The New York Times reported today that some food, including milk and carrots, tastes better to children if they think it comes from McDonald's.

The children in this Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine study tasted milk in a McDonald's cup with a straw, and milk in a plain cup with an identical straw. The children also tasted baby carrots in a McDonald's french fry bag, as well as baby carrots served in a plain white bag. In the test, 61 percent of the children said that the McDonald's-branded milk tasted better, and 54 percent preferred the McDonald's-branded carrots.

This should be good news for so-called nutrition advocates, many of whom have extolled the virtues of carrots as a "healthy snack" and have named milk as one of the "10 Best Foods" to consume. Children can eat vegetables and drink milk after all.

But Dr. Thomas N. Robinson, an associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford and the lead researcher on the study, was not impressed. "The best response the fast-food industry could make to this information,” he said, “is to alter their menus to include a majority of healthful foods instead of encouraging consumption of high-fat, high-calorie foods.”