HEALTH

Wellness

Gross me out! Dairy companies want to add fake sugar to your milk

Ah, milk. It’s healthy and full of calcium to help you build up strong bones—everyone knows that. But now in an effort to make flavored milk more appealing to diet-conscious kids and parents (and fit ‘em in to school’s new low-sugar guidelines), dairy companies are aiming to add artificial sweeteners like aspartame to your cookie’s favorite dunk-a-roo drink. Gross! Even worse? They’re fighting to get rid of government-required labels that clearly inform consumers that this new and “improved” milk is artificially enhanced.

Kaytee Riek, a campaign manager working against this push to drop the label, explains why faux sugar additives are such a bad idea: “Hyper-sweet additives like aspartame rewire children’s brains so that they always want sugary foods, turning the kids into tiny consumption machines. This constant craving fattens up the food companies’ bottom lines as it fattens up their customers, leading to our current obesity epidemic,” she says. “[The] industry has moved into formerly healthy foods, pumping them up with sugar, salt, and fat until they, too become part of the problem.” Without these labels, we aren’t able to make healthy food choices and avoid these sweeteners.

What do you think about this development? Would you gulp down artificially sweetened milk?

POSTED IN nutrition, In the News