In the future, milk mustaches may be one color

Aug. 17—Customers choose from a rainbow of options at the Shatto Milk Co.

In addition to white milk, the farm store in Osborn, Missouri, sells brown for chocolate, pink for strawberry, light blue for cotton candy and a variety of other shades for cookies and cream, banana, root beer and other flavors.

"Our most popular flavored milk has been chocolate, for 20 years," said Barbara Shatto, the owner and president of Shatto Milk. "That's what people come in for."

At school cafeterias, the choices are more limited between white, chocolate and perhaps strawberry milk. If the U.S. Department of Agriculture gets its way, students may have even fewer options in the future.

The USDA is taking comments on a proposed ban of chocolate and strawberry milk at elementary and middle school lunchrooms. For high schools, flavored milk would be limited but still available.

The proposal, buried inside the USDA's long-term school nutrition standards, is not going down easy.

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, a farmer from Tarkio, sent an electronic newsletter earlier this month with the headline, "Hands off the chocolate milk!"

"No chocolate milk in kid's lunches? Nonsense," the lawmaker wrote.

To be clear, chocolate and strawberry milk will be available in the cafeteria as students return to school this month. If approved, the ban would take effect in the 2025-26 school year.

Becky Schoeneck, the coordinator of nutrition services for the St. Joseph School District, said the USDA is always changing school lunch and breakfast guidelines to make them healthier. The flavored milk ban, if it took effect, would be significant.

"I would say for every white milk we give out, we probably give out five chocolate milks," said Schoeneck, a registered dietician. "It's a very popular item, especially with our younger grades. We go through a lot of chocolate milk."

Whether that's a bad thing is a matter of debate. Flavored milk does contain more sugar, although the USDA version approved for school lunches has less than what a consumer would find at the grocery store.

To some degree, the issue reflects the tension between the ideal and the practical.

"If I were able to produce a lunch menu for kids, it would not include chocolate milk," said Heather Hausman, a nutrition coach and owner of H2 Personal Training and Fitness. "But that may be all they are getting nutrition-wise for an entire day. They don't have meals waiting for them."

She said there are ways to get calcium and vitamins without milk and to sweeten food without sugar, but it can be costly and require more planning.

"It's harder for our school system and our regular population to afford to do that," she said.

Any parent could sympathize with the reality that Schoeneck has to feed about 9,500 picky eaters every weekday. She wants them to consume healthy food, but she knows if it doesn't taste good, it could wind up in the trash can.

"I think some of the proposed items they're working on could discourage kids from eating with us, and we don't want to go in that direction," she said. "I am a supporter of making healthy food taste good, and to me, if having chocolate milk gets kids to drink milk, I'm all for it."

It remains to be seen whether the ban will take effect, but the federal rulemaking process can be like a boulder that's hard to stop once it gets rolling downhill. President George W. Bush first proposed phasing out the incandescent lightbulb in 2007. It happened 16 years and three administrations later.

Graves signed on to a bipartisan letter asking U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack to keep chocolate milk on school menus.

Schoeneck said school menus are always evolving. She remembers getting flavored popsicles in her school days, something that wouldn't fly with today's focus on healthy eating and reduced fat and sugar.

"I think with any change, we get used to it," she said. "This one would take longer, to be sure."

Greg Kozol can be reached at greg.kozol@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowKozol.