Dairy Industry Attacks Sodas to Defend Chocolate Milk

(MoneyWatch)  Here we go again. In the latest food industry versus health advocates battle, we have the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) launching a campaign to defend chocolate milk in schools.

"Some schools and activist groups are looking to remove lowfat chocolate milk from cafeterias, but this actually could do more nutritional harm than good," the Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk website says. "Chocolate milk is the most popular milk choice in schools and kids will drink less milk (and get fewer nutrients) if it's taken away."

The basic premise of the campaign is that chocolate milk should be supported as the lesser of two evils -- if chocolate milk isn't available, kids will turn to sugary soft drinks. Which is kind of funny, considering how hard the soft drink industry has worked to defend itself against being demonized and removed from schools. But apparently the dairy industry is perfectly willing to throw the soft drink industry under the bus.

On the other side, opponents of the campaign point out that if plain milk is the only thing available (i.e. no chocolate milk or soft drinks), kids will drink it.

But MilkPEP has health experts on its side. According to the School Nutrition Association,

Several leading organizations, including the School Nutrition Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Dietetic Association, American Heart Association, National Hispanic Medical Association, and the National Medical Association are championing this campaign.

Well, okay, most of these organizations haven't actually come out in support of the campaign, per se. If you go to the press release [docx], you find that what these organizations actually do is "recognize the valuable role that milk, including flavored milk, can play in meeting daily nutrient needs." Nice job of twisting the facts there, though.

Marion Nestle of Food Politics has her own theories about what this campaign is really about.

* Schools represent sales of 460 million gallons of milk ?€" more than 7% of total milk sales
* More than half (54%) of flavored milk is sold in schools
* Chocolate milk is a key growth area for milk processors

I suspect similar factors are at play in the meat industry's outrage over the Baltimore public school system's participation in Meatless Monday.

In related news, MilkPEP bragged earlier this year that chocolate milk is just as good as sports drinks for post-exercise recovery, though I might suggest this says more about sports drinks than it does about chocolate milk.

(Disclosure: I drank a mocha while writing this blog post.)
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