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By Marc Freeman
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Education Writer

December 26, 2006

Young vegetarian Julia Senecal’s appetite for school lunches is growing.

Two meatless entrees will be added to Palm Beach County school menus in January, joining returning staples such as hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken tenders.

Twice a month, cafeterias will serve platters of yogurt, cheese, fruit and whole grain bread, expanding the district’s lineup of healthier meals.

“There aren’t a lot of choices in school cafeterias for me besides cheese pizza,” said Senecal, 17, a senior at Olympic Heights High west of Boca Raton, who usually packs peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. “This opens a lot of windows so I won’t have to bring lunch from home.” (more…)

December 27, 2006
By MARIAN BURROS
THE headlines about food this year read like a remarkable replay of Woody Allen’s “Sleeper,” in which the things Americans think they should eat more of — lettuce and spinach — were suddenly the ones that could make them sick, or even kill them.
Yet critics of American agribusiness, like Marion Nestle, a professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University, and the author of “What to Eat,” see an upside to all the bad news.

“This is the year everyone discovered that food is about politics and people can do something about it,” she said. “In a world in which people feel more and more distant from global forces that control their lives, they can do something by, as the British put it, ‘voting with your trolley,’ their word for shopping cart.” (more…)

Earth Prophecy
And the way out

Earth Meanders by Dr. Glen Barry
http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/
December 23, 2006

Imagine the panic as Americans and others in the world that are ecologically ignorant and isolated realize food does not come from grocery stores but from healthy agro-ecosystems with dependable climatic patterns and rich soil. That water does not come from the tap, but from aquifers and rivers. That weather need not follow reliable cycles, that natural resources are finite, and that social order depends upon all the above. I prophesize that within my lifetime environmental destruction and unsustainable living will lead to widespread global ecological collapse and social disintegration; leading eventually to extinction for most life forms including humans and Gaia – the Earth system itself. This is the Earth Prophecy. (more…)

Happy Holidays – May your new year be full of peace, health, happiness, love and contentment.

And I hope that in all of our work — we find that love that makes us true to self, family, community and to all the children here today and as yet unborn.

May we all work toward a better-healthier future for all children and the planet as well.

The following was written by Wendell Berry – it’s my gift to you: (more…)