Did eliminating flavored milk at a Los Angeles County local school district result in a decline in students selecting milk?

With technical/funding support from L.A. County Department of Public Health, the L.A. Unified School District eliminated flavored milk from school menus starting school year (SY) 2011-12. We evaluated the impact of this policy using school-level milk selection data recorded in cafeteria food production records.  We compared food production records for 774 schools in 2010-11 SY and in 2011-12 SY to determine whether the total milk offered and left over decreased after cafeterias eliminated flavored milk. A plate waste study at four randomly-selected middle schools generated complementary data, including observations of milk selected but not consumed by students. These observations occurred fall, 2011 and spring, 2012. Accounting for decreases in program enrollment, analyses suggest the amount of milk offered by cafeterias declined 9.9% between October 2010 (n=15,108,520 units) and October 2011 (n=13,321,559 units). However, the amount of milk leftovers also decreased from 32.4% to 30.0% and remained stable throughout the 2011-12 SY. Plate waste data were collected from 2,228 middle school students in fall and 1,436 middle school students in spring. Plate waste results will show how much of the non-flavored milk students selected was actually consumed. Cafeteria food production records suggest that eliminating flavored milk did not decrease student milk selection as much as feared. However, students may not be drinking the milk they are selecting. Analyses of plate waste milk data are expected to answer this question. Available data suggest that most students previously selecting flavored milk migrated to selecting non-flavored milk after LAUSD cafeterias stopped offering flavored milk.