Celestial Chocolate – recipe

Mmmm, I just made the girls Celestial Chocolate… a heavenly beverage on a chilly Fall day! While it takes a little time to make, this rich and creamy hot chocolate is so much better than that powdered stuff that comes in an envelope. Plus, it makes your house smell yummy! Invite your friends over for a cup… because there’s nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate… 😉

Celestial Chocolate

Ingredients

Directions

1. Mix the whipped cream with 1 tsp of vanilla and set aside.
2. In a saucepan, mix the sugar with the cocoa powder, salt and water.
3. Place at medium heat until mixture comes to boil. Then add the low fat chocolate milk and heat through until it comes to a boil again. Remove from heat and add the vanilla.
4. Top with the vanilla whipped cream. Makes six (1 cup) servings.

Nutrition Information: 215 calories; 4 g fat; 3 g saturated fat; 8 g protein; 260 mg calcium

While this is the last recipe I’ll be posting for the Elige Leche (Choose Milk) campaign, our family will continue to choose chocolate milk over other sugary beverages! I’ll leave you with a few facts and figures to think about…

• Milk provides nutrients essential for good health and kids will drink more when it’s flavored.
• The American Heart Association states that “when sugars are added to otherwise nutrient-rich foods, such as sugar sweetened dairy products like flavored milk and yogurt and sugar-sweetened cereals, the quality of children’s and adolescents’ diets improves, and in the case of flavored milks, no adverse effects on weight status were found.” 1
• According to the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, adding a small amount of sugar to nutrient-dense foods such as reduced-fat milk products helps enhance their palatability and improves nutrient intake without contributing excessive calories. 2
• According to 2005 USDA data, 66% of the milk chosen by children in schools is flavored; most (60%) of which is low-fat (1%) or fat-free. 3
• Removing flavored milk from schools has been shown to result in a 62-63 percent reduction in milk consumption by kids in kindergarten through 5th grade, a 50 percent reduction in milk consumption by adolescents in 6th through 8th grades, and a 37 percent reduction in milk consumption in adolescents in 9th through 12th grades. 4
• Milk drinkers, in general, consume more calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and vitamin A than non-milk drinkers. 5
• Flavored milk drinkers have lower intakes of soft drinks compared to those who do not drink flavored milk. 6
• The AAP recommends that children consume three servings of dairy foods daily and that adolescents consume four servings a day to meet calcium recommendations. 7

This recipe is provided by EligeLeche.com, and shared at the Sabroso Saturday link-up, hosted by Latina on a Mission! Follow Bigote de Leche (the famous milk mustache!) on Twitter and Facebook, and in case you missed it, be sure to check out the recipe I posted last week – for an Angel Cake with Chocolate Pecan Sauce.

Disclosure: This is a paid post created in collaboration with Latina on a Mission and Milk Processors Education Program (MilkPEP). All opinions expressed herein are solely my own.

References

1. Johnson RK, et al. Dietary Sugars Intake and Cardiovascular Health. A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2009; 120:1011-1020.

2. United States Dept. of Health and Human Services, United States Dept. of Agriculture and United States Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. (6th ed. HHS publications, 2005, Washington D.C.)

3. ENVIRON International Corporation. School Milk: Fat Content Has Declined Dramatically since the Early 1990s. 2008.

4. Patterson J, Saidel M. The Removal of Flavored Milk in Schools Results in a Reduction in Total Milk Purchases in All Grades, K-12. J Am Diet Assoc. 2009; 109,(9): A97.

5. Murphy MM, Douglas JS, Johnson RK, Spence LA. Drinking flavored or plain milk is positively associated with nutrient intake and is not associated with adverse effects on weight status in U.S. children and adolescents. J Am Diet Assoc. 2008; 108:631-639.

6. Johnson RK, Frary C, Wang MQ. The nutritional consequences of flavored milk consumption by school-aged children and adolescents in the United States. J Am Diet Assoc. 2002; 102(6):853-856.

7. Greer FR, Krebs NF and the Committee on Nutrition. Optimizing bone health and calcium intakes of infants, children and adolescents. Pediatrics 2006; 117:578-585.