Nearly 10% of American adults believe chocolate milk come from brown cows, finds study
So where would strawberry milk come from?
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Chocolate milk is, by all accounts, delicious.
It’s also an incredibly simple concoction: just milk, made chocolatey. As the name would suggest.
And yet, it turns out many people do not understand how chocolate milk is made: some genuinely believe chocolate milk is milk from brown cows.
Whether those brown cows are also thought to produce cocoa and sugar is not clear.
In a study by the Innovation Centre of US Dairy, it was found that seven per cent of Americans believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. That works out at about 16.4m people.
These weren’t children either – the research was conducted on 1,000 people over the age of 18.
A whopping 48 per cent of people said they didn’t know where chocolate milk came from.
So beloved is chocolate milk that 29 per cent of people use their children as an excuse to buy the drink for themselves.
This isn’t the first study to reach a worrying conclusion though – previous research has found that nearly one in five Americans do not know that hamburgers are made from beef.
“At the end of the day, it’s an exposure issue,” said Cecily Upton, co-founder of the nonprofit FoodCorps, which brings agricultural and nutrition education into elementary schools.
“Right now, we’re conditioned to think that if you need food, you go to the store. Nothing in our educational framework teaches kids where food comes from before that point.”
And apparently some people don’t feel any huge need to find out either.
“We still get kids who are surprised that a French fry comes from a potato, or that a pickle is a cucumber,” Upton said.
“Knowledge is power. Without it, we can’t make informed decisions.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments