Back in February, the Board of Education removed whole milk from all NYC schools in an effort to curb childhood obesity. The whole milk was replaced with 1 percent milk and chocolate skim milk. According to federal regulations, the Department of Education’s reimbursements under the federal school food program would have been jeopardized had they offered soymilk.
Dairy industry officials warned that milk consumption would drop because children would find low fat milk less tasty. (God forbid!) Of course, the fact that NYC is the nation’s largest school district and serves over a half-million pints of milk a day to (impressionable) young people had nothing to do with it. Never would the dairy industry put its financial interests ahead of children’s nutrition!
Our friend John at League of Humane Voters of NYC has alerted us that just yesterday Council Member Bill de Blasio from Park Slope, Brooklyn introduced a resolution (No. 267) at City Hall calling on the Department of Education to “assess the impact of its decision to decrease milk choices in New York City’s public schools in order to evaluate the effect of the policy change on children’s milk consumption and nutrition.” (The NY Daily News reports.)
It looks like the American Dairy Industry put some milk money into Bill de Blasio’s pocket.




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