Industry Pushes Chocolate Milk in Schools

By Emily Fredrix, Associated Press

November 9, 2009

MILWAUKEE — The creators of the "Got Milk?" campaign are getting ready to make a big push to keep chocolate milk on kids' minds and on school lunch menus, a plan that has some educators and obesity activists none too pleased.

The new ad campaign from the dairy industry, set to launch Monday, emphasizes that sugary flavorings are ways to get kids to drink milk. Without them, some youngsters won't drink regular milk and won't get its nutrients, the ads say.

The "Raise your hand for chocolate milk" campaign starts Monday with an ad in USA Today featuring chocolatey brown colors and the launch of a Web site that asks people to sign a petition declaring their support for chocolate milk in school.

But some educators and obesity experts say kids get enough calcium — essential for bone growth — and will drink white milk if it's the only milk offered. They say kids get too much sugar, which is heightening America's obesity problem, and schools shouldn't serve chocolate milk at all.

The idea behind the campaign is to draw a distinction between chocolate milk and the soda and candy that have come under attack in schools, said Vivien Godfrey, CEO of the Milk Processor Education Program, the industry marketing group that developed the campaign with the National Dairy Council. Godfrey said the effort will cost between $500,000 and $1 million.

She said most kids choose chocolate milk, but without it they drink juice, soda or water, which don't have the same nutrients. The facts — that chocolate milk does have nutrients — are getting lost in the debate over school lunches, she said.

"If there's even a chance chocolate milk might get taken out of schools, that really can do more harm than good," she said.

It's not clear how many schools have chocolate milk or are pulling it. But parents and school districts are becoming increasingly concerned and asking for more information, said Margie Saidel, a vice president with Chartwells School Dining Services, which manages food programs in 600 districts and supports chocolate milk.

But experts like Marlene Schwartz, deputy directory of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, want chocolate milk tossed. She said kids have too much sugar already and chocolate milk has no place in schools.

Dairy products are a common source of added sugar in children's diets, so that's why parents and educators consider removing them, she said. But the research does not point to any calcium shortages when chocolate milk is removed in schools.

"I don't believe children are going to go on a thirst strike and refuse to drink anything," she said.

Kids happily drink white milk — now the only offering at the Boulder Valley School District in Boulder, Colo., said Ann Cooper, the school's director of nutrition services, who calls herself the "renegade lunch lady" for her efforts to promote more nutrition in school lunches.

She estimates that the extra calories from chocolate milk — as much as 40 or 60 calories on top of a typical 110 calorie 8-ounce serving of white milk — could add up to 5 pounds of weight gain over the 180-day school year. That's why the district no longer offers chocolate milk.

Chocolate milk does have its defenders, even among nutritionists.

"It's better to get the milk in with a little bit of sugary flavoring than have them pick almost any alternative," said Connie Weaver, head of the department of Food and Nutrition at Purdue University and a spokeswoman for the American Society for Nutrition. She has received research funding over the years from the dairy industry, but not on chocolate milk, she said.

A student petition got a Barrington, Ill., distrcit to compromise on its chocolate milk ban.

A soon-to-be fifth-grader, 10-year-old Haley Morris drafted her own petition in support of flavored milk and got about 70 signatures.

Superintendent Tom Leonard decided on a compromise: "Flavored milk Fridays" where the district offers chocolate or strawberry milk one day a week. The district is testing the program through January to see if kids drink more milk the days flavors are offered.

"All of my friends and I, we just wanted chocolate milk back to drink because we like chocolate milk better than white," Morris said.

Doctors Concerned About Obesity Irked By Physician Group's Grant from Coca-Cola

By Kaye Spector, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
November 10, 2009, 9:50AM

CLEVELAND -- Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., the longtime Cleveland Clinic surgeon who lectures around the world and counsels people regarding the health benefits of a plant-based diet, was among 22 U.S. scientists and physicians who recently signed an open letter of opposition to the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Their beef? The AAFP announced in October that it accepted a six-figure grant from the Coca-Cola Co. to create content about beverages and sweeteners for the academy's consumer Web site, FamilyDoctor.org.

The AAFP said its first-ever "consumer alliance" would enable the academy to develop educational materials and "incorporate the products [consumers] love into a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle." The new content is expected to launch in January.

The partnership created a stir among some physicians, nutritionists and health experts. Many saw the arrangement as a threat to the 62-year-old academy's commitment to science and family medicine.

Among the critics, in addition to Esselstyn's group, are the Center for Science in the Public Interest and nutrition authority Marion Nestle.

Soda and other sweetened beverages are the No. 1 source of added sugars in the U.S. diet, the American Heart Association says, and many health experts blame the drinks, at least in part, for the soaring U.S. obesity rate. A 12-ounce can of soda can contain up to 10 teaspoons of sugar.

"The AAFP's Web site should be criticizing sugar-sweetened beverages in the strongest language and providing candid, objective advice about the health and safety questions related to diet drinks," the letter sent by Esselstyn's group says. "But with Coca-Cola providing the funding, the AAFP simply cannot do that."

Anthony Bourdain on The Late Show with David Letterman, 3.24.08

Week 12 Agenda

New Orleans Shrimp Pot Pie from Sunny Anderson's Cooking for Real (Food Network, USA)

M 11.9
Read: KC—pg. 36-74
In-Class: Book discussion; Presentations
Journal 5 Prompt: Do the foods you eat say anything about your social standing? For example, can a correlation be made between the types of foods you eat and your income level, access to health care, and education? Using “Chewing the Fat: Alton Brown on Race, Class, and Food” from Serious Eats (eR) as a basis, explore the theory that your diet is a reflection of your socio-economic standing.
Due: Journal 5
Catering Group 2: Salad

W 11.11
NO CLASS—Veterans Day

UPCOMING:
Week 13

M 11.16
Read: KC—pg. 75-218
In-Class: Watch—Waitress (2007)

W 11.18
Read: KC—pg. 219-250
In-Class: Book discussion; Presentations

'Iron Chef' goes to Washington

By Jo Piazza, CNN
November 5, 2009 4:19 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- The first lady of the United States has opened up the White House to the Food Network in an episode of "Iron Chef America" that will air in January.

Michelle Obama will appear on the show and announce the "secret ingredient" to the chefs before the competition. The episode, which has already been filmed, will feature chefs using ingredients that were grown in the Obama family's White House vegetable garden.

This will mark the first time that a first lady has appeared in a reality television series. Obama agreed to take part in the show as part of her efforts to promote healthy living to the American public.

The episode will feature White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford as well as celebrity chefs Bobby Flay, Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse.

Cook-off judges include British chef Nigella Lawson, actress Jane Seymour and U.S. Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin.

During her appearance, Obama spoke about the influence that cooking shows like "Iron Chef" have on the American perception of healthy foods.

"It's going a long way to help change the way this country thinks about food," she told the chefs.

The first lady has begun a crusade to get Americans, particularly children, to follow a healthier diet. She launched the Healthy Kids Initiative to encourage healthier eating and urge children to reject fast food.

White House aides said that Obama's willingness to appear on the program and invite the show into her home proves her dedication to this cause.

Drunk Ewoks Invade a Live Halloween Segment on The Today Show

To Harvest Squash, Click Here

By Douglas Quenqua, The New York Times
October 29, 2009

AT high schools and colleges across the country, students are hard at work, tilling their land and harvesting their vegetables. “It is clear this obsession with FarmVille is an issue, especially since it is taking away time from studying and schoolwork,” Danielle Susi wrote this month in The Quad News, a student newspaper at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn.

Adults, too, are blaming their problems on FarmVille, an online game in which people must tend their virtual farms carefully. On blogs like FarmVille Freak (slogan: “I can’t stop watching my crops!”) and others, people share tips on fertilizer and complain about, for example, a spouse’s addiction.

An anonymous blogger who said she was pregnant wrote: “I was starving ... and he told me I’d have to wait a few more minutes so he could HARVEST HIS RASPBERRIES! I waited ... in the car and waited for his stupid raspberries to be harvested.” That there are actual farmers who spend less time on their crops is beside the point. FarmVille has quickly become the most popular application in the history of Facebook.

More than 62 million people have signed up to play the game since it made its debut in June, with 22 million logging on at least once a day, according to Zynga, the company that brought FarmVille into the world. Crazes on Facebook seem to come in waves — remember sheep-throwing, Vampire Wars and lists of “25 Random Things About Me?” — but devotion to FarmVille has moved beyond the social network.

Players gather online to share homemade spreadsheets showing which crops will provide the greatest return on investment. YouTube is rife with musical odes to the game, including versions of its theme song. There is a “Farmville Art” movement, in which people arrange crops to resemble the Mona Lisa or Mr. Peanut. And many a promising dinner date has been cut short to harvest squash.

“I can’t hang out with any of my friends without talk of apple fields and rice paddies,” said Taylor Lee Sivils, a student at the University of California, Riverside, in an e-mail message. “I have to wait for my friends’ soybeans to grow, because we can’t chill until they’ve been harvested. All I want is to be able to go back to talking about anything tangible, but FarmVille overcomes.”

The game starts off simply: You are given land and seeds that can be planted, harvested and sold for online coins. As you accrue currency, you can buy things, from basics like rice and pumpkin seeds to the truly superfluous, like elephants and hot-air balloons. Impatient players can use credit cards or a PayPal account to buy more money, although purists tend to frown on the practice.

But like The Sims and Tamagotchi pets, FarmVille soon becomes less of a game than a Sisyphean baby-sitting assignment. Crops must be harvested in a timely fashion, cows must be milked, and social obligations — like exchanging gifts and fertilizing your neighbor’s pumpkins — must be met.

The game seems to have mesmerized people from all walks of life. Every night for the last two weeks, Jil Wrinkle, a 40-year-old medical transcriber in the Philippines, has set his alarm for 1:30 a.m., when he will wake up, roll over and harvest his blueberries. “I keep my laptop next to my bed,” he explained by phone. “The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is harvest, then I harvest again at 10 in the morning, then again in midafternoon, then in the evening, and then again right before going to bed.”

Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, said he had seen the craze firsthand among his students. “Just like Guitar Hero lets you feel a little like being a rock star — you get to pose and dance a little while you’re doing it — with FarmVille there is a real sense that you’re actually doing something that has a cause and effect,” he said. “The method of dragging food out of the ground and getting something for it is really satisfying.”

FarmVille isn’t the only popular farm-theme game on Facebook. MyFarm and FarmTown, which are made by different companies, also have huge followings. Some academics have gone so far as to suggest that their collective popularity points to a widespread yearning for the pastoral life. “The whole concept of ‘I’m sick of this modern, urban lifestyle, I wish I could just grow plants and vegetables and watch them grow,’ there is something very therapeutic about that,” said Philip Tan, director of the Singapore-M.I.T. Gambit Game Lab, a joint venture between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the government of Singapore to develop digital games.

Of course, real-life farming is quite a bit messier and more dangerous than FarmVille (perhaps just one reason that FarmVille players outnumber actual farmers in the United States by more than 60 to 1).

Yet some of the game’s biggest fans are farmers. “I was having all these deaths on the farm and hurting myself on a daily basis doing real farming,” said Donna Schoonover, of Schoonover Farm in Skagit County, Wash., who raises sheep, goats and Satin Angora rabbits (real ones!). “This was a way to remind myself of the mythology of farming, and why I started farming in the first place.”

Zynga, which is based in San Francisco, specializes in games that are easy to learn but hard to walk away from. It also makes Mafia Wars (25 million players) and Café World (24 million), the second and third most popular games on Facebook, respectively. Mark Pincus, the founder and chief executive, said that Zynga earns money from advertising, sponsorships and players who buy in-game cash. Zynga has been profitable since 2007, he said. “It’s really the same formula that makes Facebook successful,” Mr. Pincus said, “the ability to connect with your friends, to express yourself, and to invest in the game.”

FarmVille takes advantage of Facebook by allowing — nay, nagging — players to become “neighbors” with their friends, even those who have not joined the game. Players can earn points by helping with their neighbors’ work. They can also irritate friends who don’t want to play

FarmVille with endless notifications and invitations to join, which has led to a vocal backlash. Cropping up alongside fan blogs like Farmville Freak, which after just one month is getting 25,000 unique visitors a day, are Facebook groups for people who are tired of listening to their friends talk about their eggplants. On “I Hate FarmVille,” the largest of the anti-Farmville affinity groups on Facebook (it has more than 17,000 members), one person commented, “No, I will not give you a tree! No, I will not be your neighbor!”