Growing minds and bodies

Ryan Holeywell

January 18, 2008 – 6:38PM

DONNA — Sixth-grade girls have fallen in love with worms at the IDEA College Preparatory charter school.

While little girls and worms are a seemingly odd couple, school district officials say the combination makes sense. The worms help produce compost for the school’s garden, and teachers use the garden to educate students about the environment.

“(The garden) provides a whole new canvas for inquiry,” said John Garland, assistant director of child nutrition for IDEA public schools.

While the organic garden is used as an outdoor classroom at the school, it also serves an equally important function: feeding the students fresh food that’s high in nutrients. (more…)

I just finished Michael Pollan’s new book: In Defense of Food: an Eater’s Manifesto

The soul of the book is summed up by the “tag-line” on the cover:

“Eat Food, Not Much, Mostly Plants”

I loved the book & you should all buy & read it. Michael is a wonderful story teller & makes the most complex ideas — easily digestible.

Michael expounds on the basic principals of “healthy” eating — just eat real food — like DUH!!!!!!

But we’ve gotten so confused — listened to way too many nutritionists & been swayed by way too much advertising.

So read the book — then go to the farmer’s market — cook a delicious meal & sit down & share with friends & family.

JUST DO IT!!!!!!

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/346791_farmtoschool10.html

Bill aims to put local foods on school lunch menus

Last updated January 9, 2008 11:33 p.m. PT

By JENNIFER LANGSTON, P-I REPORTER

Kia Kozun knew that lugging 40-pound boxes of vegetables single-handedly from a Sequim farm to a friend’s bistro wasn’t entirely sustainable.

The outreach manager for Nash’s Organic Produce wanted to sell to school cafeterias. For five months, she borrowed a certified kitchen to shred cabbage and wash dirty lettuce.

Because of insurance and liability standards, the payments flowed through a maze of regional and national distributors, who all took a cut.

“No one says kids shouldn’t have healthy food in schools, but what we’re up against is a really huge industrial food system,” said Kozun, who recently took a break from those time-sucking efforts to supply a school district five miles away. (more…)

Another new podcast to listen to…

Chef Ann and Chef Kate discuss the simplicity and pleasure of cooking and dining.

 

 Cooking and Dining with Chef Ann and Chef Kate [15:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Renegade lunch lady saving kids’ lives, one plate at a time

• Story Highlights
• Chef, school nutrition chief Ann Cooper hopes to change the way America’s kids eat
• Her Berkeley, California, schools serve fruit, salad bar daily
• Her “meal wheel” helps kids understand what should be on their plates daily

By Fran Fifis
CNN

(CNN) — Ann Cooper is on a one-woman whirlwind campaign to change the way kids eat in schools. “We’re killing our kids with food,” she says.

Half of all the Hispanic and African-American kids born in 2000 and one-third of Caucasian kids will have diabetes in their lifetime, many before they graduate college, Cooper says, citing U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics. “It’s all because of what we are feeding them,” she says. “It’s all preventable.”

Cooper, self-proclaimed renegade lunch lady and chef, is actively working against what she describes as entrenched interests — fast-food companies and junk-food producers — that she says profit from selling unhealthy foods to schools. They’re “basically making money off our children’s health and their future,” she says. “I’m just so pissed off.” (more…)