Big Milk's Mouthful of Foot

For those of you who may be new subscribers one of my recurring features is something I call, "Quobesities".

I define a quobesity as,

"quotes that in one way or another embody what's wrong and hopefully, occasionally, what's right with relation to our attitudes and knowledge about weight and weight related matters."

Yesterday there was a beauty in the New York Times. This one was from Bruce W. Krupke, the executive vice president of New York State Dairy Foods, a trade organization paid for by milk producers. He was writing the Times to complain about their December 10th editorial piece, Junking Fat Food in Schools which detailed an amendment to the farm bill that called for the limitation of milk in schools to be low-calorie milk.

Why would milk be considered "junk food"?

Because frankly in some cases it is, like for instance the 3 Musketeers Slammers that I detailed in a previous post that at 340 calories provides your children with over 10 teaspoons of sugar and more than double the Calories of a can of Coca Cola.

So what did Mr. Krupke have to say?

"Senator Harkin has included in his amendment provisions to limit container sizes (the 16-ounce container sold in vending machines is outlawed), to eliminate whole and 2 percent milk, and to impose serving-size calorie restrictions. In his quest to dictate what can be sold in schools, milk has been caught up in his net.

Drinking milk is not contributing to children's obesity. Milk has essential vitamins and nutrients essential for good growth and health."

Damn that Senator Harkin and his evil "net", doesn't he know milk has nutrients!

Unfortunately in many cases vending machine milk also has added sugars, chocolate and insanely large serving sizes (like the 14oz, 340 calorie, 10+ teaspoons of sugar Slammers in the picture above that Mr. Krupke would apparently love to see increase in size by 2oz).

So can Mr. Krupke really believe that providing children with 16oz servings of sugar sweetened candy-milk is a healthy choice and one that doesn't contribute to childhood obesity?

Well, here is another quote from Mr. Krupke that probably does a better job at explaining his objections. This quote is from his article in the New York State Dairy Food Inc.'s September newsletter,

"Another example of policy shift was with the introduction of bills aimed at creating “healthier” food choices for kids in schools by mandating package size restrictions while tying them all into calorie and sugar limitations. These bills if passed would be a disaster for milk and ice cream companies. Fortunately our lobbying efforts combined with other groups kept the bill at bay."

Mr. Krupke, your touching concern for our children is duly noted.