December 11, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Obama’s ‘Secretary of Food’?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

As Barack Obama ponders whom to pick as agriculture secretary, he should reframe the question. What he needs is actually a bold reformer in a position renamed “secretary of food.”

A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.

Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

“We’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket — high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oil, and we’re doing very little for farmers trying to grow real food,” notes Michael Pollan, author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food.” (more…)

Here is an interview from the blog: See Jane Do…

In this feature Chef Ann Cooper, renegade lunch lady challenges the system and leads the way to healthier school meals and healthier children.

School lunches kids line up for [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

2009 is the year that School Food could get an over-haul.  Every 5 years the National School Lunch Program is reauthorized and 2009 is our next chance to make possitive change.

We need to make some significent changes:

Increase the reimbursement rate by $1.00 per lunch in the short term and in the long-term mandate Universal Breakfast and Lunch

The additional funding should be mandated to be spent on fresh unprocessed foods with a priority on fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains

We need money for facility updates so that schools can cook and funding for professional development so that food service workers know how to cook

Funding for hands-on experiential learning in cooking and gardening classes is necessary to help change our children’s relationship to food and funding for positive marketing to make school food – cool food

And finally we need to raise the school food guidelines so that Chicken Nuggets – Tater Tots – Chocolate Milk and Canned Fruit Cocktail is not considered a “healthy” meal

Sign on to a petition by the Healthy Schools Campaign to help make these changes possible: http://www.healthyschoolscampaign.org/getinvolved/action/childnutrition/action.php

Dear Chef Ann,

I have been a substitute teacher here in the Tucson, AZ area for almost 5 years. Being very knowledgeable on the importance of proper diet and nutrition in my own personal life, I am really appalled at the food presented to our children in our schools. I teach various subjects K-12 and have made some very startling discoveries.

On numerous occasions, I have taught classroom instructions in the morning and then transferred to teach Physical Education in the afternoon. Several times I have ended up teaching PE to the same class I had taught in the morning and noticed a remarkable change in the behavior of this same group of students AFTER they had lunch. The same respectful, focused group before lunch became a somewhat defiant “off the wall” group AFTER lunch. The foods in our local schools are so bad I hardly ever eat lunch in them. They consist of mostly carbohydrates, processed junk food, and heavily laden with high fructose corn syrup. Even the milk served contains more sugar than is in normal milk. From 7 grams in regular milk to 12+grams in the lunch room milk. (more…)

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-breakfast3-2008dec03,0,4711820.story

From the Los Angeles Times

California in danger of running out of money for school meals

State superintendent is asking for $31 million so local districts won’t have to bear additional burden as the economy forces more students to participate in free or reduced-price programs.

By Mary MacVean

December 3, 2008

California may run out of money again this year to supplement school meals, in part because more struggling families are taking part in the free or reduced-price school lunch programs, the state’s superintendent of public instruction said Tuesday.

“Without quick action by the governor and the Legislature, districts will be forced to make a series of unacceptable choices to dip further into their own bare-bones budgets, serve less nutritious foods and not comply with California’s nationally renowned nutrition standards, or reduce cafeteria staffing,” Supt. Jack O’Connell said in a statement.

The federal government provides $2.17 to $2.57 for each free or reduced-price meal, and California provides an additional 22 cents. Last school year, the state money ran out in May, and it is likely to run out earlier this school year, O’Connell said. He is requesting $31.1 million from the general fund to prevent that, he said. (more…)