Seven percent of American adults think chocolate milk comes from brown cows, according to a new report.
The Innovation Center for US Dairy, an industry group, said that startling result was part of a survey conducted in April of 1,000 people about the role milk plays in their daily lives.
A solid 48 percent admitted they weren’t quite sure whether chocolate milk comes straight from ‘ol brown Bessy.
More than 29 percent said they use their children as an excuse to buy chocolate milk for themselves.
And then there was the 7 percent who said they believed a bunch of bull that brown cows are the ones that produce chocolate milk.
Researchers said that people who live in urban areas are more likely to believe the wild agricultural myth.
“It’s an exposure issue,” Cecily Upton, co-founder of the nonprofit FoodCorps, told The Washington Post.
“Right now, we’re conditioned to think that if you need food, you go to the store. Nothing in our educational framework teaches kids where food comes from before that point.”
Overall, researchers said most of the people surveyed didn’t understand how food makes it to the table.
“They did not possess schema necessary to articulate an understanding of post-production activities nor the agricultural crop origin of common foods,” the researchers concluded.