Food Revolution sparks Milk Contraversy

If your like me and love Jamie Oliver, you probably spent a number of evenings watching his latest challenge, helping a US town start a Food Revolution.

 I think Jamie is brilliant and such a gentle but strong force. His love and passion for healthy, whole foods makes such sense and is certainly the way eating should be.
His easy to follow recipes make turning your food habits around not so daunting and actually possible.

One of the tasks that he takes on in the school district he was helping was flavored milk.
 He feels strongly that it should not be offered in the schools as an option!
Flavored milk carries as much sugar as a soda. (Something that I myself was unaware of and shocked to learn!) All that extra sugar can lead to weight gain over time when it is consistently the drink of choice. To much sugar in the body leads to a sugar high and then dip in sugar levels , leaving one feeling tired and not able to concentrate. Not a great position to be in as a youngster trying to learn.

 Jamie was talking about the younger ages especially not to be given the choice for flavored  milk. Kindergarten and elementary school age is the time to instill good eating habits and teaching them to make healthier food and drink choices.

After doing some research I see that there is an opposing side to this thought.
That milk of any flavor should be offered because kids need their calcium. I agree that calcium is very important, as we are aware that kids especially need it to grow strong, healthy bones.

But of course kids will choose the flavored milk if given the option! If we poured sugar on the vegetables they hate to eat they'd probably eat that too!
Really, if there's a choice between, chocolate, strawberry or regular old milk,
 what do you think a youngster would choose?

They will drink the regular if there are no other options. I promise you.
They only grow to love the taste of sugar more when we allow them to have the flavored stuff on a regular basis. It's our job as parents, teachers and caregivers to model great choices. get excited about what your feeding them. Explain that for special times it's okay to have a treat.

When we give our kids the facts and treat them like they can handle age appropriate information you'd be very surprised at the conversation that will happen and the outcome that will teach everyone great future habits.