Milk Day of Action

I don't send Pigby to public school. And God-willing, I won't ever have to. But I am on a crusade against soda. Might as well add other unnecessary drinks to that as well. I'm not gonna debate the whole "dairy is bad for you" or "dairy is good for you" thing. Just suffice it to say, we drink some milk in our house. We eat some yogurt.

A few years ago, I was at my parents' house for Christmas. My mom had some Yoplait in her fridge. You know, the good stuff. While eating it, I checked the label. I think it had about 32 grams of sugar in that darn little cup!!!! That is about the same as a soda! (in a smaller container too) That was the first time I ever started paying attention to the sugar content in yogurt.

In kindergarten, every day we had to line up first thing and the teacher would ask "White or chocolate?" Every day without fail I chose chocolate. Other kids would chose white and I would think "What's wrong with them, don't they know chocolate tastes better?" Shortly after we were married, I bought some premixed chocolate milk. I had always thought it was better; the powdered mix didn't mix as smooth. While drinking that, I was looking at the labels saw it had High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. Ever since I saw that, I could just feel the syrup in it and it grossed me out. I think I ended up dumping the jug before it even ran out.

Now don't go thinking I'm perfect. I found a box of strawberry milk mix that had been in the cupboard for over a year without being used ("Hey that's where my tablespoon went!"). We've been buying flavored yogurt up until just recently. When confronted with a plain tub a few weeks ago Corey asked what he was supposed to do with it. "Add in a little vanilla and sugar" I told him. "Will that work ok?" he asked. "How do you think they make it? Just make sure it's a little sugar." He was mixing it with something else, I wanna say granola, but he said it tasted fine. And it wasn't 32 grams.

Jamie Oliver is right. In the middle of this obesity epidemic, we don't need to be adding excess sugar where it doesn't belong.