The Japanese consume lots of milk, too. School lunches here come with a 200ml bottle of 3.5% fat milk. I survey the kids' breakfast habits, too* and usually about 1/4 of any class has milk with breakfast, too.TimD wrote:The US is about the only country i've been in where copious amounts of milk are consumed after about the age of 3.
It's part of a whole program of getting more protein to the kids, AFAIK. The lunches are balanced that way....2-4 different things on your lunch tray, each one is a mix of protein, carbs (usually from rice and vegetables), and healthy fats. Almost no sugars, except in the milk or the very occasional traditional holiday snack (a couple times a year, and a very small portion). So even if you skip out on the soup or on the meat dish, you still got P/F/C in a good mix. But the basis of it is lots of milk, and they get a whole "drink milk and be tall" speech on a regular basis in Elementary School.
They don't eat as much cheese as Americans, though, that's for sure.
Peter
* "I have ____ for breakfast" is a good way to teach that "have" and "eat" are interchangeable in English.