Marion Nestle continues to fight the good fight, trying to prevent every single American from becoming a Biggest Loser contestant in waiting. This time, she’s taking on chocolate milk in schools and she’s taking heat as usual, being accused of being a Food Nazi and trying to tell people what they can and can not eat.
Well, screw that.
Someone’s got to take responsibility for what’s being shoved down our kids throats if parents aren’t going to.
The milk industry is trying to convince parents that sweetened and flavored milk is about they only way they’re going to get their kids to drink it, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if parents fell for that argument hook, line and sinker.
Do these parents not remember elementary school, because I do. And I distinctly recall that chocolate milk was not an option back in the austere 1970s when the term “childhood obesity rate” was hardly ever used. We all brought our 5 cents to school and got to choose between whole milk or 2% and we’d drink it every morning. WITHOUT A SNACK!!
No one died. No one got sick. No one complained. We drank our milk because that just what you did.
I always wanted chocolate milk. I would beg for it. My mom refused about 99% of the time. She told me it would ruin my appetite. I sullenly drank my white milk, because she told me to. Every once in a blue moon she’d let me have chocolate milk when we went to the local cafeteria and I got to drink it after I ate my dinner. Once, I gulped it down so fast I threw up.
So what happened to those days? Why aren’t parents today insisting their kids drink plain milk and not viewing chocolate milk as an occassional treat? My short answer is that parents are lazy. It’s much easier to give into your kids who are always going to pester you for something sweet– it’s in our biological make up to want sweets. And that is why kids are fat and getting fatter.
Someone needs to be a parent. Right now, Marion Nestle and the others who are fighting back against this chocolate milk propaganda campaign are the only ones with the balls to do it. Call them Food Nazis if you want, but know that term is really just another term for being a grown up.
Opinioneater 