got some of the strongest nutrition policies across America.”

Binkle and Barrett encourage family and community participation in guiding LAUSD choices and offer menu and nutrition information, as well as educational resources for health and food on the Food Services website. 

Binkle suggest concerns be taken all the way to the federal level by contacting representatives, as school choices are very affected by budget constraints and requirements passed down from the Department of Agriculture, as well as controls resulting from 89 percent of school food funding coming from the federal government.

Cook also encourages parents to join forces but believes nothing is going to happen “from the top down.”  Cook hopes parents will talk to school principals and work on a school-by-school basis to promote change.

“It’s [LAUSD] a big district,” Cook noted, “Lots of kids eat and they do the best they can with what they have.”  But she also believes that the school system is working with outdated information and depending on studies produced in the 1980s.  “We know better now,” she said.

Food For Lunch has an online petition that outlines five core demands for LAUSD and encourages communication with the district.  Their website offers medical studies and research that includes contradictions to many of LAUSD’s findings. 

As for chocolate milk, Crane believes that “this is something small that could happen quickly.  We’re not saying milk is bad, just take the sugar out of the milk."