March 2010 Archives

Also, during the month of April, Monica will donate 10% of all cookbook sales to Recipe for Success.  Subscribe to her online cookbook now at www.chefmonicapope.com

Students in the Houston Independent School District are planting, cooking and eating their way to a better understanding of where our food does, and should come from. According to Kate Link, Competitive Foods and Beverage Manager for the Healthy Schools Program, "Adding gardening to a school or afterschool curriculum provides a hands-on experience that could stir youths' interest in learning, encourage them to eat healthier foods and provide them opportunities to develop personal and social skills." To help them meet these goals for their students, the district partnered with the Recipe for Success Foundation which believes "that children need to learn that food doesn't grow in drive thru windows and plastic wrapping; and that a Twinkie is not a vegetable." The Recipe for Success Foundation works with schools, volunteers and professional chefs to deliver their Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ program and have developed afterschool programs and summer camps to reinforce these important lessons.

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According to a recent report by UCLA School of Public Health . . .

Non-commercial viewing, including watching DVDs or educational television programming, had no significant association with obesity. According to the authors, the findings strongly suggest that steering children away from commercial television may be effective in reducing childhood obesity, given that food is the most commonly advertised product on children's television and the fact that almost 90 percent of children begin watching television regularly before the age of 2. By the time they are 5 years old, children have seen an average of more than 4,000 television commercials for food annually. During Saturday morning cartoons, children see an average of one food ad every five minutes. The vast majority of these ads -- up to 95 percent -- are for foods with poor nutritional value, the researchers say. "Commercial television pushes children to eat a large quantity of those foods they should consume least: sugary cereals, snacks, fast food and soda pop," Zimmerman said. The authors conclude that the availability of high-quality, enjoyable and educational programs for all ages on DVD should make it relatively easy for health educators and care providers to nudge children's viewing toward content that does not contain unhealthy messages about food and eating. "Just as there are far better and more nutritious foods than those advertised on television, there are also far better and more interesting shows on television than those supported by advertising," Zimmerman said. "Educational television has come a long way since today's parents were children, and there are now many fantastic shows on commercial-free television and, of course, wonderful content available on DVD."

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http://www.ediblegeography.com/united-states-of-food/

By Nicola | Published: February 11, 2010

IMAGE: Fast food expenditure per capita, where the darkest (purple) areas spend between $500.01 and $707.75 a head, and the lightest areas (pale blue) spend between $320.64 and $400. All maps via the USDA Food Environment Atlas, except where otherwise noted.

IMAGE: Low income pre-school obesity rate, where the darkest areas represent the highest levels, between 20.1% and 39.7% obesity, while the lightest coloured areas show the lowest levels, from 2.1% to 5%.

On Tuesday, as part of Michelle Obama's anti-childhood-obesity campaign, Let's Move!, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched an exciting new tool: the Food Environment Atlas. Developed by the USDA's Economic Research Service in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control, the National Cancer Institute, the National Farm-to-School Network, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, the atlas allows anyone with an internet connection to create custom maps of their food environment. What's more, it even makes the data sets embedded in the atlas available for download.

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By Ben Popken on March 4, 2010 11:14 AM 0 views

by Vivienne Walt from Paris.

"The food is very good, Madame. The meat is 100% French," the official said, picking up a brochure from her desk. I knew this brochure well, having e-mailed it to friends in the U.S. last year as a this-could-only-happen-in-France conversation piece. It lists in great detail the lunch menu for each school day over a two-month period. On Mondays, the menus are also posted on the wall outside every school in the country. The variety on the menus is astonishing: no single meal is repeated over the 32 school days in the period, and every meal includes an hors d'oeuvre, salad, main course, cheese plate and dessert. (See nine kid foods to avoid.) There is more: the final column in the brochure carries the title "Suggestions for the evening." That, too, changes daily. If your child has eaten turkey, ratatouille and a raspberry-filled crepe for lunch, the city of Paris suggests pasta, green beans and a fruit salad for dinner.

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How do you feel about the wolf building the hen house?  This partnership is just that latest in a long tradition of interesting research marriages.

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