ST. LOUIS, Mo. — If Jeff Stiles, Phillip Hossler and the entire dairy industry have their way, chocolate milk soon could replace more traditional post-exercise beverages.

It’s not that sports drinks and water aren’t decent fluids to put into one’s body after working out, Stiles said, but chocolate milk likely is better because of a few key ingredients, particularly protein.

Stiles and the 190 student athletes he coaches at Washington University in St. Louis agree: Chocolate milk is one of the finest products to help bodies recover after extensive workouts.

“I may be a little partial, because I grew up drinking chocolate milk and I love it to this day,” said Stiles, who is in the middle of his 11th season coaching both men’s and women’s track and cross country teams at Wash U. “Our (university funding) doesn’t allow us to drink it all the time because we have other expenses to cover, but we do after big meets and we have kids who are buying chocolate milk all the time for their recovery drink.”

Hossler, who works with U.S. Olympic teams and is a trainer at East Brunswick High School in New Jersey, has been tabbed as the American Dairy Assoc.’s new face on its “got milk?” and “Fuel Up to Play 60” national campaigns that promote exercise and milk consumption.

Like Stiles, Hossler told the Associated Press recently that water and sports drinks such as Gatorade work well to replenish the body after workouts. But the smooth and silky chocolate dairy product likely is best.

“To replenish fluids, water works, although more and more research shows that chocolate milk does that well, too, and it gives the body much-needed protein to help muscles recover,” he said.

As much as he touts chocolate milk, Hossler criticizes the excess use of energy drinks, some loaded with caffeine and other non-nutrients. “Energy drinks just don’t have a place in youth competition,” he said.

According to a report released in December 2011 by the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, emergency room visits associated with energy drink usage increased more than 10 times during a four-year period, up from 1,128 in 2005 to 13,114 in 2009. Nearly half of those visits involved combinations with alcohol or pharmaceutical or illicit drugs.

Chocolate milk not only is loaded with protein, it also has other essential nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D and potassium, noted Jenni Purcell, director of communications for the Indiana Dairy Assoc. “You get the protein, you get the nutrients, you get the extra carbohydrates that you need and it really tastes good,” Purcell said.

She said the dairy industry is working hard to dispel myths that existed years ago that chocolate milk “was somehow bad for you, when we all were drinking it in the second grade. Many schools pulled it then, but now everyone is seeing the real benefits,” she explained.

Stiles said he would find it “very encouraging” to see professional athletes using more and more chocolate milk after games. And how about a chocolate milk bath instead of a sports drink bath for the winning coach?

“Now that’s something I’d really like to see,” he said.