I am ready for some good news. When I opened my e-mail dairy newsletter today it was full of good news, instead of the mundane bad news that seems to pull you down quicker than a sunset.
The next time my son asks for a Coke, I’m going to say, ‘Sure!’ Apparently Coca-Cola is test-marketing a new fizzy milk product called Vio.  Of course it’s not exactly a “Coke” but it will have to do.
One news report said Vio tastes like a modernized version of Strawberry Quik. Vio is a blend of skim milk, sparkling water and fruit. It is available in four flavors: peach-mango, very berry, citrus burst and tropical colada.

They are test marketing it right now in New York and hopefully, it will come to us soon. The best part about Vio is that it doesn’t need refrigeration.

I can’t believe we continually need to be convinced of the benefits of dairy, but a long-term study has now been published that tells us just that. A retrospective study from the 1930s, which traced schoolchildren well into adulthood, has found those who ate plenty of dairy foods ended up living longer than those who didn’t.
“The study looked at family diets and found higher intakes of both calcium and dairy, predominately from milk, cut mortality by a quarter,” according to a report by the BBC.

The study involved 4,374 schoolchildren in the United Kingdom during the 1930s. The findings have been published in the journal Heart.

Football season is here and if your son is like mine, he has frequented the weight room quite often this summer. But those of us into dairy promotion have more ammunition when we storm the weight rooms with our coolers of milk this fall.

Three-and-a-half years after Sports Illustrated touted the benefits of chocolate milk to athletes, the accolades keep on coming. “Chocolate milk is particularly beneficial for athletes that train more than once per day, as it is very effective for refueling your muscles, preventing cramps and maintaining high energy levels after your workout,” registered dietitian and nutrition consultant Crystal Dow told the Richmond (British Columbia) News recently.

According to a study published in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism several years ago (and reported in the March 6, 2006, Sports Illustrated), athletes who drank chocolate milk after a workout were able to exercise more intensely in a second workout than those who drank commercial sports beverages.

One study our organic friends might not be too excited about is new, out last week. Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

According to a Reuters news article, researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said consumers were paying higher prices for organic food because of its perceived health benefits, creating a global organic market worth an estimated $48 billion in 2007.

The researchers reviewed 52,471 articles and identified 162 studies dating back to 1958, with 137 on crops and 25 evaluating livestock products. Of those, they judged 55 were of satisfactory quality for their analysis.

They determined that conventionally produced crops had a significantly higher content of nitrogen, and organically produced crops had a significantly higher content of phosphorus and higher titratable acidity. No evidence of a difference was detected for the remaining 8 of 11 crop nutrient categories analyzed.
According to the article abstract, the more limited database on livestock products revealed no evidence of a difference in nutrient content between organically and conventionally produced livestock products.

The authors conclude “on the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.”

What will Martha do now?

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Melissa Hart may write to her in care of this publication.