java.util.Date represents a date/time down to milliseconds. You don't have an option but to include a time with it. You could try zeroing out the time, but then timezones and daylight savings will come into play--and that can screw things up down the line (e.g. 21/03/2012 0:00 GMT is 20/03/2012 PDT).
What you might want is a java.sql.Date
to represent only the date portion (though internally it still uses ms).