To my knowledge all the hoopla about chocolate milk as a post-exercise recovery drink is based on just one study of 9 athletes, in a paper that was paid for in part by the Dairy and Nutrition Council. You can read it here: http://oakbrooksc.com/docs/stager_chocmilk_study.pdf.

The study looks at the interactions of the sugars and proteins in the milk vs. the sugars in energy drinks like gatorade, and not at all at the possible beneficial compounds in cocoa.

In my very firm opinion, anybody who drinks chocolate milk in the belief that its benefits are based on scientifically proven facts, has been taken for a ride.

Why train children to have sweet drinks all the time? What's wrong with milk, tea or water? That said, I don't mind if they have one sweet drink a day, I just object to the idea that you can't drink anything unsweetened (and I include apple juice in this, it's often sweeter than soft drinks).

Chocolate milk is not that sweet. I'm in my thirties and I still drink it in the morning. I rarely drink soda or juice anymore because I think they are too sweet. (I'm more worried about tomato sauce being labeled as a "vegetable.")

You know what's a better recovery drink than chocolate milk? Regular milk.

@ shipwrecks: Chocolate milk may not taste that sweet, but if you compare the sugar content of the average chocolate milk from the store with that of pop, chocolate milk is usually slightly sweeter. It takes a bit of math to figure it out, and you have to ensure the quantities are the same. I have checked this several times, and I agree totally with Ann Cooper, who calls it pop in drag.

I think it should be swore, not sward...

The thought of drinking milk, let alone chocolate milk, in the depths of a hangover or after a sweaty workout sounds disgusting. Anchorman, anyone? "Milk was a baaad choooiiice"

In hangovers, your tummy is a-rumblin, and after a workout you're hot, sweaty, and want all the air and water you can get, not sugary thick milkiness, ugh the milk smell leaving your sweaty pores, no thank you.

@shipwrecks: I have to admit I only know the German products, they are mostly sweeter than coke.

I don't like chocolate milk in schools, but drinking milk after a workout seems odd to me too. I have no issue with it outside of school. Everything in moderation...

It's a marketing sceme, pure and simple. Companies that sell junk food and candy hit a bonanza when they get the schools to sell this poison for them. They are predators, plain and simple. It would be one thing if the schools offered a choice, but it's a monopoly.

Oh for petes sake just let the kids drink their chocolate milk at school and then DON'T give them sugar sodas & such at home. Once a day isn't going to hurt. And if it's that bad, why not get the school board together to select a less damaging brand of chocolate milk. Actually I remember often choosing not to get the chocolate milk because the Kemps milk always had this gross choc-o-grit in it. Maybe we should give them chocolate milk that tastes disgusting? ;)

@laurabelk, I agree. I make my daughter a glass of chocolate milk every morning with "fancy" organic chocolate syrup from WF. I don't kid myself that this makes it healthy, but I certainly don't think it's going to lead to a lifetime of obesity as this is her only sweet drink of the day. I hope she'll look back fondly on our little routine of making her chocolate milk every morning.

I do know several people who swear by milk for a hangover.

The theory behind drinking chocolate milk after a workout, at least according to my friends who (unlike me) are in great shape, is that it replenishes your carbs better. Chocolate milk has more than twice as much carbs than regular white milk.

Also, if you are sweating milk, you have problems greater than having too much sugar. Holy moly.

For all of the problems with our public schools, I love that it is chocolate milk that they go after.

Sort of like going after phosphates in dishwasher detergent (per NYT, just "a fraction" of phosphates in water come from dw detergent). Highly visible but not much substance in the scheme of things. I'm much more concerned about TVP taking the place of unprocessed protein and surplus government whatever filling cafeteria trays. And we're told to be grateful that big brother has his eye on our kids.

Choco milk has more electrolytes than most other fluid-replacement "remedies", which is why some of the hungover folks may appreciate it.

@bakingstone, and there are more than 180 studies that are directly associated with or have been funded by the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. ;-)

That choco milk study looked at post-exercise recovery for endurance athletes performing multiple workouts per day. The sample size and methods were similar other peer-reviewed exercise nutrition studies. There are many other peer-reviewed, published studies examining milk and its efficacy on exercise and athletes --- skim milk is seen as a more effective post-resistance-exercise lean-muscle builder than some soy-based product, for example. Not all of those researchers took money from a dairy council.

The science in the report was sound. Grocery store brand low-fat choco milk has similar nutritional characteristics as both Fluid Replacement exercise drinks (e.g., Gatorade) and Carbo Replacement exercise drinks (e.g., Endurox), and has similar exercise recovery benefits. The study found choco milk to be just as good as these others, not better, and hence is a viable alternative to them. I agree the mass media can't report science accurately, over-hyped these results, and takes money from the NDC.

Disclaimer: I have read the earlier, non-NDC funded chocolate milk studies that same research group did with high-school swimmers doing two-a-days, which had similar conclusions.

I don't like this because of the precedent it sets - that Americans will continually opt for inferior food and beverages to serve our children in schools.

It's not a problem that students will chocolate milk one time per day, but it sets a standard for what's "normal", and I think that standard is pitiably low. Additionally, I vehemently disagree that the solution should be a) ignoring it and b) not giving your own children chocolate milk at home.

Far too many students don't have a choice, who go home to empty fridges and pantries. It all balances out for the kids who DO go home to wholesome meals, but for the kids that go hungry...is chocolate milk really the best we can do?

Lastly, since when did school-aged children become professional/hardcore athletes? Why is it so important to deliver electrolytes through such a sugar-heavy medium?

It's not about chocolate milk. It's about wanting future generations to get a complete, well-rounded educations, and robbing students of wellness while increasing expectations in the classroom has only proven to be a miserable failure. (Ask how many teachers are willing to eat a school lunch next time you go. Ask them why they do/don't.)

Chocolate milk was recommended to me by my coach in college as a recovery drink post work out. It was supposed to help with muscle recovery, etc (blah blah blah), and the sugar for a slight energy boost. While I do not claim to know the exact scientific merits of drinking a small glass after a hard work out, I felt it was helpful. That being said, I think chocolate milk (which in many schools has excessive amounts of sugar added) should be kept out of schools - among other unhealthy foods and "vegetables" served in many cafeterias. Also, if I remember my gym classes in elementary, middle and high school correctly - I cant ever remember needing a recovery drink - chocolate milk, gatorade or otherwise; water usually did the trick.

I recently trained for (the hard part!) and ran a marathon and my go-to recovery drink was chocolate milk. I too thought it sounded like an odd choice at first but it was refreshing, easy on my stomach (Gatorade messes me up) and, frankly, delish. The science is there too. As someone else said, I'd rather drink milk than chemicals.

@KkatMpls, not sure how you can be worried about our lazy government and not worried about big corporations marketing to children. Oxalates may inhibit calcium and the sugary junk in there surely is problematic for obesity and diabetes.

http://www.yaleruddcenter.org/what_we_do.aspx?id=4

NY Times is not a scientific journal. Phosphates are still a problem:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=934705

As someone who doesn't like white milk, I only drank chocolate milk at school. But I remember the chocolate milk they served was skim or lowfat, not whole milk like you find at all the convenience stores. I don't ever buy chocolate milk because it's hard to find skim. I just make my own at home if I want it. I agree with earlier posts that 1 drink per day isn't going to lead to obesity, but I do think the schools need to do their part to create a healthy meal. I was overweight as a kid and the only things I remember eating at school were pizza, french fries, chicken nuggets, burgers, etc. And those were the meals being offered that day, not some special that I opted to buy in leiu of the normal meal.

Like Lauren AK points out, there are two issues at play here. An endurance athlete is obviously having intense workouts for long periods of time, burning more than enough calories and fat to make up for the chocolate milk. School kids don't need "recovery drinks" after PE class and are rarely doing enough physical activity outside of school to burn off that extra sugar and fat consumed. Childhood obesity is caused by two factors: food consumed AND lack of physical activity. I don't think the school food has changed that much over the past 50 years but the physical activity kids get has decreased significantly.

Has anyone made note of that fact that athletes drinking chocolate milk after a strenuous workout is not at all comparable to a kid who has sat in class all morning (and will sit again all afternoon) drinking chocolate milk at lunch...and will probably go home and sit some more?

This is a faulty comparison.

You can't compare athlete to child. Body's metabolism is completely different after an intense workout.

Chocolate milk is an amazing recovery drink after a strenuous workout. Please look at the reasoning behind a renowned sports nutritionist and trainer Alan Aragan in this article
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/an-objective-comparison-of-chocolate-milk-and-surge-recovery.html

But if a little kid who doesn't do any intense workout drinks sugar laden milk, which can be addictive by surging dopamine reaction, the kid is unnecessarily consuming extra sugar and extra calorie. Sure, drinking chocolate milk every now and then is good, but little kids rare have such willpower to control their diet, and they'll probably chug chocolate milk very frequently given its taste.

I'm honestly quite offended that they're removing WHOLE milk, and chocolate milk from schools - I was not a huge milk drinker as a child (and I'm still not), but I certainly would not have drank any at all if my only options were 2% or less.

That said,
I think strongly pushing, if not flat out requiring, children to drink milk through lunch programs is weird and gross.

I have a firm and glowing respect for dairy and the place it has in cooking and baking, but feel like straight-up consumption of it is one of the strangest things ever.

I work out, I was in the Tough Mudder race and I would never even think to have milk before or after intense exercise. Spinach and other greens for calcium? Yes. Chocolate milk? Would never even put that junk in my body. This is a marketing scheme, pure and simple. Just like Big Dairy influenced the USDA's nutrition pyramid for all those years.

chocolate can help lactose intolerant people tolerate milk. i learned this myself as a child - it was the only way i could drink milk without my stomach rumbling from my lactose intolerance. taking unflavored milk and adding a small amount of chocolate syrup can help with the sugar content issue.

http://dairydelivers.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/chocolate-milk-for-lactose-intolerance/

15 years ago I was a school-age daycare director and noticed that often kids would feel ill, or actually get sick, after drinking chocolate milk for the snack. So, I stopped requesting chocolate milk from the lunch ladies - who prepared our snack each day.

A year later I was dating a dairy farmer (we are now married) and he said that the dairy distributors use the lower quality milk to make chocolate milk - the chocolate syrup masks the taste. Plus, some milks are just poor quality to begin with (and thus cheaper for the school districts), so their version of chocolate milk is even more disgusting.

His dariy farm went organic a few years later and we then had a son. We only give him chocolate milk if we make it ourselves - organic milk with organic chocolate flavoring - and it's a rare treat.

I'm a runner and I drink a glass of chocolate milk after a long run. It's good for your calcium, as well as replenishing carbs and proteins. I usually crash shortly after a long run if I don't get something in me fast, and chocolate milk does the trick.

Although once I was working a water stop during training for a marathon and a runner had brought milk in her own water bottles. I thought that was a little much for me, but it worked for her. To each their own, I guess.

There is now a healthy chocolate milk that should be in all schools. All-natutral MojoMilk (www.mojomilk.com) contains 60% fewer calories than leading brands and also delivers 10x more healthy probiotics than yogurt. This should be mandatory in school!

Sheesh. As a kid who grew up to be a fairy well adjusted, not obese adult, I refused then and now to drink white milk. I hate it. Plain white milk makes me gag, but flavored milk, chocolate most commonly, I love. That's what I drank every day with my school lunches and what I drink every morning now that I'm pregnant and can't have my coffee. Give the kids their milk and just ease up. So silly.

Yeaaaaahhh. I LOVE chocolate milk. It may be "sweeter than soda", but it also has vitamins that soda doesn't, proteins that soda doesn't, and lacks the bone-density-destroying and esophageal-cancer causing carbonation of soda. Plus, it seems like every other day there's a new study about how dark chocolate (what I make hot cocoa with) in moderation is good for you. Seriously, people.

Very few schoolkids exercise long enough, hard enough or often enough to need chocolate milk as a recovery drink. Only those who exercise intensely for more than an hour on consecutive days need recovery drinks. Cross country track runners, basketball team, soccer team, football team, etc. would likely benefit from chocolate milk and not be harmed by a few extra calories in sweetened chocolate milk. The vast majority of schoolkids who are not in training to become elite athletes should drink lowfat or nonfat milk after exercise. Maybe schools should offer milk containing unsweetened cocoa and stevia natural non-calorie sweetener.