Sugary Milk: The New Soft Drink?

Milk is becoming more sugary, flavored, and even carbonated. Oh, and maybe even "cool." Or, at the least, a "more healthful alternative" to soda.

You’ve got to be kidding!

As I shake my head in utter disbelief, I’m reading a fascinating Washington Post article, which reveals the hot new trend of dishing up milk in newfangled flavors in the hopes that kids will drink the stuff.

Oh, and get this: Some of these sweetened milk beverages go by such candy-like names as "ChocolateDrink," "Milky Way," and "3 Musketeers."

Even soda companies are jumping on the milk bandwagon.

• Earlier this month, Coco-Cola Enterprises Inc. (the bottling arm) acquired a majority stake in Bravo Foods International Corp., maker of vitamin-fortified, flavored milks. Bravo previously teamed with Mars Inc. to turn its chocolate bars into a beverage ("liquid candy," as dubbed by the Post and the Center for the Science in the Public Interest.
• Next month, Coke’s rival PepsiCo, Inc. is rolling out a chocolate-, strawberry- and vanilla-flavored Quaker Milk Chillers. 

Speaking of being chilled, I’m shivering just thinking about this nutrition-robbing development (even though it’s swelteringly hot here in New York).

These drinks are so far removed from milk that it’s almost laughable.

Now get ready to be horrified.

One 14-ounce bottle of 3 Musketers contains 30 grams of sugar. Plus, it includes not one, but three different kinds of artificial sweeteners — sucralose (Splenda), acesulfame potassium, and neotame (which is similiar to aspartame). (All of them have been cited as dangerous by experts I interviewed.)

Nesquik’s 16-ounce fat-free chocolate drink is even more frightening. A kid who drinks this will be hit by SUGAR SHOCK! — with its 60 grams of sugar and 320 calories. (So what if it has calcium, as a company spokesperson observed? All that sugar makes it tough to absorb vitamins, as various sugar experts note, including Nany Appleton, author of Lick the Sugar Habit.)

Granted, everyone’s so concerned that milk sales have dropped. In 2003, according to the USDA, the average American drank 21.6 gallons of milk — a far cry from the 35.3 gallons of non-diet soft drinks.

But, while we’re at it, a number of researchers and nutritionists I interviewed for my upcoming book SUGAR SHOCK! told me that we shouldn’t be drinking so much milk anyway.

So, what do you think about all these flavored-milk drinks? Am I alone in my fretful, fearful state?