Connecticut Lawmakers Vote to Ban Chocolate Milk in Schools

Connecticut lawmakers voted to ban chocolate milk from school lunchrooms statewide as they wrapped up their legislative session Wednesday, in a move that critics warned could change kids' lunchtime habits for the worse.

The legislation, which next heads to Gov. Malloy's desk, makes revisions to the education statutes in order to comply with new federal school lunch standards on sodium, which is found in chocolate milk.

On Friday, I called the office of Rep. Sharkey, [Speaker] after reading that this obamanation was *inadvertantly* added to the education bill.

My question to them was how does one INADVERTANTLY have something like this added to the bill? Didn’t anyone read it before voting?

This poor staffer named *Chris* hemmed and hawed, could not answer. In the background I heard lots of shuffling of papers. Finally, he tried to assure me that this would not be signed by Gov. Malloy. He got an earful of what a crappy job elected officials are doing to craft the legislation that is oozing out of Hartford. I suppressed my outrage over the choco milk issue. The yahoos in Hartford haven’t a clue what they are doing.

On the issue of choco/flavored milk, it it obvious the kids stop drinking milk all together....and income from lunch sales suffer and levels never come back to the level of pre-ban. Experiences in/studies from Yale, Oregon, Virginia show this clearly. This is local issue....and should be something decided by a parent. Teach your kid to make good choices at home and carry them over to school lunch, if a few carbs in choco milk bothers you so much.

An aside, *Tru-Moo* has changed their formula to not include high-fructose sugar in their choco milk. They got in front of this, and are smart about it b/c the accounts for school milk are substantial and not to be trifled.

If you stood near the trash barrels in an inner city [Title I/free lunch] school as kids clean-up their breakfast or lunch trays....you’d be livid at the waste. Unopened milk cartons are tossed out b/c they were *served*....kids must take a milk, even if they know they won’t ddrink it. Workers are too lazy to take the unopened cartons, put them aside and figure out how to get them to a food bank somewhere to be properly appreciated.

On a lighter note.....at the Repub convention this weekend....A Wethersfield delegate stepped to the microphone to announce the town’s votes and said the community was “fighting for our right to bear arms and drink chocolate milk.’’

Amen to that!

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