Weekend Reading

Reading

The Environmental Working group invites you to sign a pledge to give up bottled water this year.  Hopefully your school's cafeteria can sign on, too - the re-authorization of the Child Nutrition Act instructs schools to provide water with lunch.

Thanks to the re-authorization of the Child Nutrition Act, the USDA is crafting new nutritional requirements for school lunches.  They are accepting public comments through April 13th - so chime in.  You can get more details on Education Week's blog here.

USA Today has reported that a number of re-usable shopping bags contain high levels of lead.  Fortunately, they followed up with a what you should do next article.

Have we really not had enough of tricky new food chemicals? Nestle is developing a new one to make you think you're full. The article is interesting - all about the second brain in your stomach and the giant working model stomach Nestle uses in their  lab. Very brave new world. Read it here.

Apps

I just read that you can get an iphone app - CauseWorld - and help fight hunger. You check in from various locations, get points and then can trigger a donation to a cause of your choice. Feeding America - a national network of food banks - is promoting it.

Watching

This is a hilarious but profanity-laced send up from The Onion in which basically, the FDA suggests Americans try eating a vegetable.

Fun

Grow your own mushrooms - inside! You can order a kit and the kids can do it. I read about it in the Wall Street Journal.  Science project and Locavore rolled into one.

Looking ahead - The Friends of the Sea Cliff Village Library are having a cocktail party to raise funds for our libraries.  Join them for wine and cheese pairings and a performance of Shakespeare's sonnets by our local thespians next Sat., Feb. 5 at 6pm.  For details, email friendsoftheseaclifflibrary@gmail.com.