Monday, June 14, 2010

Child Nutrition Act of 2010 Falls SHORT

Having read just the synopsis of the new Child Nutrition Act of 2010 so far, I find it seriously lacking and it is completely infuriating.


Improve Access to School Meal Programs
* Increase the number of eligible children enrolled in the school lunch programs by using Medicaid/SCHIP data to directly certify children who meet income requirements without requiring individual applications and requiring states to establish and execute a plan to increase rates of direct certification.
* Provide enhanced universal meal access for eligible children in high poverty communities by eliminating paper applications and using census data to determine school wide income eligibility. (the census is every ten years so if a school become a title I school next year they are screwed for the next 9 years?)
* Increase children’s access to healthy school breakfasts by providing competitive grants to school districts to start up or improve their program.

Improve Access to Out of School Meal Programs

* Ensure fewer children go hungry year round by providing meals for over 225,000 children through seamless meal service for children in school based and community based summer and after-school programs, and in low income rural areas.
* Improve access for children in home-based child care by reducing administrative costs for sponsors of child care meal programs.

Help Schools and Child Care Improve the Quality of Meals

* Assist schools in meeting meal requirements proposed by the Institute of Medicine by increasing the reimbursement rate for lunch by 6 cents per meal -- the first real increase in over 30 years. (does this account for inflation? IS this what our children are worth nowadays?)
* Enhance funding for nutrition education in schools to support healthy eating and school wellness.(enhance it how exactly? Put the money into the food!)
* Promote stronger collaboration and sharing of nutrition education between child care programs and WIC programs.

Encourage Public/Partnerships in Communities

* Connect more children to healthy produce from local farms by helping communities establish local farm to school networks, establish school gardens and use more local foods in school cafeterias.
* Leverage public and private partnerships to help reduce childhood hunger and promote community-wide strategies to improve child nutrition and wellness.

Improve Food Safety Requirements for School Meals Programs

* Ensure school meals are safe for all students by extending food safety requirements to all areas in which school food is stored, prepared, and served.(so now more schools won't be wanting to "cook" their foods, more processed foods will become available, YAY!)
* Support improved communication to speed notification of recalled school foods consistent with GAO recommendations.
* Ensures all foodservice employees have access to food safety training to prevent and identify food borne illness such as through web-based training.
(What about requiring that all schools post a full ingredient list to each item served on the menu... we should call this the Tara amendment.)

Streamline Program Administration and Support Program Integrity

* Increase efficiency, improve program administration, support services and program access and modernize the WIC program by extending period of certification for children, increasing support for breastfeeding, and transitioning from paper food vouchers to an electronic benefit program.
* Strengthen School Meal program integrity and remove program silos in after school meal programs by simplifying program rules and affording schools greater flexibility for addressing program costs.


Of course I added a couple little snippets in there but these are just my first reaction to the whole thing. I am still processing it and I am sure there will be more...

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

What's going on

Hey loyal followers. There aren't many of you but I am still hoping I am getting a lot of readers. I know my posts aren't all that exciting but we are talking about school lunch here... how exciting can it possibly?
Anyhow I have been taking pictures up until about 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago my mom fell and had a mild heart attack/stroke... something. Last week they did open heart surgery to replace her aortic valve and found a benign tumor. She has been in the ICU ever since. When you are in the ICU for an extended period it starts to mess with your mind and the patient can start to experience psychosis. My mother is currently not in her right mind. It is a very devastating way to see my mother.
So while I know I have been slaking in the update department it's not because I don't still fully believe in this project, I do... it's just that I have been dealing with some personal issues.
I always believe on trying to end a post on a good note, so for today my good note is, thank God for good friends and good food.
Here is a little restaurant that I got to experience today and it was just amazing. Like going to a good friends house who also was a great cook. Everything about this little place is unusual, the dining experience and the atmosphere down to the way you pay. These people genuinely want to just share good food with the community!
http://www.potagercafe.com/
So if you are in Arlington, check it out. You will no doubt love the place as much as I do.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Taks Test This Week

Which means I won't be able to take pictures of the menu items...
so here is the menu
http://www.aisd.net/departments/cafeteria/2010%20April%20Menu%20Elem.pdf

Also I talked to Erick about what he ate for Lunch today... he ate chips. I had no clue that chips were on his menu and it doesn't make me happy!

Clearly I am the ONLY idiot in the world to think this is insane...

KFC is selling pink buckets of fried chicken to raise money for breast cancer research. 50% of cancers could be prevented through a healthy diet (sure hope they include that fact on their pink bucket, but I bet they don't).
There are commercials on TV touting the benefits of HFCS...



There are no longer Home Economics classes in schools anymore, kids have no true nutritional education and they have government sponsored crap fed to them on a daily basis in their school, what are people being led to believe?
I think these pink buckets are just as bad as the cigarette industry raising money from the sale of pink labeled boxes of cigarettes to go into cancer research. Everyone knows it's trendy right now to have a pink label on your product. Personally I think it's disgusting and now I guess that makes me ungrateful too. I can live with that.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Friday's Lunch and then a contrast.. Friday's Dinner

So I thought I would spice it up a bit today. Yesterday the kids had pizza again for lunch


and then the second option was chicken alfredo.



And then for dinner we had some yummy Aidells Chicken and Apple Sausage (this is a lazy dinner day for me and I really don't like to cook at all), Barilla Bow-tie Pasta with grape tomatoes, cucumbers and yellow peppers topped with a little Italian salad dressing. And home made lemonade from fresh squeezed lemons made with organic sugar. Red seedless grapes on the side.

See healthy can be simple and quick.

Friday, April 23, 2010

WOOHOO- Milk Change

I got this email from Mrs. Anderson this afternoon!

YAY ME!

We will have skim white milk for breakfast starting Wednesday, April 28, 2010. Please announce to the students that no flavored (chocolate or strawberry) will be available for breakfast beginning on that day. Students will have a choice of skim or 2% white milk. This is one of the suggestions we received from Ms. Wilson in order to help reduce sugar in the student's diet. We are piloting this change at your school for the rest of the year. The plan is to change all sites by the beginning of next year should all go well with this change. Thanks again for your time and support.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

GMO? Maybe


OK I have no clue if these are GMO's but I don't trust them. That is my oldests head next to those immensely monsterous carrots. Erick suggested that they might have been grown in "Moon" soil. He said moon soil grows vegetables 25% bigger because it is so fertile. Don't ask me how he knows this, I guess it's all those late nights watching the Science Channel... he is in AP science and all, it fits. Anyhow these carrots will not be consumed by people in my home. They are scary looking and I am just not sure they are really normal.

Would you eat them?
 
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