JUST FOOD Summit

Just Food (the people who organize CSA's in NYC) is sponsoring a workshop on December 1:

GOOD FOOD NOW!
Just Food’s Regional Summit on Food, Farms and Community Health at the New School

One of the workshops is on School Food.
This sounds like a great day.

Suggested Snack Lists

I posted a suggested snacks lists as a permanent side bar -- in Spanish and English -- to the right and down below.

These are great lists to pass out to parents at the beginning of the school year, or anytime.

There are so many food moments in school that are within our control, and it's a great idea to focus on these.

Another thing to do with a snack list is to list a few nearby stores where parents can get these items -- make it as easy as possible!

I met a teacher from the Bronx once whose school had outright banned junk food in lunches and at snacks. After several notices and a transition period (in which junk food was confiscated but returned at the end of the day), the teachers finally started throwing away all junk food they found. To make it easier for parents and kids, they wanted to have the bodega near the school have a shelf of approved snacks, so kids could just go in and know which snacks were okay. What a great idea! Unfortunately, the bodega was under contract with its suppliers to display certain food together in a particular way.

And, unfortunately, parents complained about their kids' food being thrown away, and the rule was repealed. Not sure why they couldn't just go back to returning food at the end of the day. I still think it's a great idea. It maybe just shouldn't have involved throwing away the food.

Considering what we now know about additives and preservatives found in junk food affecting kids' behavior, it seems especially important to try to limit the junk food in school.

-Larissa

PS 124 Pre-K: Culture Shock

My daughter Carmen started pre-k at PS 124 this year. Parents take turns bringing snacks for the whole class. During the first couple of weeks alone, those snacks included gummy worms, Oreos and vanilla sandwich cookies... in addition to cupcakes and goody bags of candy for birthdays. It was pretty shocking.

The school food routinely includes pizza and fries as well as the daily chocolate milk. I'm not a food nazi, but I do want to have control over when Carmen eats junk food, and it's kind of heartbreaking when you pick up a kid who goes all to pieces at the end of the day, and you KNOW it's the food.

As a step towards improving the snack issue, I put together a list of healthy snack suggestions that's pretty moderate (and bilingual). I handed it over to the teacher and it seems to be going through the channels now. Next week there's a PTA meeting, perhaps I'll bring it up there... will keep you posted.

- Mirem/PS 124

CSAs for PTAs

One of the things we've been working on at PS 146 is setting up a weekly CSA at the school.

But traditional CSA's -- in which you subscribe at the beginning of the season, and then get weekly "dividends", in the form of fruits and vegetables, as the harvest comes in -- don't work so well with the school year. You'd have to keep the school open in the summer, and a lot of families go away during the prime months of the harvest.

So working with Jay Dines from Dines Farm, my friend Meg set up a a CSA/Farmers Market at the school. Every Sunday night parents can email the farm with their order. On Wednesday afternoons, their is a farm truck outside the school, and people pick up their orders. I've gotten incredible sausage and ribs, gorgeous turnips and radishes, homemade bread and even brownies. It's been incredible. (The picture above is from an order Meg took home.)

How is it connected to the PTA? When our orders reach $500, the farm gives 3% back to the school.

So far we have not ironed out all the kinks, but when everything works, it's amazing to pick up your kid at school and then go get your grocery order!

We started out last year doing an egg delivery through Dines Farms. We got that idea from PS 29, where a parent was doing the same thing.

Even when we can't get school food to change, there are many things we can do to bring healthier food to the school families.

-Larissa/PS 149/Brooklyn

Get Those Snapple Machines Out of the Schools!

This from CSPI:

Urge your Senators to Vote YES on the School Nutrition Amendment to the Farm Bill

Please encourage your Senators to vote “Yes” on the School Nutrition Amendment to the Farm Bill. This historic amendment would limit the sale of sugary drinks and junk food in schools by updating the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nutrition standards for food and beverages sold out of vending machines, a la carte snacks, and school stores and applying them to the whole campus for the extended school day. The updated national nutrition standards address package sizes, calories, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sugars, sodium, and nutrient content.

Your Senators need to hear directly from you, their constituent, that you want them to vote “yes” on the amendment to update school nutrition standards. Also, please pass this alert along to interested friends and family. Thank you in advance for your help!

To sign, click here.

Thanks!

321 Update

Howdy all,

I had a couple of interesting conversations about the lunch situation at 321 a week or so ago with one of the co-presidents of the PTA and the 321 science teacher who is also the staff member in charge of their healthy foods initiative.

The PTA Pres confirmed that they don't have any active parents working on the issue and that she thought there was a role for us to play. Perhaps they'll mention it in an official PTA meeting or notice if we want them to? She then introduced me to the science teacher. This was all rather informal, at the pumpkin sale, so I've forgotten their names - though I did give them both my card. They should be easy to track down though.

The science teacher was in a rush to get to class, but we talked for a while and she told me about a number of the healthy food initiatives they've introduced or experimented with. Highlights include:

There is no deep frying in the 321 kitchen. While they have items like chicken fingers, they are baked to heat them up (though pre fried);

Every lunch comes with carrots... how fresh, I'm not sure. I've attached a link to a NY Times article on carrots and city schools I read recently below that is very informative about the city bureaucracy and school lunch program in general;

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/dining/17carr.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ei=5088&en=7ef27c6a0052e909&ex=1350360000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Every lunch may also come with fresh apple slices (I wasn't 100% sure on this point.)

They've tried some other approaches like giving kids the choice of making fresh pizza with healthy ingredients or having the bulk frozen slices, but the kids always went for the less healthy alternative. This did indicate that the school does have a bit of leeway in devising lunch alternatives like this - that's good news;

She offered to meet with us as well to go over what they're doing and hear us out.

I've also attached a link to an article from the NY Times from about 2 months ago that reported on a direct link being found between common preservatives and colorings found in kids' food and attention span problems. I'm interested in following up with the school on this issue as we go forward.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/health/research/06hyper.html

Neal

Better Food at the Harvest Fest

At PS 146/The Brooklyn New School, we've been trying to make changes in a lot of different ways. One thing we started working on last year was making the food better at our annual Harvest Fest. Last year it was a little dicey. The organizers (parents who put on this event every year) did not want a bunch of new people storming their meeting, demading they get rid of French fries, cotton candy and potato chips. There was one very tense planning meeting I heard about, with food people and the organizers yelling at each other. Not good. In the end, small but important changes were made -- we got rid of the fried food (it was a safety issue, mostly), and we had chicken sausages.

This year the organizers were amazing and agreed to let us take over the food completely. I trod much more lightly than happened last year, and made lots of compromises, and found them to be great to work with. When you factor in efficiency, cost, and appeal, you have to make compromises, especially the first year. But we got lots of restaurant donations and made a lot of small steps forward, and we all worked together really well, which I feel was a great triumph.

Plus, it is a rising tide: the organizers took steps toward having more movement activites and games, to get the kids moving and exercising. Next year we all want to have square dancing.

This is our new and improved menu:
Hot dogs: tofu, turkey and beef (donated, so they are not upscale or nitrate-free)
Organic burgers (from Costco)
Gourmet Sausages (donated from Fairway)
Cornbread made by the kindergarten families
Vegetarian Chili (made by Blue Ribbon, as last year)
Regular Chili (made by Naidre's)
Pumpkin Soup (made by applewood)
Cole slaw (made by a parent)

Popcorn -- with olive oil, instead of the hydrogenated oil packets the popcorn comes with
Cotton candy (eh, what can you do?)
Apples and apple cider (from Red Jacket Orchards)
Pie (made by parents - a tradition at the festival)

I think it is a great step forward. Next year will be even better. Of course it is goiong to rain this weekend, when the festival is happening, but we'll have it inside. I'll let you all know how it goes, and post pictures. (Or you can come see/taste for yourself - Saturday, Octover 27, 610 Henry Street in Carroll Gardens!)

-Larissa/Brooklyn/PS 146

public school food blues

I am new to the public school system as of this year, but I am already reeling from the issues that have come up around unhealthy food offered to (and consumed by) my daughter. We do not have cow's milk in our home. But now my daughter is having regular or chocolate cow's milk once a week! I would love chocolate milk to be banned altogether. It's novel...it's sweet...and it's terrible for my daughter's teeth and her tendency toward respiratory infections. Oy!

The New Yorker Article

This article came out in the New Yorker a while back, but it's still a great overview of what's going on in the school food movement, who are some of the stars, and what we're up against.


-Larissa/PS 146/Brooklyn

WELCOME TO SNAC!

Are you tired of your child coming home from school with tales of the terrible food he or she was introduced to during the school day? Do you think that processed foods should not be a part of federal school lunch program? Are you frustrated with the Office of School Foods' stalled attempts to introduce local foods to the lunch program? Do you think schools should be teaching kids about good food -- instead of the other way around?

If so, you're in the right place. The School Nutrition Action Coalition is a group of NYC public school parents who are tired of bad food in the schools. We believe that if we get together, our voices will form a coalition, and that we will be heard. We think that our interest in this topic span neighborhoods, schools and boros. We are tired of our tax dollars working to worsen the obesity and diabetes epidemics. We think it can be better.

Join our coalition! Read up on what our schools are doing, and share with us what your school is doing. We can all learn from each other, as we pick and hammer and pound away at the wall that is between us and a healther nation.

Larissa -- PS 146, Brooklyn
Mercedes -- PS 321, Brooklyn
Lora -- PS 10, Brooklyn