Big Gov't for Kids: NYC Public Schools Reportedly Consider Ban on Chocolate Milk
Perhaps this is comparing apples to oranges, but I’d just like to throw it out here.
In the state of New York, third-trimester abortions aren’t just legal, they’re codified under the law. Gov. Andrew Cuomo celebrated this electoral victory by lighting up several New York City landmarks — including One World Trade Center — in pink.
So it’s all right to kill a child who could potentially survive outside the womb.
When that child gets into New York City’s public schools, however, he or she might not be able to drink chocolate milk.
A report from the New York Post says the staple of school lunches for generations could potentially be banned by Bill de Blasio’s minions because, well, sugar be bad.
“Citing health concerns, including sugar content, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and his underlings are pushing for a white-milk-only policy, [Department of Education] sources said,” according to the Post.
“The thinking is that these kids are already getting too much sugar, why are they getting it in their milk?” a source within the DOE said.
The source added that officials “are discussing what to do and how to do it.”
At least one kid interviewed for the Post’s report wasn’t too happy about it.
“It would be awful to take away people’s chocolate milk,” 10-year-old Caterina Ditommasa, a student at PS 58 in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, said.
Surprisingly, though, her mom, Joanna, agreed.
“The schools serve other sugary drinks that are no better — juices and sodas,” Joanna said.
“The real problem is that New York City lunches are unhealthy in general, all prepackaged and full of preservatives.”
It’s worth noting the household is split: “Not to be a health nazi,” Caterina’s father Luke said, “but it’s not the worst idea.”
It’s also an idea that’s caught on in other cities with governments as reliably nannyish as Gotham’s. San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have also banned the drinks, although questions remain over the efficacy of these sorts of bans.
For instance, NYU Langone Hospital Brooklyn dietician and nutritionist Norma Reid-Archibald called the plan a bad idea inasmuch as it would lead to students getting less calcium.
“I need them to have another option — there’s calcium, vitamin, potassium. All important,” Reid-Archibald told WNBC, which also reported on the proposed ban.
And that’s a problem. Studies have found that milk consumption reduces when a ban on flavored milk is put into effect. The question is whether or not the extra calories (which aren’t many) are really worth eliminating.
Reid-Archibald noted the difference between the white milk and the chocolate milk being served to New York City students is 90 calories vs. 120 calories.
And, as we’ve seen, nudging children toward better choices in the lunchroom has seldom worked out well, as the food waste from Michelle Obama’s school lunch program demonstrates. White milk cartons, in other words, may be the new fruit.
Thankfully, sanity (and the children) might be saved by dairy farmers; once they noticed what was going down, they got their local members of Congress to warn de Blasio of the dangers of banning chocolate milk.
“Over two-thirds of milk served in school is flavored, which represents an essential way that kids get the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development,’’ a letter from the lawmakers to de Blasio reads, according to the Post.
“This is a very large school system,” Democratic state Rep. Anthony Brindisi of Utica told the Post.
“This is a time when dairy farmers are already struggling and facing a lot of uncertainty.”
Thank God for the dairy farmers, who have provided a much-needed voice of sanity.
New York could have simply instituted a policy where students were educated about their choices.
Instead, bureaucrats want to take those choices away from them. What does this teach them about personal responsibility for their health? A big fat nothing.
But it makes liberals feel good about themselves.
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