Chocolate milk: does it keep longer than regular milk?

Schrodinger's Dog

The higher levels of Sugar in chocolate milk, will this mean that it keeps longer? Also the eternal Chocolate vs no chocolate issue? Should we make value judgements based on the consumption of chocolate even in less obvious forms?

DaveC426913

Sounds like someone needs to do a controlled experiment and get back to us!

(My vote: no. Sugar acts as a dessicant. But if there's more than enough moisture present, it won't deter bacteria).
Chocolate is the Food of the Gods. Though it is pretty nasty to sneak it in to an otherwise very healthy food.

chroot

Milk is not a "very healthy food," by any stretch of the imagination.

- Warren

DaveC426913

[QUOTE=chroot]Milk is not a "very healthy food," by any stretch of the imagination.
Yes, it is
1] Certainly compared to many other alternatives within easy reach of most people who don't look after their diet well.
2] It is not the miracle food it has often made out to be, and it does have its flaws, but it is by-and-large, quite healthy.

chroot

1) It's full of sugar and fat. Whole milk has more calories than soda.
2) It's full of substances which irritate many people's digestive systems. Many people are outright allergic to it.
3) Most milk is full of estrogenic hormones.

Guess what healthy alternative is available to anyone who has access to milk products? Water.

- Warren

The_Professional

I like my cereal with milk. Considering the alternative organic milk I don't think it would taste as good as non-fat or regular milk.

DaveC426913

The idea behind good eating is to
1] maximize nutrient intake per calorie
2] maximize "fullness" so that further, unecessary calorie intake is discouraged.

Sugar and fat are not, in-and-of-themselves, bad. They are bad when they provide empty calories (i.e. when there is no nutritive value along with them.) Milk is pretty good, nutrient-wise. It is also filling, which helps discourage excessive calorie intake (eating).

A piece of fruit may have as much sugar in it as a candy bar. But the piece of fruit easily outstrips the candy on points one and two.

Water is not all that healthy in this sense. It provides virtually no *nutritive* value, and is not particularly filling, as it does not quench the appetite.

chroot

I'm aware that sugar and fat are not "bad," they are, of course, required nutrients.

Unfortunately, what I've seen is that is ignorant parents demand that soda machines be removed from schools, only to be replaced with dairy drinks with even more calories and more fat. Sure, your kid is getting calcium and vitamin D, but he/she is also becoming even more obese.

Even more laughable is the "Milk Your Diet" campaign, which clearly states that drinking milk, cutting calories, and exercising can lead to weight loss. Duh! Drinking milk has nothing to do with it. The reason most people think milk is good for you is simply because they've bought into the decades-long marketing campaigns that simply asserted milk is good for you.

Considering the allergen and hormone content of most milk, I'd say fruit juice is a much, much healthier beverage. Also, when presented with patients complaining of almost any digestive distress, gastroenterologists routinely encourage the reduction of dairy consumption. In my opinion, there's no reason why anyone should or would even want to drink milk.

- Warren

moose

Milk is not healthy for humans. Maybe *parts* of milk are healthy, but there are several chemicals in milk which humans should not drink...

Moonbear

Well, anything that someone is allergic to is unhealthy for them. That doesn't make it unhealthy for everyone.

And just how estrogenic do you really think milk is? Men produce much more of their own estrogens than are found in a consumable amount of cow's milk.

Anything consumed in excess is going to lead to weight gain; it doesn't make it inherently unhealthy. Soda has no nutritive value, while an equal number of calories of milk has substantial nutritive value, especially for active children who burn a lot of calories. Inactivity of course is not something to blame on milk either. Of course, I'm just talking about plain, ordinary milk, not those higher fat, higher sugar yogurt-type drinks that only pose as health-foods. Actually, most fruit juices on the market are as bad, or worse than soda as a beverage too. Too many of them have sugar added, have the actual fruit juice diluted, and contain more calories than a can of soda. Pure, unsweetened fruit juice is fine...it's a challenge to find anything other than orange or grapefruit juice to fit that description though.

As for the actual thread topic, it's the sugars in milk that feed the bacteria to allow it to spoil, so I don't understand the logic that more sugar in chocolate milk would have any effect on its rate of spoilage. Personally, I don't like chocolate milk. I like plain, whole, very cold milk. Chocolate is for the cake I have with it.

Orefa

I don't think the relative sugar content of chocolate milk compared to milk is very important here. Both are already sufficient to support bacterial growth and spoilage. Adding more sugar just provides more nutrients so that once it spoils, the sweeter of the two can continue to spoil longer and support larger colonies. What matters the most is the initial level of bacterial contamination and the storage temperature. Adding a chocolate mix can intoduce a new source of bacteria if it is done after pasteurization instead of before, but otherwise I would expect both to be comparable. I'll have to remember to check expiration dates of both products when I visit the grocery store to test my hypothesis against commercial data.

Azael

acctualy calcium does help with fatloss
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...=pubmed_docsum

Notice this(I havent read the whole thing though, only abstract).
Milk is also one of the best natural source of protein second only to eggs. Lactose even though a sugar has a fairly low gi and milk has lots of micronutrients.

If not lactose intolerant I dont se any reason to avoid milk

Orefa

Dairy products contains hormonal and antibiotic residues. So does meat and chicken. Fish contains mercury. Grains, fruits and vegetables contain pesticides. I play it safe, I only eat chocolate.

DaveC426913

Yes but,
1] ignorant parents don't make for labeling a good food bad
2]again, soda is completely empty calories, milk gives nutrition and fills you up


Agreed. Not refuting that for a second. But that doesn't mean it's NOT good for you, it just means they oversold it. You're swinging the other way, underselling it.

...I'd say fruit juice is a much, much healthier beverage. In my opinion, there's no reason why anyone should or would even want to drink milk.
- Warren[/QUOTE]

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c2019.html
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c20W5.html
This fruit juice has
20% more calories,
350% more carbs,
only 1/4 of the protein
and only 4/5 of the mineral nutrients
as milk.

Milk is a complex sugar (lactose) whereas juice is composed of simple sugars (fructose), very easliy digested and converted to fat. Additionally, the fat content of milk helps slow digestion, which discourages absorption of calories. It's lower Glycemic Index is great for not just us Diabetics, but for a Diabetic-susceptible population.

honestrosewater

Juicy Juice. They're from concentrate, if it matters. Their calorie content is about the same as 1% and 2% milk. I don't drink fruit juice very often, but they're my favorite (other than fresh). Though if you're already naturally sweet like me you might want to water them down a bit.

Flavors: Strawberry Banana, Watermelon, Apple, Apple Grape, Berry, Cherry, Cranberry Apple, Grape, Kiwi Strawberry, Orange Tangerine, Punch, Tropical, White Grape, Peach, and Mango.

Moonbear

Ick! Juicy Juice is like pure sugar to me!

Anyway, for fun, how about a label comparison:
Juicy Juice (I picked cranberry apple, just because it sounded good to me):
http://www.dietfacts.com/html/items/35594.htm

1% milk fortified with vitamin A:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c201C.html

Whole milk (3.25%):
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c2017.html

And for kicks, the only site I could find with any matching serving size information on Coca-cola (most that I found call 1 serving whatever the size of the container is, so don't match the 1 cup (8 oz) servings of the other beverages listed here):
http://www.calorieking.com/foods/foo...2EtY29sYQ.html

(no matter what size Coke is served in, it has no vitamins listed )

So, if you're on a liquid diet, you might want to have milk at some meals and juice at others to balance out the vitamins.

Integral

My experiance.
While in the Navy, we would have white milk initially, but after several weeks at sea, all that would be available was chocolate. I always thought that the chocolate just covered the taste of souring milk.

Wasn't this thread supposed to be about the viability of choclate vs White, not the health issues surrounding milk?