Recently Chef Ann traveled to San Diego to convene with Slow Food Urban San Diego and parents and students from Albert Einstein Academies to make the case for comprehensive school lunch overhaul. The visit was sponsored by Whole Foods School Lunch Makeover Video Contest, who chose Albert Einstein's video as the winning submission.
In addition to holding a press conference with San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, Chef Ann addressed over 150 people at the Natural History Museum and later directed the Chef Ann "School Lunch-Off." Local chefs created lunch recipes using the one-dollar-per-meal guideline and USDA nutritional requirements and the resulting creations were sampled and judged by a panel of students and Chef Ann.
With the ball now rolling, the director of Nutrition Services for the San Diego School District, Gary Petil has begun a dialogue with the community, and the first steps towards a viable transformation have begun. You can help build on this momentum in by engaging your local community, building partnerships for visibility and contacting local and national legislators. Visit our Lunch Box Advocates page to contact your elected official and participate directly in the School Lunch Revolution !
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It doesn’t appear likely at this point that enough political will exists in The House of Representatives to make any significant changes to the Farm Bill, a massive piece of legislation currently working its way through Congress that governs the subsidization of commodity crops and their distribution to school lunch programs. The majority of the subsidies that the bill sponsors go directly to huge agribusiness and producers of feed crops; only .37% of the bill helps out fruit and vegetable farmers. The continuation of this federal largesse is the primary reason that healthy food in America costs more than processed foods and one of the main reasons that our nation is in such poor health.
The House Agriculture Committee voted unanimously March 3 to maintain all existing subsidy programs, and seems poised to counter any reform action. Hearings on the Farm Bill are ongoing through July of this year, but most committee members seem united against President Obama’s proposed reductions. However, this fall the Senate will have a turn debating the bill, and it seems that a groundswell of public awareness around the issue might open the possibilities for reform. Lets keep this conversation alive and work towards a healthier America!
Learn more about these legislative issues and stay up to date with what’s happening with the Farm Bill
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Chef Ann - Lunchbox Advocates from DBA West on Vimeo.
Ann Cooper's live facebook chat from February 24.
The Washington Post ran a great Opinion Piece by Ann Cooper today. She addresses the funding shortfalls in the National School Lunch Program, and the need for additional money to provide fresh, healthy food for our nation’s children. From The Washington Post: The National School Lunch Program feeds nearly 31 million students every day for the bargain price of $9.3 billion per year. Under this program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture spends only $2.68 per lunch for eligible students. Do you remember when you last ate a fresh, healthy lunch for less than $3? With that in mind, it should be evident that we need more money for healthy school food. As a nation we spend more than $260 billion annually on just two health issues: diabetes and obesity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has indicated that of the children born in 2000, one out of every three Caucasians and two out of every three African Americans and Hispanics will develop diabetes. Research shows that this may be the first generation in our nation's history to die at a younger age than their parents. Diabetes and obesity are the health-care crises of our era and, in most cases, can be prevented with healthy diet and exercise. Also, take a look at what else we’ve been reading this week: Blogger Jennifer McGruther has challenged readers to eat real (non-processed) food for a moth. Civili Eats profiles Little City Gardens, an urban micro-farm in San Francisco. Ann Cooper talks about the school food crisis in American to Bizymoms. photo by dhammza via flickr ccl
The Washington Post ran a great Opinion Piece by Ann Cooper today. She addresses the funding shortfalls in the National School Lunch Program, and the need for additional money to provide fresh, healthy food for our nation’s children. From The Washington Post:
The National School Lunch Program feeds nearly 31 million students every day for the bargain price of $9.3 billion per year. Under this program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture spends only $2.68 per lunch for eligible students. Do you remember when you last ate a fresh, healthy lunch for less than $3? With that in mind, it should be evident that we need more money for healthy school food. As a nation we spend more than $260 billion annually on just two health issues: diabetes and obesity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has indicated that of the children born in 2000, one out of every three Caucasians and two out of every three African Americans and Hispanics will develop diabetes. Research shows that this may be the first generation in our nation's history to die at a younger age than their parents. Diabetes and obesity are the health-care crises of our era and, in most cases, can be prevented with healthy diet and exercise.
The National School Lunch Program feeds nearly 31 million students every day for the bargain price of $9.3 billion per year. Under this program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture spends only $2.68 per lunch for eligible students. Do you remember when you last ate a fresh, healthy lunch for less than $3? With that in mind, it should be evident that we need more money for healthy school food.
As a nation we spend more than $260 billion annually on just two health issues: diabetes and obesity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has indicated that of the children born in 2000, one out of every three Caucasians and two out of every three African Americans and Hispanics will develop diabetes. Research shows that this may be the first generation in our nation's history to die at a younger age than their parents. Diabetes and obesity are the health-care crises of our era and, in most cases, can be prevented with healthy diet and exercise.
Also, take a look at what else we’ve been reading this week:
photo by dhammza via flickr ccl
From what we can tell, winners of last year's Cooking Up Change Competition, Tilden Career Academy had an amazing trip to Capitol Hill this past Tuesday where they had the opportunity to prepare their winning dish, chicken jambalaya with jalapeno cornbread to attendees of a congressional hearing about the Child Nutrition Act. Senator Dick Durbin and Representative Jan Schakowski got to sample the meal, and later the students took a tour of the White House kitchen with Chef Sam Kass.
You can join these students in speaking up for better school food by urging your Congressional leaders to try the student designed school lunch and support a strong, well-funded reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, making healthy meals a priority every day. Please visit our Lunch Box Advocates page to contact your elected official!
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