According to a survey conducted by the Center for Innovation in the United States, seven percent of American citizens believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. If you need it, you can read it again. We know it sounds ridiculous, but the data was taken from the prestigious newspaper The Washington Post and we can’t believe it either.
Once you’re struck by the statement, you go straight to thinking that at least the percentage isn’t that big, but let’s do the math on it. Considering the number of inhabitants in the United States, seven percent refers to nothing more and nothing less than 16.4 million people.
This would be the equivalent of all the inhabitants of the capital of Mexico multiplied by two not knowing where the chocolate milkshakes come from. The truth is that in Mexico we have the eternal debate of quesadillas with or without cheese, but it is understandable, the other borders on the absurd.
Although, at first, the study drew a few smiles, it quickly became a matter of concern, since, according to American associations such as FoodCorps, this omission falls on the health of the population, because if people are not interested in knowing what they are eating, they will also be unwilling to learn the benefits of healthy eating.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time that an investigation exposes this citizen ignorance. In the 1990s it was discovered that one in five adults were unaware that hamburger meat was made from beef. The FoodCorps co-founder explained her unease with the following statement:
Right now we are conditioned to think that if you need food, you go to the store. Nothing in our educational framework teaches children where food comes from before that time.