A survey put together by the Innovation Center for US Dairy found that 7 percent of adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows! Dairy conducted a survey … 4:55 PM EDT, Fri June 16, 2017. Dairy, commissioned the survey via a marketing firm, Edelman Intelligence, to kick off a campaign called Undeniably Dairy. “It is a bit surprising,” a spokeswoman for the campaign told CNN. Were those the only three options – two cow colors or “I don’t know”? What are the sources? CNN doubled down on highlighting the outrageous stupidity of those making the claim, and then spoon-fed its audience other stats from the survey, all of which may be equally dubious. But particularly now, journalists don’t have the luxury of playing fast and loose with the facts. Dairy uncovered the fact that some Americans are pretty disconnected from how their food travels from the farm to their table.. And when asked about the survey’s methodology, McComb only said it was “conducted online.” That said, any adults thinking chocolate milk comes from brown cows is too many. The evergreen problem is that if we feel like we can’t trust journalists to vet the small stuff for us, we worry that we can’t trust them with the big stuff, either. 7% of Americans believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. According to the survey, 16.4 million believe that chocolate milk can be consumed straight from the udder of a brown cow, and a further 48 per cent were not sure where chocolate milk even came from. Password reset email has been resent. But we’ve been here so many times before, and blame seems almost moot when the scale of the problem looms so large in America’s psyche. Dairy suggests that 7 percent of American adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Unsurprisingly, The Internet took … And did this mean that even someone who plainly knew that chocolate milk was simply any milk that had been mixed with chocolate and sugar was not given the option of choosing anything resembling the correct response? The Innovation Center for U.S. It’s been all over the news lately: a survey by the Innovation Center for U.S. Have other hard news publications reported the information in the same way? Genuine “fake news” – stories drawn from thin air – may have had its 15 minutes even before the president co-opted the term to mean anything he personally disliked, but these subtler versions continue to haunt anyone invested in our collective ability to parse fact from fiction. Chocolate milk isn’t chocolaty because it comes from brown cows—just as strawberry milk isn’t obtained from pink cows, in case that also needed clarification. It was a reminder of the importance of knowing where our food comes from, a topic that touches on other relevant issues, like the much-buzzed-about rural-urban divide and the modern economy. If you’re reading this story because you’re in that 7%, we hear your cry for help. This week, as the headlines of major media outlets fixated on the threat to American democracy, the coronavirus pandemic continued to rage. ICYMI: Equipment you’ll need to start your own podcast, TOP IMAGE: Image via U.S. Department of Agriculture Flickr account. It too, however, failed to ask any questions about the origins of the data it was citing, and added that 48 percent of survey respondents – a number cited by Food & Wine, too, but whose origin I haven’t been able to ascertain – claim not to know where chocolate milk comes from. Like so many stories, it seems this one was originally hatched as a PR pitch. “To be fair, some milk questions and myths may make us smile,” the center wrote on its website to clarify the age-old cow conundrum. Seven percent of all American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to a nationally representative online survey commissioned by the Innovation Center of U.S. And if that percentage sounds small enough to be reasonable, hang onto your hats: 7% of American adults is about 17.3 million people. We know this is hard to process, and you’re probably starting to question everything. Last week, a Washington Post headline provoked a collective groan of embarrassment: apparently “seven percent of all American adults” think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. An recent survey found 7% of all American adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows, raising concerns that many Americans lack basic food knowledge. 7% of Americans believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. The HuffPost noted that it’s difficult to gauge reliability when you don’t have any context. The answer did not surprise dietitians, who … Jokes about American intelligence were plentiful. Fact: No matter what the flavor, milk will always be the same delicious and nutritious beverage that provides nine essential nutrients. 7 PERCENT… Milk is produced by cows raised for the dairy industry. It may feel a little silly to quibble with something so unimportant. That works out at about 16.4m people. She says they put that question to a thousand people and gave them several options for how to answer. Dairy suggests that 7 percent of American adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Holy cow. students can ask themselves as they try to evaluate the veracity of a new story. Seriously, let’s humor the 7% for a second here – if milk color is directly dependent on the color of the cow it comes from, why wouldn’t regular milk have scattered black spots? 7% of them still think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. RAGALIE-CARR: When we asked them, where does chocolate milk come from, they indicated that they thought it came from brown cows. According to an official survey, a disturbingly high number of Americans aren’t quite sure where chocolate milk actually comes from. Claim: Nearly one out of ten Americans think chocolate milk comes from 'brown cows.' The build-up/tear-down cycle is exhausting, and “the media” come off looking either lazy and gullible, or malicious for trying to mislead the public. This shouldn’t be a big deal – a little click-bait as a way into a deeper conversation, and a momentary distraction from the barrage of grim political news. … By the following day, NPR had picked up the story, running with a similarly lighthearted take. PHOTO: In a study by the Innovation Centre of US Dairy, it was found that seven per cent of Americans believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. A 2017 survey found that nearly ten percent of Americans think chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Published heard hosts Ari Shapiro and Audie Cornish mix in audio clips from Jean Ragalie-Carr, president of the National Dairy Council: A careful listener’s ear may have perked up at this exchange. Nearly half of them, 48 per cent, didn’t know where chocolate milk came from at all. The News Literacy Project has been working on this issue for years, and has identified a number of questions students can ask themselves as they try to evaluate the veracity of a new story. (She declined to respond to my queries about the wording of the questions, and said the full results of the survey were not intended to be published.) Have other hard news publications reported the information in the same way? ICYMI: The New York Times reporter who tweets like it’s going out of style. The survey was conducted by the Innovation Center of … If we add this number to the 7 percent and recall Ragalie-Carr’s three-option response set, I guess we’re supposed to learn that 45 percent of those surveyed think chocolate milk comes from black-and-white cows, making the 7 percent pointing to brown cows officially the least impressive statistic in the bunch. There’s also the grain of salt that some respondents are certainly trolling the pollsters with a knowingly ridiculous answer. RAGALIE-CARR: Well, there was brown cows or black-and-white cows, or they didn’t know. by the Innovation Centre of US Dairy, it was found that seven per cent of Americans believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. It’s that last point that rankles in this particular situation. ), , on June 1 (World Milk Day), but the ball didn’t really get rolling until the, article uses the statistic as a hook to talk about food production and agriculture literacy, though presumably some people stopped reading after the funny lede. Genuine “fake news” – stories drawn from thin air – may have had its 15 minutes even before the president co-opted the term to mean anything he personally disliked, but these subtler versions continue to haunt anyone invested in our collective ability to parse fact from fiction. Seven percent of adults in America think chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to a new survey from the Innovation Center of U.S. A new survey finds that 7 percent of Americans think chocolate milk actually comes from brown cows. Dairy, commissioned the survey via a marketing firm, Edelman Intelligence, to kick off a campaign called, .