An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away:

Why Then Doesn’t the President’s Budget Proposal Assure

Our Children Even That Much?

President Obama’s Budget became public recently and one of the many items in the massive $4.5 trillion expenditures is $1 billion per year for Child Nutrition split between the National School Lunch Program and the WIC Program.  At first blush, given the economy and the call for a 3-year freeze on discretionary spending, this might seem like a win for America’s children; and groups like The School Nutrition Association, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest have applauded the proposal.

I believe we need to take a closer look at what this really means and perhaps rub the shine off of this offered apple.  The National School Lunch Program feeds approximately 5.4 billion lunches per year with an approximate cost of $8.5 million dollars.  This equates to approximately $2.68 reimbursement for a free lunch student, of which $1 or less is typically spent on food.  I want to reiterate – less than a dollar for the food on our children’s plates every day.  With that in mind, it seems so clear that we need more money for healthy food for all of our children. (more…)

by: Daniela Kunz

Lack of financial funds make things very complicated not only for school cafeterias, food decision makers of school districts, principals and ultimately also for parents – and big Food Inc. takes advantage of this and drives out of business small family farms – systematically so……..

I have ditched processed foods for more than 13 years now, concocted our own all organic diet with applying the WAPF principles for the past 5 years – and it has been very hard on our budget. Government is not providing close enough the funds that would be needed to bring about a change on how we feed the children.

Just yesterday the Obama Administration granted a booster increase of 1B US Dollars per year for America’s school lunches = which would yield .18 cents per lunchtray – less than half an apple would cost – that can’t keep the doctor away. With the meager and very unhealthy foods on the trays costing 2.68 and taken away expenses for personnel /faculty in the cafeteria – that means that merely 1 US Dollar is being for the food for our children in the schools.

Billions are being spent for wars….pennies on the buildup of our people, our children – our future! (more…)

Just Say No: D.C. Needs to Man Up to Sugar and Flavored Milk in Schools

cross posted with permission from the Slow Cook blog

http://www.theslowcook.com/2010/02/02/just-say-no-d-c-needs-to-man-up-to-sugar-in-schools/#more-4031

February 2nd, 2010 · 3 Comments · Tales, kids

Are schools addicted to high-fructose corn syrup?

One of the most disturbing things I saw during the week I spent in the kitchen at my daughter’s elementary school recently was all the  sugar being served to children. From the Pop Tarts and Apple Jacks on the breakfast line, to the fruit juice, the chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk on constant display, to the fruit mix in “light syrup” offered with lunch, sugar is ever-present at H.D. Cooke Elementary. So it is in most public schools.

And we haven’t even begun to talk about all the birthdays and other celebrations and even everyday events where cookies and cakes and candy are commonly dished out at school. At a recent “family game night” at H.D. Cooke, every table had bowls of Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses for the taking. Sources for sugar seem to be everywhere, all the time: You can hardly spend an evening with the family without a dose of sugar. (more…)

School Food: Shovel Ready Stimulus at Its Best!

The last few weeks at work in Boulder have been challenging, the Governor’s budget is bleeding and it seems that hundreds of millions of dollars will be cut out of K-12 education over the next two years.  As we all tighten and tighten and yet one more time tighten our proverbial belts; as we discuss cutting food cost and payroll; as I lie awake nights struggling with all of this, the President’s State of the Union became imminent.

But prior to the President’s speech, Debra Eschmeyer wrote a piece in the Huffington Post, The State of the Union’s School Lunch, in which she states:

Don’t make us tighten our belts on child nutrition programs while the girth of the nation grows. The government spends $1 million per soldier in Afghanistan, yet barely spends $1 on the food in a school lunch.

Ms Eschmeyer’s article was great; in fact she did such a good job with the facts, figures and ideas that I’m not going to take the time to repeat them here.   Her article also came on the cusp of all of the potential cuts that have kept me up nights, which kept me thinking about this seemingly desperate situation.  But it really struck a nerve with me, school lunch programs across the country are faced with mounting costs and prospects of reducing the quality of their food as well as the number of staff while as a country we’re spending more and more and more on wars and roads and even clunker cars. (more…)

Source: http://lettuceeatkale.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/cultivating-controversy-in-defense-of-an-edible-education/

Cultivating Controversy: In Defense of an Edible Education
By Sarah Henry
reprinted with permission of the author

I was so royally peeved by Caitlin Flanagan’s hatchet job on Alice Waters and the Edible Schoolyard in her Atlantic piece “Cultivating Failure” that it’s taken me a week to simmer down enough to write about the matter with some decorum.

The snarky article takes a swing at public school gardens everywhere and it made me choke on my chard for professional and personal reasons.

Thankfully, lots of thoughtful –and less riled up — writers rushed to Alice’s defense — and called Caitlin on her strident screed, which begins with a weird fantasy sequence to set up her story. That’s fantasy folks. (more…)