To the Editor:
Friday's article titled 'Got whole milk?' got me thinking. Being a science major, and after taking numerous nutrition classes, some of the points in the article startled me. I will preface these comments with a personal addendum: I don't drink milk, and certainly not whole milk, due to my dislike of the taste and the uncomfortable feeling left in my stomach after drinking a tall, cold, glass. I enjoy the dining halls; the many choices I am presented with on a daily basis leaves me feeling full and happy. With the elimination of whole milk, an economic and dietary benefit as Holloway Commons states, there are students left feeling empty.
UNH Dining Services says they made the switch due to the lack of interest in the nutritious drink. However, after reading the article I am left with the feeling that I am not the only one thinking this was a bad decision.
To the point. The people who are drinking whole milk are probably the students walking around with salads, sandwiches and cereal on their trays, not the ones with heaping piles of pizza, fries and fried chicken with the additional glass of Coke or Powerade. If one of the reasons to stop providing whole milk in the dining halls is to help students reduce calories and fat consumption, maybe someone with a little bit of nutritional education should be asked before jumping to the conclusion that whole milk is, gasp, bad for the students.
Yes, whole milk has a higher fat content than a skim or 1% milk, however has anyone looked at the sugar content in Coke or Sprite? Ironically, UNH has a contract with the Coke Company. It shows. There are four soda machines in Holloway Commons alone, each with eight different choices of beverage. That is almost thirty-five different sugar-laden options. Talk about calories! And the few students who would like a glass or two of whole milk with their meals are not asking for thirty different whole milk dispensers. One. They would like ONE gallon of whole milk, maybe placed in the small refrigerators containing the soymilk and Lactaid.
Matthew Bissette comments on the fact that soymilk is offered in the dining halls, yet whole milk was eliminated. Ironically, soymilk costs more than whole milk and one serving offers the same, if not more calories than whole milk (go figure!). Not to mention the added sugars and preservatives in soymilk.
As a vegetarian, I would love to see excess meat products eliminated from the menu, but the university cannot cater to such a small vegetarian population of students. Imagine how much money could be saved each day by cutting back on meat products. Hundreds? Thousands? (Not to mention cutting fat calories from the students diets.) Why is it such an unimaginable cost to supply whole milk to the dining halls any longer, when it sounds like the demand is still there?
It should not be the agenda of Dining Services to parent students and oversee what these kids are consuming on a daily basis. If students choose to eat fried foods, so be it, but if students choose to take the healthier route and ask for a glass of whole milk each day, it's hard for me to understand why the adults of Dining Services would deny them of that. Especially when it's the students who are paying thousands of dollars each year to keep the dining hall in business.
Kate Littlefield
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