You'll never see a purple cow. But you will see red, orange and blue milk! New milk flavors such as raspberry, orange cream and blueberry are already in stores and finding their way into schools.
Traditional chocolate and strawberry milk have been around for years. The formula used to be simple: milk and a little bit of flavoring. But milk is not the main ingredient in some of the new products. They are half milk and half other ingredients, including water, sugar and flavoring.
Many of the new drinks are even carbonated to make them bubbly, like soda. And they have almost as much added sugar as soda does! The U.S. Food and Drug Administration refuses to allow the companies to call the dairy drinks milk, because the products are low in vitamins, calcium and other minerals.
Companies like Promised Land Diary, Coca-Cola and Cadbury are looking for new ways to encourage kids to drink more milk. They say the dairy drinks are healthful alternatives to soda. But are they?
"Replacing soda with these unhealthy flavored milks isn't going to do a lot of good," says nutritionist Brie Turner-McGrievy. "Kids should be drinking water instead."
Other experts disagree. "All that extra sugar isn't necessary," says Marilyn Tanner, a nutritionist with the American Dietetic Association. "But if kids don't like to drink plain milk, flavorings can be a good way for them to still get the nourishment (of milk)."
She advises kids and parents to read the labels of these drinks before deciding to buy them. "Kids should learn to look at the amount of sugar, fat and calories in a drink," says Tanner. "Then they should choose carefully."