Milk

In one of my previous postings, I went on and on about government stepping in and doing things about food and schools. Last Sunday, the Chicago Tribune had an article about what schools are doing in regards to milk. Yeah, milk. Basically, various schools throughout the Chicagoland area are doing different things to milk- some are adding flavors that contain nutrients, others are banning those same enhancers. The concern surrounding these two views boil down to obesity. Adding flavor enhancers, such as chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, come with a certain amount of increased fat and sugar, compared with non-flavored low-fat or skim milk otherwise being offered. So, the question becomes- to what extent do we want children to drink milk?

"We would prefer children drink unflavored milk, but it's better for them to drink flavored milk than no milk at all," said spokeswoman Jean Daniel of the federal Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services agency."

The second part of the article is also interesting, but for different reasons. I just finished reading Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" and in it he makes two points about milk:

1) To make low fat dairy products, producers remove the fat, but then add powdered milk to bring back the texture of milk. However, powdered milk contains oxidized cholesterol, possibly worse than regular cholesterol.

2) "Removing the fat in milk makes it that much harder for your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins that are one of the reasons to drink milk in the first place."

The Chicago Tribune article notes that schools are moving towards only selling skim milk, again, the idea being the fat in whole milk may lead to increased obesity rates, just like having chocolate milk or other flavored milks. It notes that the Chicago Public Schools "stopped offering whole milk out of concern for the added calories and fat." The other reasoning behind moving to skim, according to the article, is that skim costs less than whole. So, even though skim milk has less fat content than whole milk, thereby "fighting obesity," children lose valuable other naturally-occurring vitamins and nutrients that instead must be added in at a later point, at a potential higher-risk then if you had just left the milk alone in the first place. This does not really seem to me to be a positive step forward in improving school nutrition.

The fat argument, which Pollan devotes some significant attention to, is very interesting, and shows just how far the belief that fat is a negative for the body, despite recent evidence to the contrary. Pollan quotes from a 2001 Harvard School of Public Health study that concludes:

"It is now increasingly recognized that the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health consequences."

Strong stuff, no? But I bet most people have never heard of these findings. Pollan goes on to point out that due to the limitations in scientific research, we are unable to pin-point the exact chemical processes that our body does when digesting food. Science wants to know the effect of one nutrient at the time and is unable to take the whole into account, so, we end up with low-fat statements that aren't based on any scientific reasoning, not to mention that our body does need fat. Do we need an 18 oz porterhouse steak worth of it, maybe not, although it does taste good.

Anyway, I have an idea for schools to combat obesity. . .recess. Let children run around and play, fall down, scratch their knees, play games, have winners and losers; in other words, let them be children. In the Fifth Grade, my elementary school prohibited running during recess for fear that one child would knock down another one. If you were seen running, you were marked down and would not be allowed the one extra recess period a month; instead, you had to stay in class and be quiet. That doesn't seem very wise, especially for that age group.

I have no doubt that I will be an annoyance at PTA meetings and parent/teacher conferences. I'll be the parent that sends my child to school with cupcakes and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a box of whole milk to wash it all down with.