You will never believe how many Americans think chocolate milk comes from brown cows

If you’re lucky enough to not be plagued by lactose intolerance, you can probably appreciate a yummy glass of cold milk. And if you wanted a little sweetness, you may opt for chocolate milk instead. But it seems there is some choco-milk confusion, because many Americans think chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Yes, you absolutely read that right!

According to an online study of about 1,000 Americans conducted by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, it turns out that about 16.4 million American adults actually believe that this delicious chocolate concoction comes from brown cows. What’s more, nearly half of Americans weren’t sure where chocolate milk comes from.

Before we go further, just to clear up any confusion, chocolate milk is just regular milk that has been mixed with chocolate syrup or cocoa powder.

This was confirmed to HuffPost by Innovation Center spokeswoman Lisa McComb, who added, “Responses came from all 50 states, and the regional response breakdown was fairly even, with a slight uptick (about 10% higher) in the South.”

Now, it should be noted that it is very possible many of the survey participants were trying to be funny with their responses, so it’s hard to gauge the accuracy of the survey. But we think even one adult believing this choco-milk-brown-cow “fact” is simply one too many.

The Washington Posts also notes that the findings of this survey fit a general pattern of Americans not being super sure of where their food comes from. For instance, a Department of Agriculture study from the 1990s found that almost 1 in 5 adults didn’t know hamburgers were made from beef. (And beef comes from cows, in case anyone was still wondering.)

Whatever the case may be, we do hope that this provides a bit of clarity for those who just weren’t sure. After all, the world is such a confusing place.