Weekend Reading

Reading

Women - head to Starbucks before you read the rest of this: Coffee is linked to lower rates of depression for you.

New evidence that an apple a day is in fact solid advice - apples and pears reduce the risk of stroke. And just in time for apple picking season! Our school lunch program is great about serving both in season.

If you have been following our posts calling for Meatless Mondays, you may be interested in the evidence posted on the Small Bites blog in an article about 'cultured' meat on the terrible impact of meat production on animals, humans and the environment.

Slow Food has been running the $5 Challenge Campaign to focus on how to make real food on a budget. Mark Bittman has seconded this idea with his Op-Ed that real food is cheaper than junk food. But still, a $3 lunch at our school still sometimes - not always but sometimes -  means Tyson fried chicken patties.

Finally, everyone is talking okra - Bittman as recipes here and the Times here.

Action

September is Hunger Action Month as mentioned here.  It's not too late for one final act. From Feeding America:

Bring a Voice to Hunger This September  As the federal government continues to wrestle with the national deficit and debt, very difficult decisions will have to be made in the coming months on budget priorities that will undoubtedly affect the lives of 49 million Americans struggling with hunger. As these discussions are happening right now in DC, Hunger Action Month is an incredible platform to leverage the scale of our collective voice in Washington, DC. Together we can work to ensure Congress does not balance the federal budget on the backs of our clients. Many of our food banks are engaging in a national Paper Plate campaign during Hunger Action Month to bring the voices of our clients to elected officials in DC. By collecting plates around the country, we will send Congress the message that hunger is in every district in America and demands their attention.   You can join in this campaign or other Hunger Action Month events at your local food bank! Visit HungerActionMonth.org to see how you can get involved.

Local Fun

Sunday is Mini Mart here in Sea Cliff! Don't miss it!

Plus, Saturday marks the start of the Pumpkin Patch at the Methodist Church on Downing. 

The Queens County Farm will also have its annual Apple Fest on Sunday and Hicks Nurseries will hold their annual Giant Pumpkin weigh off on Sunday at 11am.

Next Wednesday, WNYC is hosting another in their series of Lopate and Locavores in the Green Space.

Action Alert - Marketing Junk Food to Kids

From the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

In 2009, Congress directed several federal agencies to form the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Food Marketed to Children to develop guidelines for companies that market food to kids. The IWG proposed a strong set of guidelines earlier this year.

Unfortunately, the food industry and media companies are lobbying the President, his Administration, and Congress to prevent the IWG from finalizing the marketing recommendations. Yet, with the help of advocates like you, over 28,000 parents, health organizations, and others submitted comments supporting the proposed guidelines.

While the First Lady and the Administration have made childhood obesity a priority, they are considering pulling the marketing guidelines given the significant political pressure from the food and entertainment industries.

Please write to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama (and the IWG agencies) today to encourage the Administration to finalize and release food marketing guidelines as Congress requested.

Sincerely,
Margo G. Wootan, D.Sc.
Director, Nutrition Policy
Center for Science in the Public Interest

What's for Lunch - Wed., 9/28

French Bread Pizza
Salad Bar Veggie Sides
Pineapple Chunks in Fruit Juice

For the pizza, the sauce is a Red Pack vitamin enhanced tomato sauce. The sodium at 140mg is much lower than we previously used.  Here are the ingredients: Tomato Concentrate (Water, Tomato Paste), Sugar, Soybean Oil, Potassium Chloride, Onion Powder, Salt, Citric Acid, Spice, Garlic Powder, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Black Pepper, Vitamin E (DL-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate), Natural Flavor, Vitamin A (Retinol Palmitate).  The cheese is a USDA commodity part skim mozzarella.  Ingredients are cultured pasteurized milk, salt, enzymes. The sodium is 240mg/oz - I think we use 2 ounces.   It is made on white-flour bread.

Sides are available from the salad bar plus there is canned pineapple chunks in juice (which means additional sugar).

School is closed Thursday and Friday.

What's for Lunch - Tues., 9/27

TACO BAR
Seasoned Beef Taco
Lettuce, Cheese, Salsa, Sour Cream Toppings
Hard or Soft Shell
Black Bean & Corn/Salsa
Petite Banana

The tacos are 100% ground chuck with lettuce and a low-far govt cheddar cheese.  I other words, the ground beef does not have other additives like soy but is still subject to various quality issues ground beef typically faces.  The salsa is actually organic by Green Mountain and the ingredients are: tomatoes, fire-roasted chiles, onions, tomatillos, jalapeno peppers, pasilla peppers, apple cider vinegar, cilantro, parsley, garlic, sea salt, spices. 

The black beans are flash-frozen Pride of New York beans with nothing added. The corn is canned - a USDA commodity. Plus a small banana - possibly half a banana - to create child-sized fruit servings.

Meatless Mondays

There are lots of reasons to eat less meat.  I was reminded of one this morning that particularly applies to school lunches - ground beef can be contaminated with E. coli as was the case with the 40,000 pounds of ground beef on their way to school cafeterias in Georgia. The manufacturer wasn't clear on how they had managed to ship beef that was already determined to be contaminated.  Read more here in Food Safety News.

What's for Lunch - Monday, 9/26

Whole Wheat Grilled Cheese With Ham or Plain
Salad Bar Veggie Sides
Cinnamon Applesauce

The sandwich is made with Cabot cheddar on whole wheat bread.  The optional ham is Boar's Head brand.  We use Nature's Own Whole Wheat Bread for these. The ingredients are: STONE GROUND WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, WATER, BROWN SUGAR, YEAST, WHEAT GLUTEN, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF EACH OF THE FOLLOWING: SALT, VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN OIL OR CANOLA OIL), DOUGH, CONDITIONERS (SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, CALCIUM, STEAROYL-2-LACTYLATE, MONOGLYCERIDES, CALCIUM IODATE, ETHOXYLATED MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, CALCIUM PEROXIDE, DATEM), CULTURED WHEAT FLOUR, VINEGAR, CALCIUM SULFATE, MONOCALCIUM, PHOSPHATE, YEAST FOOD (AMMONIUM SULFATE), SOY LECITHIN.

The applesauce us a USDA commodity to which w add cinnamon.  Plus, kids can pick sides from the salad bar.

Weekend Reading

Reading

If you're interested in Slow Food's $5 Challenge, click here to read their tips on how time starved people like yourselves can pull off slow food fast.

We're eating 42 pounds of corn syrup a year.  For example, in Wednesday's lunch.  And the corn lobby is still trying to re-name it "corn sugar". Tricky, Thus far the USDA hasn't let them.

Speaking of school lunch, there's an interesting post on Grist about how today's milk is not yesterday's milk. Our school does sell organic milk a la carte. Rising Tide in Glen Cove has grass-fed organic milk. As you might guess, it's not cheap. Serving better milk to kids would be more affordable for schools if it did not have to come in those little boxes. But the USDA and the national school lunch program says that it does - and that it's not lunch without one.

Which leads me to the USDA's new graphic "my plate" - re-done here as shown over at La Vida Locavore.

Michelle Obama has made the Olive Garden big news -- but should you really eat there? Try the Slow Food link above instead.

Things to Watch

Next week on the 29th, the USDA will host a webinar on the Farm to School program. More information and hot to register here.

Things to Do

Old Bethpage Village Restoration has its annual County Fair this weekend.

This is the last weekend of the NY Botanical Garden's Edible Garden weekends with Mario Batali.

and this announcement from Slow Food Huntington:

This Saturday!

Long Island Naturally- an environmental fair

September 24th, 10am-4pm, rain date Sunday, September 25th

Please join Starflower Experience for fun, games and education at their annual fair. There will be exhibitions and demonstrations, including how to make a “cleaner “clean, and other ways to go green at home. Connect with groups such as Holistic Moms, The Essential Earthworm will show you what vermicomposting is all about and check out an electric Delorean. Live Music by Farmers’ Almanac and Solar Punch. This event is part of National Public Lands Day and 350.org’s Moving Planet

Please check for possible weather cancellation on the Starflower Experiences website http://www.starflowerexperiences.org/ or

Manor Farm, 210 Manor Rd., Huntington ( East of Park Ave and North of Jericho Tpke)

What's for Lunch - Friday, 9/23

Chicken Parmigiana - White Meat Breaded Patty (Hero or plate)
Whole Wheat Penne Marinara
Salad Bar Veggie Sides
Grapes

Not a bad day to try an alternate entree - see below.  "Chicken Patty" unfortunately means a fried Tyson chicken product. The ingredients are: Boneless chicken breast with rib meat, water, salt, and natural flavor. BREADED WITH: Wheat flour, water, wheat starch, white whole wheat flour, salt, yellow corn flour, corn starch, dried onion, dried garlic, dried yeast, brown sugar, extractives of paprika, and spices. Breading set in vegetable oil.

The penne is whole grain. The sauce is a Red Pack vitamin enhanced tomato sauce. The sodium at 140mg is much lower than we previously used.  Here are the ingredients: Tomato Concentrate (Water, Tomato Paste), Sugar, Soybean Oil, Potassium Chloride, Onion Powder, Salt, Citric Acid, Spice, Garlic Powder, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Black Pepper, Vitamin E (DL-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate), Natural Flavor, Vitamin A (Retinol Palmitate).  The cheese is a USDA commodity part skim mozzarella.  Ingredients are cultured pasteurized milk, salt, enzymes.

Or, you can get a freshly breaded chicken cutlet wrap that we make in house. White flour wrap with romaine. The chicken is prepared in house with bread crumbs, flour and egg.  You can also get the salad bar.

What's for Lunch - Thurs., 9/22

Macaroni & Cheese
Barilla Plus Pasta & Wisconsin Cheddar
Caesar Salad at the Salad Bar
Chilled Pineapple Chunks

The noodles we're using for the Mac n cheese are Barilla Plus. The ingredients are: Semolina, Grain and Legume Flour, Blend (Lentils, Chickpeas, Egg Whites, Spelt, Barley, Flaxseed, Oat Fiber, Oats), Durum Flour, Niacin, Iron (Ferrous Sulfate), Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid. The sauce is made from Wisconsin Cheddar.

Students can make their own salad - pictured above. The ingredients for the dressing are here.

Plus we have canned pineapple - a USDA commodity.

What's for Lunch - Wed., 9/21

BRUNCH FOR LUNCH
Homemade Challah French Toast
w/Orange Rounds
Applegate Farms® Chicken-Apple Sausage
Salad Bar Veggie Sides
Fresh Melon

Join me in saying "No" to meal declared to be "cake" for lunch by our committee's nutritionist - basically white flour bread.  The syrup is basically HFCS.  They are looking for an affordable maple syrup but do not have one yet - but they will be limiting hte serving size this year in the meantime.  Actual lunch from our schools above.

The Sausage contains: Chicken, Dried Apples, Water, Contains Less Than 2% Of The Following: Honey, Salt, Spices, Parsley.

You do get fresh orange slices and fresh melon.

Try an alternate entree! You could have the salad bar as a meal or, on Wednesdays, we have a wrap made from Boar's Head Turkey.  Here's the alternative:

What's for Lunch - Tues. 9/20

Pita Pizza with Meatballs or Plain
Salad Bar Veggie Sides
Fresh Plum

The pita pizza is made with  a HFCS-free, minimal ingredient pita from Kronos or Athena. It is not whole grain until they can find one that is tasty. The sauce is a Red Pack vitamin enhanced tomato sauce. The sodium at 140mg is much lower than we previously used.  Here are the ingredients: Tomato Concentrate (Water, Tomato Paste), Sugar, Soybean Oil, Potassium Chloride, Onion Powder, Salt, Citric Acid, Spice, Garlic Powder, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Black Pepper, Vitamin E (DL-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate), Natural Flavor, Vitamin A (Retinol Palmitate).  The cheese is a USDA commodity part skim mozzarella.  Ingredients are cultured pasteurized milk, salt, enzymes. The sodium is 240mg/oz - I think we use 2 ounces.  Meatballs are 100% ground chuck from the USDA.
 
Sides from the salad bar - kids can pick the fruits and vegetables they like.  Plus, fresh plums.

Return of the Salad Bar!

This week marks the return of our terrific salad bars to all our schools. Students can choose side dishes (fruits and vegetables) from the salad bar on mot days. Or, they can choose to make the salad bar their lunch by choosing a protein, grain, fruit and vegetable.

The salad bar typically will have two kinds of cheese, chic peas, romaine lettuce, and raw vegetables among other things - including croutons.  The dressings are Balsamic Vinegar, Ranch and Caesar. Click each one to be linked back to ingredient lists.

On page two of this pdf - you can see a description and suggestions for making the salad bar a complete meal.

What's for Lunch - Mon,. 9/19

Applegate Hotdog
Whole Wheat Bun
Mini Corn Cobs
Salad Bar Veggie Sides
Raisin Box

The hot dogs are from Applegate Farms. The ingredients are just: beef, water, sea salt, less than 2% of the following: celery juice, sodium lactate (from beets), lactic acid starter culture (not from milk), onion powder, spices, garlic powder, paprika. They have 6g of fat(2.5g saturated) and 380 mg of sodium. They are dairy-, casein- and gluten-free. The bun is whole wheat.

Kids can have fresh corn or other sides from the salad bar. Plus, we have raisin boxes.

Weekend Reading

Reading

The WSJ ran an article on the USDA's stepped up inspections of pork due to the rampant use of antibiotics and concerns that antibiotic residue in meat is illegally high.  Previous testing has shown that the highest levels of antibiotic residue are found in ground beef. Unfortunately, the major meat processors in question do supply the national school lunch program.

If you've decided to send in lunch from home, Jane Brody has some more tips on keeping food safe for the hours it will sit in a lunchbox.

On a happier note, we're always glad to pass on more news about the benefits of chocolate.

Did you hear? Bill Clinton has gone vegan.

Check out FoodCorps.

Things to do Locally

The Medieval Festival continues this weekend at Sands Point Preserve.

Muttontown Preserve will hold  a nature walk Sunday at 11am on Migrating Birds.

The Queens County Farm Museum hosts a county fair this weekend along with the opening of their annual corn maize.

The NY Hall of Science hosts the Maker Fair this weekend.

Next Wednesday, Sustainable Sea Cliff will hold a general meeting at 7pm in Sea Cliff's Village Hall. Open to everyone interested in their food coop.

What's for Lunch - Fri. 9/16

Chicken Burrito
Southwestern-Style Chicken Strips
Flour Tortilla
Brown Rice/Black Beans
Salsa & Tortilla Chips
Fresh Melon

I can add that we use brown rice and that the beans are Pride of NY canned beans with nothing added. The tortilla is white flour.  The salsa is organic.

What's for Lunch - Thurs., 9/15

Homemade Macaroni & Cheese with Wisconsin Cheddar
Sauteed Broccoli w/Garlic
Fresh Grapes

The noodles we're using for the Mac n cheese are Barilla Plus. The ingredients are: Semolina, Grain and Legume Flour, Blend (Lentils, Chickpeas, Egg Whites, Spelt, Barley, Flaxseed, Oat Fiber, Oats), Durum Flour, Niacin, Iron (Ferrous Sulfate), Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid. The sauce is made from Wisconsin Cheddar.

The grapes are fresh -- and so is the broccoli.

Action Alert: Tell Big Food to Stop Marketing Junk to Kids

The fight to limit the advertising of junk food to kids has really heated up. Here's the position of two groups working on on the issue and links so that you can send a message to Congress.

From the Environmental Working Group:

Do you want to stop childhood obesity?

I'm sure you do - but food companies don't. They spend billions on advertising targeting children - $1.6 billion in 2006 alone - and now they're objecting to voluntary government guidelines for marketing food to children.

Major food companies are lobbying the government to withdraw the guidelines completely and instead use the industry's own definition of "responsible advertising." The message couldn't be clearer: they don't care if their products hurt kids. They care about the bottom line. So we joined forces with the Center for Science in the Public Interest to take on the food industry and tell its chief executive officers to stop the attacks and start helping our children. We need you to stand with us today to make sure they get the message loud and clear.

Click here to stand with EWG today in demanding that the CEOs of 13 manufacturers use their resources to market healthier food to our children, not to lobby to protect the unhealthy status quo.

Because of the alarming rates of childhood obesity, in 2009, Congress instructed the Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, and Department of Agriculture to form an Interagency Working Group to look into child-targeted advertising and recommend standards for marketing food to children under 18.

When the Working Group published its draft, voluntary guidelines in April, it suggested that food companies adopt two voluntary principles, not legally enforceable by any regulatory agency, that food advertised to children should:

• make "a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet" by containing a significant amount of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, fish, extra lean meat or poultry, eggs, nuts and seeds, or beans.
  
• have only "minimal quantities of nutrients that could have a negative impact on health and weight," such as sodium, saturated fat, trans fat and added sugars.

These commonsense recommendations would encourage children to adopt healthy eating habits. But the goal for big food interests is an even fatter bottom line, so they're lobbying the government and calling on the Working Group to throw out its voluntary proposal and use the industry's own guidelines for responsible advertising.

We can't let them get away with it. EWG is taking on the food industry and we need you to stand with us - companies need to hear from their customers.

Click here right away to tell the CEOs of 13 large manufacturers to market healthier food to children, not lobby the government.

Thank you for standing up for healthy children. We can't move markets without your support.

Sincerely,
Ken Cook
President, Environmental Working Group

From the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

The Interagency Working Group on Foods Marketed to Children (IWG) has proposed reasonable nutrition guidelines to help provide a model for companies that market to kids.
Unfortunately, the food industry and media companies are working to get Congress to stop the IWG from finalizing these sensible recommendations. Already, the House of Representatives included a rider in its Financial Services spending bill that would block the IWG’s work – even though over 20,000 parents and organizations wrote in support of the guidelines. If the industry is successful in convincing the Senate to do the same, it would kill the IWG recommendations.

Please support children’s health by sending an email to both of your Senators today to ask them to support the IWG’s efforts to improve the nutritional profile of the foods and beverages that are marketed to children.  We need your help today, as the vote is expected on Thursday.

Sincerely,
Margo G. Wootan, D.Sc.
Director, Nutrition Policy
Center for Science in the Public Interest

What's for Lunch - Wed., 9/14

Freshly Breaded Chicken Cutlet Parmigiana Strips
Whole Wheat Penne Marinara
Salad Bar Veggie Sides
Fresh Fruit Assortment

The "freshly breaded" part indicates that we are preparing this chicken in house. There is no doubt red sauce which pretty reliable seems to be a Red Pack vitamin enhanced tomato sauce. The sodium at 140mg is much lower than we previously used.  Here are the ingredients: Tomato Concentrate (Water, Tomato Paste), Sugar, Soybean Oil, Potassium Chloride, Onion Powder, Salt, Citric Acid, Spice, Garlic Powder, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Black Pepper, Vitamin E (DL-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate), Natural Flavor, Vitamin A (Retinol Palmitate).  The cheese is probably the USDA commodity part skim mozzarella.  Ingredients are cultured pasteurized milk, salt, enzymes. The sodium is 240mg/oz - I think we use 2 ounces. The noodles are whole wheat.

Alternate Entrees Start This Week!

In addition to the hot entree, our cafeteria also offers a daily wrap. Here's the schedule for this month:

Mondays and Wednesdays: Turkey - Boar's Head

Tuesdays and Thursday: Tuna

Friday: Chicken Cutlet - this is a freshly breaded chicken cutlet made in house marinated in yogurt, spices, panko and corn meal.

Wraps are made with a white flour tortilla and romaine lettuce.

What's for Lunch - Tues. 9/13

BURGER BAR
100% Beef Burger or Cheeseburger
Lettuce/Onion/Tomato
Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Pineapple Chunks in Juice

The burgers are made from 100% ground chuck .   The are served on whole wheat HFCS-free buns.

The sweet potato fries are raw, frozen, julienned sweet potatoes that we bake.  The pineapple is canned.

What's for Lunch - Mon. 9/12

All White Meat Breaded Chicken Chunks
Oil & Garlic Tossed Penne
Caesar Salad
Cinnamon Applesauce

These are fried, frozen Tyson "quality" chicken chunks.  Here are the ingredients for the chicken nuggets so you can decide for yourself:  Chicken, water, salt, and natural flavor. BREADED WITH: Wheat flour, water, wheat starch, white whole wheat flour, salt, yellow corn flour, corn starch, dried onion, dried garlic, dried yeast, brown sugar, extractives of paprika, and spices. Breading set in vegetable oil.

For the penne, we use Barilla Plus. The ingredients are:  Semolina, Grain and Legume Flour, Blend (Lentils, Chickpeas, Egg Whites, Spelt, Barley, Flaxseed, Oat Fiber, Oats), Durum Flour, Niacin, Iron (Ferrous Sulfate), Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid.

Romaine, tomatoes and croutons are available for the salad. We add cinnamon to USDA commodity applesauce.

Weekend Reading

Reading

School Lunch prices are up across the country.  The re-authorization of the school lunch program under the Child Nutrition Act required lunch prices to increase if kids paying full-price were being charged less than the federal reimbursement rate for a child entitled to a free lunch (so that these monies did not in fact end up subsidizing paying kids' lunches.) Here's a round up over at Fed Up.

Lots of school though seem to be putting the money to good use. The NYT reported on a school in Colorado that's going back to actually cooking lunch at their school after years of heating frozen,processed commodity foods.

I love the Freakonomics blog so imagine my joy when they actually referenced some favorite nutrition topics in this piece on putting calorie counts on menus and this review of a new study declaring half of us will be obese by 2030.  The calorie counts post references 'libertarian paternalism' described here and how we can 'nudge' people into making better choices. Here's an example of how children can be nudged unto eating fruit at lunch.

The Rudd Center has put out a report indicating we as parents are routinely duped by health claims on the front of children's cereal boxes   So, don't fall for marketing tricks and read the ingredients. Click here for advice on what to look for.

Surveys

Vote here on the top ten best and worst food issues and practices in this survey by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The "bad" list options are scary.  One of the aforementioned kids' cereal manufacturers does make the list and got one of my votes.

Petitions

Join the Environmental Working Group in demanding that the EPA investigate fracking's impact on the safety of our drinking water.  Sign the petition here.

Local Fun

The Good of the Village Association is holding an antiques sale on Saturday at St. Boniface.

Music at Sea Cliff Beach on Saturday night to benefit the Fire Deptartment.  The Grande Festa Italiana returns to  North Hempstead Beach this weekend.

The annual Medieval Festival at Sands Point Preserve begins this weekend. After a day of jousting, music and maypole dances, they actually storm the castle and rescue the queen.

Plus, there's a country fair on Saturday in Port Washington run by the Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society - they will be selling their own local honey there if you happen to be in the market.

Action Alert: Tell Congress not to Let Lobbists Dictate School Lunch

From the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

As kids across the country head back to school, some members of Congress want to roll back progress on improving school lunches, despite the sky-high childhood obesity rates.

We need your help to send a loud and clear message to Congress that we want healthier school meals.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed common-sense nutrition guidelines to improve school lunches and breakfasts, including more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat milk and less salt, unhealthy fats, and calories.

The French fry industry and other food interests are working to get Congress to stop USDA from finalizing these sensible school nutrition standards.  The House of Representatives has already included a rider in its Agriculture spending bill urging USDA to start over from scratch and propose a new set of school meal standards—even though tens of thousands of parents and organizations wrote in to support these important improvements.

If industry is successful in convincing the Senate to do the same, the goal of seeing healthy school lunches in cafeterias across the country will be in serious jeopardy.

Please help by sending an email to both of your Senators today asking them to support USDA's efforts to improve school meals.

Sincerely,
Margo G. Wootan, D.Sc.
Director, Nutrition Policy
Center for Science in the Public Interest

What's for Lunch - Friday, 9/9

TACO BAR
Seasoned Beef Taco
Lettuce, Cheese, Salsa, Sour Cream
Hard or Soft Shell
Black Bean and Corn Salsa
Orange Rounds

The tacos are 100% ground chuck with lettuce and a low-far govt cheddar cheese. The salsa is actually organic by Green Mountain and the ingredients are: tomatoes, fire-roasted chiles, onions, tomatillos, jalapeno peppers, pasilla peppers, apple cider vinegar, cilantro, parsley, garlic, sea salt, spices.  Tacos shells are hard, yellow corn shells but I have not gotten the ingredients yet.

Black bean and corn salsa plus fresh orange slices.

Welcome Back to School Lunch!

We are very excited about the improvements we saw in our school's lunch last year including more fresh fruits and vegetables, more foods made from scratch, a lot less HFCS, better hot lunch alternatives and of course the salad bars!

Thanks to our food service dept and  the recently reauthorized Child Nutrition Act, we can look forward to even more changes this year. First up -- free drinking water is now available in our cafeterias.

Sea Cliff's nutrition committee will also be working on several ideas:
- raising funds for and providing more fun,, interactive opportunities for nutrition education
- Looking at the need for breakfast in our school
- Encouraging students to try and eat more fruit and vegetables sides with their lunch
- Promoting backyard gardens and fresh, local vegetables with small "farmer's market" tables

Join us! Our committee will have a sign up sheet at Back to School Night.

What's for Lunch - Thurs., 9/8

For the first day of school lunch, we're having:

French Bread Pizza
Market Fresh Veggies
Fresh Apple

These pizzas are not frozen but instead made in-house. For the pizza, the sauce is a Red Pack vitamin enhanced tomato sauce. The sodium at 140mg is much lower than we used two years ago.  Here are the ingredients: Tomato Concentrate (Water, Tomato Paste), Sugar, Soybean Oil, Potassium Chloride, Onion Powder, Salt, Citric Acid, Spice, Garlic Powder, Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Black Pepper, Vitamin E (DL-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate), Natural Flavor, Vitamin A (Retinol Palmitate).  The cheese is a USDA commodity part skim mozzarella.  Ingredients are cultured pasteurized milk, salt, enzymes. The sodium is 240mg/oz - I think we use 2 ounces.   It is made on white-flour bread.

The sides include a fresh apple and the best vegetables they can get this week.

Kindergarten parents: the school asks that you send lunch in with your kindergartner until Sept 19th. The process of negotiating the lunch line can be a little much at first.

New Campaign to Limit Sugary Drinks

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has launched a new campaign called Life is Sweeter. to encourage us all to limit the sugary drinks tied to the nation's obesity epidemic.

Visit their website to sign up to take the challenge, read the research on obesity and sugary drinks and find out what you can do.

The campaign implicates school lunch as well. For example, Watch this clip from Jamie Oliver's show filmed int eh LA school district on the stunning amount of sugar kids are eating and why we need to get rid of chocolate milk in schools.

Welcome Back to School!

Welcome Back to School, Sea Cliff!

Tuesday and Wednesdays are half-days so no lunch will be served.

But it is not too late to be thinking about school lunch -- and joining the Nutrition Committee. If you're interested in helping us improve our school's lunch and nutrition education, email Denise Rieger - Rieger (AT) optonline (DOT) net.

Weekend Reading

Reading

Ready for school to start on Tuesday? Our school's lunch menu will be posted here at some point - all though it is not up at the time of this post.  I'm excited to see the latest round of improvements from our hard-working food service staff.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Working group has put out these great tips on packing healthy school lunches. 

Chef Ann greeted the Back to School season with this post on her blog describing the enormous problems with school lunch in our country and then posted this great description of what we need our school lunch to be over on another blog ..with a really long name.

I was interested in this description of a farm-to-school fair at a school in Massachusetts as pictured in the Brave New Lunch blog. Our  school's nutrition committee is interested in doing something similar with a trial run taking place over the summer.

 There's new research that probiotic yogurt could help treat anxiety and depression. Read this overview in The Economist.


Things to Do

 Family Fun Day is this Sunday at Sea Cliff Beach thanks to the Sea Cliff Beach Committee. Then, after a long day of fun, stay for music by Tidal Groove and art thanks to the Sea Cliff Arts Council.

Raspberry picking at Fort Salonga Farm has begin. Call to make sure they have berries left.

From the The New York Botanical Garden website:  open all weekend, including Monday, September 5—with a visit to Mario Batali's Edible Garden. Families enjoy daily gardening activities and cooking demonstrations that showcase kid-friendly recipes with the chance to sample and search for ingredients throughout the Family Garden. Explore gardening plots showcasing Mario’s favorite vegetables and fruits: Batali's Berry Patch; Babbo Beets, Beans, Garlic, and Greens Garden; and Otto Pizza Garden. Kids embark on Mario's Menu Mystery Scavenger Hunt, and daily cooking demonstrations highlight easy Mario recipes for you to try at home. Get more information on Mario Batali's Edible Garden.

Enjoy the long weekend!

September is Hunger Action Month

September is Hunger Action Month and the charity Feeding America has set up a website at HungerActionMonth.org to help you figure out what you can do to help.  The site includes links to the two food banks here in Nassau County and other information on hunger here where we live.

According to this site, over 250,000 people in our county are food insecure.

Island Harvest has a calendar of activities in Sept. here.