School Lunch

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April 3, 2013 | 11:07 AM | By

Small Farmer In Central Valley Takes His Strawberries ‘Farm to School’

By Rebecca Plevin, Valley Public Radio

Pao Saephan's strawberries are just days away from being fully ripe. (Rebecca Plevin/Valley Public Radio)

Pao Saephan’s strawberries are just days away from being fully ripe. (Rebecca Plevin/Valley Public Radio)

Pao Saephan crouches down in his sun-drenched field. He cups a red jewel in his hand. In a few more days, his strawberries will be fully ripe. He’ll pick them once they are rosy red from stem to tip.

“We want all the strawberries, to be full ripe, full flavor, with 100 percent sugar in them,” says Saephan.

In the past, he would sell the fresh berries at his roadside stand, in the small town of Reedley, southeast of Fresno.

The goal is for children to “experience fresh produce and make healthy eating choices over a lifetime.”
But this year, he will sell the bulk of his berries directly to the Fresno Unified School District. He says he is thrilled to share the fruits of his labor with Central Valley students.

“We have farmed a long time, but this is my passion, to be farming something that feeds local,” says Saephan.

Saephan is the first small farmer to sell his produce directly to Fresno Unified. He could pave the way for other small farmers to begin selling their produce directly with the school district.

Jose Alvarado, food services director for Fresno Unified notes that the district is located in the “produce and vegetable capital” of the world. “We have been taking advantage of that,” he says, “but now it’s taking it to another level, from the farmer, when the occasion is right, and it meets our needs. Strawberries were just a natural for us.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Place Matters, Policy, Central Valley, Farm to School, School Lunch, Science
June 26, 2012 | 5:07 PM | By

Sometimes When School Is Out, So Is The Food

Kids line up for a free summer meal through a Chico Unified School District program. (Photo: Patrice Chamberlain)

To understand some of the powerful hunger issues in our state, go no further than the Silicon Valley YMCA.

The Y runs summer youth programs in Gilroy. Vice president of programming and community development Mary Hoshiko Haughey says last summer they had a boy in the middle school group who wasn’t eating his lunch.

“This was the first day of the program, and our staff asked ‘Why aren’t you eating?’ ‘What would you like?’” Haughey recalled. “And he said, ‘I can’t eat because I need to make sure my brother and sister are eating. Do they have food in their program too? Otherwise I have to save it for them.’ And finally we put him on the phone with them at another site and they said ‘yes, we’re eating,’ so he finally did too.”

Haughey paused. “It’s an example of the adult issues that our young children are taking on. He wasn’t going to eat unless he knew his siblings would.”

It’s also an example of the importance of the summer meal programs that are offered throughout the state. Some school-based programs directly continue the work of the School Lunch Program and Summer Food Service Program that serves free and reduced meals to low income students throughout the year. Others are sponsored by food banks or summer youth program sites.

The Silicon Valley Y is part of the California Summer Meal Coalition, which is working to increase awareness of the USDA summer nutrition programs offered through the California Department of Education.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Policy, Children's Health, Nutrition, School Lunch
March 21, 2012 | 10:36 AM | By

Global Experts Meet in Oakland to Share Ideas on Children’s Health

Malaria, tuberculosis, HIV — these are the communicable diseases many people associate with death in the developing world. But increasingly diseases like diabetes, heart disease and conditions related to obesity have become the ticking “time bomb” that public health experts are desperately trying to prevent form exploding.

Healthier school lunches can help fight obesity and its related diseases. (Photo: USDAgov/Flickr)

The Public Health Institute (PHI) convened the first-ever conference focusing exclusively on children and non-communicable diseases this week in downtown Oakland. Experts from around the world gathered to exchange ideas about how to prevent diseases that were once thought to be illnesses of the developed world from spreading globally. It’s no coincidence that the conference is being held in Oakland. “Poverty is a root cause of a lot of the problems that bring diseases like this to the fore, and it’s something that we grapple with on a daily basis in Oakland,” explained Jeff Meer, PHI’s special advisor for global health. “If we can get a handle on how poverty relates to illness in Oakland, then we can understand it in Bujumbura and Kigali.”

The four most common non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are diabetes, cancer, chronic lung disease and chronic heart disease. “Most of us think of them as illnesses that strike in rich, highly developed countries; but the fact is that there is a tidal wave, an epidemic of non-communicable diseases that is striking populations all over the world, and striking, frankly with great ferocity in very poor places that have fewer resources than we do to deal with them,” Meer told me. A tidal wave indeed — two-thirds of deaths worldwide can be attributed to NCDs according to Meer. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Policy, Children's Health, Diabetes, Obesity, School Lunch
December 21, 2011 | 12:33 PM | By

Is L.A. Schools’ Healthy Lunch Program Really a Flop?

Reports are that school children are ditching their healthy lunches, which include fresh produce, and sneaking in junk food. (Ali Karimian: Flickr)

Reports say that school children are ditching their healthy lunches, which include fresh produce, and sneaking in junk food. (Ali Karimian: Flickr)

The Los Angeles Times featured a lengthy piece last weekend on L.A. Unified School District‘s apparent failure in its new much-touted school lunch program, overhauled to be more healthful.

Early in the school year, the Times reports, L.A. Unified “got rid of chocolate and strawberry milk, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, nachos and other food high in fat, sugar and sodium.” With roughly 30 percent of school age children now overweight or obese, striking such unhealthy food from school lunches seems like a good place to start to coax kids to eat a healthier diet.

But the Times claims the change has been a “flop” for many students. Stories of a black-market for junk food on certain campuses are reported, including kids sneaking in “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos” and soda.  And the school lunches themselves?

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Policy, childhood obesity, School Lunch
November 17, 2011 | 11:42 AM | By

Mamma Mia! Is Pizza a Vegetable or Not?

The secret, or in this case, the vegetable, is in the sauce. (Jyoti Das/Flickr)

The secret, or in this case, the vegetable, is in the sauce. (Jyoti Das/Flickr)

Health advocates are outraged. Corporate suppliers of school lunches are pleased and, presumably, kids are thrilled.

Earlier this week, Congress blocked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s proposed rule changes for school lunches. Congress was worried about potential changes in starchy vegetables (think French Fries), sodium and whole wheat.

But more than anything else, pizza is getting all the attention. To clarify, it’s the tomato paste on the slice of pizza that has counted as a vegetable. That’s not new. The new proposal would have increased the tomato paste requirement from the current two tablespoons to half a cup.  Industry said that much tomato paste would render a slice of pizza inedible. So, two tablespoons per slice of pizza stands as a vegetable serving.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Inside Scoop rounded up the best bits of outrage, starting with Food Politics author and NYU Professor Marion Nestle.

“Does the Senate think this can pass the laugh test? … The Senate’s action has nothing to do with public health and everything to do with political posturing and caving in to lobbyists.”

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Policy, School Lunch