Saturday, May 29, 2010

WHAAAAAT?

Chocolate Formula!? Seriously!? I am in shock. It is marketed for toddlers. Just thinking about that makes my tummy hurt for all of those babies :-(

This has caused debate on my Baby Center Birth Club board about wether you would give your 1 year old chocolate milk or chocolate formula. Oh. My. God.

This also led to 'well, it (chocolate milk) is better than juice' from mothers with babies the same age as Lily Ruth... so I decided to look that up...

from NutritionData.com, I find that 1 cup commercial chocolate milk (whole milk) has:
208 calories (74 from fat)
8 g fat
30 mg cholesterol
150 mg sodium
24 g sugars

1 cup apple juice (unsweetened, w/ added ascorbic acid) has:
114 calories
0 g fat
0 mg cholesterol
10 mg sodium
24 g sugars

1 child cup (12 oz!) Sprite has:
103 calories
0 g fat
0 mg cholesterol
23 mg sodium
23 g sugars

Just as a reference point, whole milk has:
146 calories
8 g fat
24 mg cholesterol
98 mg sodium
13 g sugars

and that crazy Chocolate 'Toddler' Formula (1/4 cup dry powder - but it won't tell me how much that makes):
150 calories
4.5 g fat
20 mg cholesterol
85 mg sodium
19 g sugars

So, I guess that the formula is better than chocolate milk? Uuuuugh. BUT, juice and Sprite ARE NOT better than chocolate milk. That doesn't make me feel any better :-/

I SO wish that could put this on a spreadsheet. My nerd side is losing it's mind over how I can't compare this data at a glance.

2 comments:

  1. ok i randomly came across your blog and can't help but express my opinion. yes chocolate formula is pretty dumb when kids are already happy having regular milk why give them that but i do see the point of giving them a healthy treat once in a while. anyway your nutritional info that you used to compare is what we as females watching our diet pay attention to. calories, fat, sodium... kids need vitamins, protein, fat in reasonable amounts, and minerals. soda has corn syrup which should be avoided by everyone, juice usually does too and if not it's still empty calories, yeah maybe a few vitamins but so much sugar it doesn't really matter. anyway my point is that there is more to nutritional information than calories and fat. and cocoa isn't that bad for you but the sugar or god forbid corn syrup to balance the bitter taste is.

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  2. Opinions are always welcome :-)

    I am completely against giving kids flavored milk or sodas (or anything else containing HFCS) except as very occasional treats. The nutritional info thing was to satisfy my own curiosity - my nerd brain hasn't gotten a lot of use lately... I long to create a spreadsheet or database :-P

    I've also been doing a lot of thinking about nutrition for children in general (especially since my little one is becoming an eater), so this just kind of exploded out of my brain when I heard about chocolate formula. As I re-read it, I realize that I never made the points that I wanted to. I just got too tired and tapered off... like now...

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