Full house for Milk and Sport

The Dairy Council’s Milk and Sport Conference this year in London was characterised by a large showing, with attendees ranging from staff at Port Vale Football Club, to representatives from whey company Volac. And there was a lot to talk about, as the speakers discussed Team GB’s winning ways at Eton Dorney and elsewhere in London. It was gratifying to see, in one cloud diagram in one of the presentations, that the word MILK was write large as part of athlete’s diets. The word is getting out.

However, I always have to laugh. The North American contingent is keen on using chocolate milk as a post-exercise recovery drink in its studies, while Europeans tend to prefer other flavoured drinks such as banana and strawberry. One researcher told me about how her attempts to get chocolate milk from one European multinational company was met with a puzzled, “But the children over here like strawberry!” Meanwhile, her North American charges were threatening to leave the study over the wrong flavour of milk.

Still, we mustn’t let flavoured milk get lumped in with other sweetened less healthful drinks, as is threatening to happen over in the US. I found to my dismay recently that a fellow parent was shooing her child away from nutrition-packed flavoured milk towards apple juice, in the mistaken belief that there was more nutrition in apple juice. I did put her straight, but it’s a constant struggle.

My son, meanwhile, was enjoying his flavoured milk yesterday, courtesy of the conference. He likes chocolate – and strawberry. A multicultural child.