A significant ingredient in the Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches at Sea Cliff School
The Center for Science in the Public Interest recommends that people avoid partially and fully hydrogenated vegetable oils.
The peanut butter in the PB&J sandwich offered daily at our school includes "hydrogenated vegetable oil and/or partially hydrogenated palm oil".
Partially hydrogenated oils are a source of trans fat which promotes heart disease. If the oil is fully hydrogenated, it does not have trans fat but also lacks any polyunsaturated fats. Palm oil itself is high in saturated fats (which, btw, are not good for you) and the farming of it is bad for the environment, too. And, yes, for those of you wondering, the peanut butter is a gift of the USDA and our government.
For more information on this and other unsafe additives, please visit http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm
Sara
Sea Cliff Nutrition Committee. The Apple People
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Welcome Jamie Oliver Fans!
If you've just found this blog through Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution email, welcome!
All through May and June, we've been blogging about what's actually IN our school's lunches based on the ingredient and nutrition labels, so scroll back and take a look.
And please post a comment here to say, "Hi" and let us know you've dropped by. We'd love to hear from everyone and particularly those of you working to change school lunch here on Long Island.
Thanks to Denise for emailing the good folks at Jamie Oliver's!
Sara
All through May and June, we've been blogging about what's actually IN our school's lunches based on the ingredient and nutrition labels, so scroll back and take a look.
And please post a comment here to say, "Hi" and let us know you've dropped by. We'd love to hear from everyone and particularly those of you working to change school lunch here on Long Island.
Thanks to Denise for emailing the good folks at Jamie Oliver's!
Sara
Monday, June 28, 2010
Opportunities for Activism
If you haven't called Congressman Peter King's office yet to ask for the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, please do. In addition to our requests listed on 6/14, you can also ask for more summer feeding programs.
But there's more!
This week, I received two emails from the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Here's the first:
***The time to act is now! Contact your state legislators and urge them to include a sugar-sweetened-beverage tax in this year’s budget.
This Monday, Governor Patterson will send another budget proposal to the New York legislature that if passed, would close the remaining $2-billion to 3-billion deficit. This proposal includes the sugar-sweetened beverage tax. Send an email to your legislators NOW and let them know you support the proposal.***
Use this link to send an email to combat childhood obesity:
https://secure2.convio.net/cspi/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1005
Here's the second:
*** Today, CSPI urged McDonald’s to stop undermining parents and deceiving children with cheap toys that accompany unhealthy kids’ meals. We filed a notice of intent to sue the fast-food chain if they didn’t
"McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” said CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner.
McDonald’s is currently offering children’s toys related to Dreamworks’ latest Shrek movie. While Shrek may appear on packaging for low-fat milk and Apple Dippers, when children or parents order Happy Meals they are given French fries 93 percent of the time, and offered soda first 78% of the time.
Please urge McDonald’s to stop marketing junk food to children! Let them know that marketing unhealthy food to kids using toys is deceptive and undermines parents' efforts to raise healthy kids!***
Copy this link to send an email:
https://secure2.convio.net/cspi/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1001&JServSessionIdr004=i43ywo6ig2.app246b
To sign up for your email alerts or to read more about nutrition and the marketing of junk food to children, visit their site at www.cspinet.org
Finally, Denise sent in this link that's both fun AND will hopefully help improve school lunch. Apparently, for every piece of spam you forward to restaurant chain Chipotle, they will make a donation to The Lunch Box - an organization associated with Chef Ann Cooper of Berkeley-fame working to improve school lunch. A kind of send us your junk mail to get rid of junk food play. Get the details at: http://mashable.com/2010/06/25/chipotle-no-junk/
Sara
But there's more!
This week, I received two emails from the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Here's the first:
***The time to act is now! Contact your state legislators and urge them to include a sugar-sweetened-beverage tax in this year’s budget.
This Monday, Governor Patterson will send another budget proposal to the New York legislature that if passed, would close the remaining $2-billion to 3-billion deficit. This proposal includes the sugar-sweetened beverage tax. Send an email to your legislators NOW and let them know you support the proposal.***
Use this link to send an email to combat childhood obesity:
https://secure2.convio.net/cspi/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1005
Here's the second:
*** Today, CSPI urged McDonald’s to stop undermining parents and deceiving children with cheap toys that accompany unhealthy kids’ meals. We filed a notice of intent to sue the fast-food chain if they didn’t
"McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children,” said CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner.
McDonald’s is currently offering children’s toys related to Dreamworks’ latest Shrek movie. While Shrek may appear on packaging for low-fat milk and Apple Dippers, when children or parents order Happy Meals they are given French fries 93 percent of the time, and offered soda first 78% of the time.
Please urge McDonald’s to stop marketing junk food to children! Let them know that marketing unhealthy food to kids using toys is deceptive and undermines parents' efforts to raise healthy kids!***
Copy this link to send an email:
https://secure2.convio.net/cspi/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1001&JServSessionIdr004=i43ywo6ig2.app246b
To sign up for your email alerts or to read more about nutrition and the marketing of junk food to children, visit their site at www.cspinet.org
Finally, Denise sent in this link that's both fun AND will hopefully help improve school lunch. Apparently, for every piece of spam you forward to restaurant chain Chipotle, they will make a donation to The Lunch Box - an organization associated with Chef Ann Cooper of Berkeley-fame working to improve school lunch. A kind of send us your junk mail to get rid of junk food play. Get the details at: http://mashable.com/2010/06/25/chipotle-no-junk/
Sara
Friday, June 25, 2010
School (Lunch) Is Out --
Weekend Reading - School Lunch and Childhood Hunger
When school lets out for the summer, thousands of kids in this country lose the free lunch they depend on every day. The school lunch program feeds 31 million kids nationally - 62% of whom are eligible for free or reduced price meals.
There are some summer feeding programs to close this gap but not enough - just 34 summer feeding sites for every 100 school lunch programs. American Progress has a great article with all the details here:www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/06/summer_hunger.html
If you're not convinced of yet that childhood hunger exists in American, you can read the fact sheet at Feeding American at http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101/child-hunger-facts.aspx
Fortunately, our food bank on Long Island IS running a summer feeding program this summer and you can help. Just go to www.islandharvest.org/page.aspx?id=109&name=Summer%20Food%20Program
And if you're looking for more ways to help, Michelle Obama's Let's Move site has a list: www.letsmove.gov/blog/united_we_serve.html
When school lets out for the summer, thousands of kids in this country lose the free lunch they depend on every day. The school lunch program feeds 31 million kids nationally - 62% of whom are eligible for free or reduced price meals.
There are some summer feeding programs to close this gap but not enough - just 34 summer feeding sites for every 100 school lunch programs. American Progress has a great article with all the details here:www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/06/summer_hunger.html
If you're not convinced of yet that childhood hunger exists in American, you can read the fact sheet at Feeding American at http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunger-101/child-hunger-facts.aspx
Fortunately, our food bank on Long Island IS running a summer feeding program this summer and you can help. Just go to www.islandharvest.org/page.aspx?id=109&name=Summer%20Food%20Program
And if you're looking for more ways to help, Michelle Obama's Let's Move site has a list: www.letsmove.gov/blog/united_we_serve.html
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Maybe We Could Use a Chef
So, last night the Top Chefs did get to cheat - they had about $2.60 per meal for food to make a healthy school lunch. There was a vague reference to the fact that schools did have overhead expenses but apparently a realistic school lunch that costs only a $1 in food (like ours) doesn't make for exciting TV. And they complained about the $2.60 even so.
But in other ways, they faced some of the same constraints real schools do. They had very little time to prepare the meal, very little space to do it in, and they had to feed normally picky kids (caught on tape calling a few items 'nasty'). One chef was criticized for the two pounds of sugar in her strawberry-banana dessert for 50 kids -- but really, we're close to that in the frozen strawberries we get from the government. Another was in trouble for cooking the chicken in sherry -- and frankly that did strike me as, well, odd. There was a strange squabble over considering a tomato a vegetable instead of a fruit. Our lunch would be happy to see the fresh tomato dish either way. So, maybe the money wasn't the biggest cheat. It might have been the fact that they were not required to cook with the canned commodity products we have to use to make ends meet which is kind of the same as the money problem.
It is hard to make a healthy lunch with very little money, time or equipment (although that foam gun they had went a long way to making some very appealing food.) I think a lot of the districts that have made notable strides in improving their lunches did so with the help of chefs - notably, Berkeley and a number of schools in the film Two Angry Moms. It makes some sense that knowing not only how to cook but how to improvise with the fresh foods available in an affordable way from week to week would be an advantage.
If you want to imagine what school lunch might look like one day given a lot of creativity, take a look at the meals shown here from last night's show:
www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-7/photos/rate-the-plate/outside-the-lunchbox
For the recipes, use this address - www.bravotv.com/foodies/recipes/search?q=foodies/recipes/search&st=%22top+chef+season+7%22&cost=&skl=&tot=&ftr=1&page=1 - and look for Season 7, Episode 2, Elimination Challenge recipes.
Then, call Congress and ask for at least a little more money for food, training and equipment when they reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act. (See 6/14 post for details.)
Sara
But in other ways, they faced some of the same constraints real schools do. They had very little time to prepare the meal, very little space to do it in, and they had to feed normally picky kids (caught on tape calling a few items 'nasty'). One chef was criticized for the two pounds of sugar in her strawberry-banana dessert for 50 kids -- but really, we're close to that in the frozen strawberries we get from the government. Another was in trouble for cooking the chicken in sherry -- and frankly that did strike me as, well, odd. There was a strange squabble over considering a tomato a vegetable instead of a fruit. Our lunch would be happy to see the fresh tomato dish either way. So, maybe the money wasn't the biggest cheat. It might have been the fact that they were not required to cook with the canned commodity products we have to use to make ends meet which is kind of the same as the money problem.
It is hard to make a healthy lunch with very little money, time or equipment (although that foam gun they had went a long way to making some very appealing food.) I think a lot of the districts that have made notable strides in improving their lunches did so with the help of chefs - notably, Berkeley and a number of schools in the film Two Angry Moms. It makes some sense that knowing not only how to cook but how to improvise with the fresh foods available in an affordable way from week to week would be an advantage.
If you want to imagine what school lunch might look like one day given a lot of creativity, take a look at the meals shown here from last night's show:
www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-7/photos/rate-the-plate/outside-the-lunchbox
For the recipes, use this address - www.bravotv.com/foodies/recipes/search?q=foodies/recipes/search&st=%22top+chef+season+7%22&cost=&skl=&tot=&ftr=1&page=1 - and look for Season 7, Episode 2, Elimination Challenge recipes.
Then, call Congress and ask for at least a little more money for food, training and equipment when they reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act. (See 6/14 post for details.)
Sara
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Top Chefs Cheat Their Way through School Lunch Tomorrow Night?
Ok, all you Jamie Oliver fans, 'reality' TV is taking another shot at school lunch.
Tomorrow night at 9pm on Bravo, Top Chefs - apparently in DC - will prepare a school lunch while working with Sam Kass, chef at the White House and presumably on board with Michelle Obama's efforts to reduce childhood obesity. Their challenge? Make lunch with just $2.68 per meal -- the amount of the federal reimbursement for a child receiving a free school lunch. And it is a challenge. First of all, at our school, most kids pay just $2.25 with only a $.25 federal reimbursement -- plus commodity foods. Second, the $2.68 has to pay the whole bill for running a school lunch room include all overhead - salaries, health care, equipment, food - everything. In most schools and ours is no exception, you have less than $1 to spend on food. Try making a hot, healthy meal with that.
Read this post at BetterDCSchoolFood for more details:
www.betterdcschoolfood.blogspot.com/2010/06/top-chef-flunks-school-food-math.html
Then, call Congress and tell them to provide more money for school lunch.
Enjoy the show,
Sara
Tomorrow night at 9pm on Bravo, Top Chefs - apparently in DC - will prepare a school lunch while working with Sam Kass, chef at the White House and presumably on board with Michelle Obama's efforts to reduce childhood obesity. Their challenge? Make lunch with just $2.68 per meal -- the amount of the federal reimbursement for a child receiving a free school lunch. And it is a challenge. First of all, at our school, most kids pay just $2.25 with only a $.25 federal reimbursement -- plus commodity foods. Second, the $2.68 has to pay the whole bill for running a school lunch room include all overhead - salaries, health care, equipment, food - everything. In most schools and ours is no exception, you have less than $1 to spend on food. Try making a hot, healthy meal with that.
Read this post at BetterDCSchoolFood for more details:
www.betterdcschoolfood.blogspot.com/2010/06/top-chef-flunks-school-food-math.html
Then, call Congress and tell them to provide more money for school lunch.
Enjoy the show,
Sara
Monday, June 21, 2010
What's in Tuesday's Lunch - 6/22
It's the last day of school lunch for this year. The menu lists "Cook's Surprise" so I called the food services office to ask what they would be serving at Sea Cliff. I have to say that every time I've called the office, they have been very responsive and helpful, regardless of the question or the issue. They are clearing out the freezers for the year so tomorrow (literally - that's what they said), you can choose from any of the following entrees:
Applegate Hot Dogs
Mozzarella Sticks
Chicken Nuggets
Sliders
They did not know which sides would be served.
Apart from the Applegate hot dogs, the list is a real who's who of processed commodity foods. So, just for old times sake, I'll recount the ingredients for you.
The national school lunch program lets us give our bulk USDA commodity mozzarella cheese to a processor (in this case, Farm Rich) who we then pay to turn it into mozzarella sticks. This is fried cheese with 280 mg of sodium and 9g of fat (3.5g saturated fat). The sauce provides an extra wallop of salt (870 mg in a 1/2 cup - I'm sure they eat less than that much but still.) Here are the ingredients: Low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, salt, enzymes), bleached white flour, enriched bleached wheat flour (flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), soybean oil, enriched yellow corn flour (corn flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), food starch-modified, contains % or less of the following: salt, onion powder, wheat starch, natural butter flavor, whey, sugar, egg, whey protein concentrate, calcium caseinate, sodium aluminum phosphate, soy lecithin, extractives of paprika, dextrose, nonfat dried milk, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate), sodium alginate, soy flour, oleoresin paprika, maltodextrin, artificial flavor, tocopherols, natural flavor, spices, methylcellulose, dehydrated parsley, garlic powder, monoglycerides, triglycerides, yeast, sodium ascorbate, EDTA (as a preservative), calcium propionate (as a preservative), caramel color.
The chicken nuggets do have some whole grain in the breading -- but they are fried Tyson nuggets with a lot of additives. Like the sticks, they arrive frozen and are reheated. The chicken is USDA commodity chicken. They have 490 mg of sodium and9g of fat of which 1/5g is saturated. Here are the ingredients: chicken, water, textured soy protein concentrate, isolated soy protein with less than 2% soy lecithin, seasoning (corn syrup solids, brown sugar, dextrose, salt, vinegar powder (maltodextrin, modified corn starch, dried vinegar), garlic powder, onion powder, chicken type flavor (hydrolyzed corn gluten, autolyzed yeast extract, sunflower oil, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate)), sodium acid pryophospate. Breaded with: whole wheat flour, enriched bleached wheat flour (enriched with niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, modified wheat starch, salt, soybean oil, spice, yellow corn flour, paprika, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, monocalcium phosphate), garlic powder, natural flavor, extractives of turmeric, fumaric acid. Breading set in vegetable oil.
These used to be described as "all beef" sliders - but they are not. Buns are not whole wheat - 279 mg of sodium, and they do contain high fructose corn syrup. The Beef Patties(13g of fat) are a processed food made from USDA commodity beef. Here are the ingredients: Beef, water, textured vegetable protein (soy, flour, zinc oxide, niacinamide, ferrous sulfate, copper gluconate, vitamin A palmitate, calcium pantothenate, thiamin mononitrate (B1), pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), riboflavin (B2), cyanocobalamin (B12)). Arrives frozen.
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.
And that's the last lunch of the year. We hope it's a final good-bye to highly processed USDA commodity foods and have a lot of reason to hope that it is. The administration has voiced a commitment to getting rid of the worst of these foods for next year and has hired a consultant to help put these and other changes in places thanks in part to the commitment of the parents on the nutrition committee. If you'd like to read a recap of all we've done this year, you can see our guest post at http://betterdcschoolfood.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-we-are-changing-food-at-our-school.html.
You may be wondering what will happen to the blog with no lunch to report on -- but don't despair, we'll be here for you all summer. We have several interesting guest blogs scheduled, lots of food news and ideas, camp lunch talk, and most importantly, the district will be working on revamping the menus for next fall with the involvement of the nutrition committee. We should also get an outside evaluation of our current lunch program.
Feel free to post a comment on any topics you'd be interested in.
Sara
Applegate Hot Dogs
Mozzarella Sticks
Chicken Nuggets
Sliders
They did not know which sides would be served.
Apart from the Applegate hot dogs, the list is a real who's who of processed commodity foods. So, just for old times sake, I'll recount the ingredients for you.
The national school lunch program lets us give our bulk USDA commodity mozzarella cheese to a processor (in this case, Farm Rich) who we then pay to turn it into mozzarella sticks. This is fried cheese with 280 mg of sodium and 9g of fat (3.5g saturated fat). The sauce provides an extra wallop of salt (870 mg in a 1/2 cup - I'm sure they eat less than that much but still.) Here are the ingredients: Low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, salt, enzymes), bleached white flour, enriched bleached wheat flour (flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), soybean oil, enriched yellow corn flour (corn flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), food starch-modified, contains % or less of the following: salt, onion powder, wheat starch, natural butter flavor, whey, sugar, egg, whey protein concentrate, calcium caseinate, sodium aluminum phosphate, soy lecithin, extractives of paprika, dextrose, nonfat dried milk, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate), sodium alginate, soy flour, oleoresin paprika, maltodextrin, artificial flavor, tocopherols, natural flavor, spices, methylcellulose, dehydrated parsley, garlic powder, monoglycerides, triglycerides, yeast, sodium ascorbate, EDTA (as a preservative), calcium propionate (as a preservative), caramel color.
The chicken nuggets do have some whole grain in the breading -- but they are fried Tyson nuggets with a lot of additives. Like the sticks, they arrive frozen and are reheated. The chicken is USDA commodity chicken. They have 490 mg of sodium and9g of fat of which 1/5g is saturated. Here are the ingredients: chicken, water, textured soy protein concentrate, isolated soy protein with less than 2% soy lecithin, seasoning (corn syrup solids, brown sugar, dextrose, salt, vinegar powder (maltodextrin, modified corn starch, dried vinegar), garlic powder, onion powder, chicken type flavor (hydrolyzed corn gluten, autolyzed yeast extract, sunflower oil, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate)), sodium acid pryophospate. Breaded with: whole wheat flour, enriched bleached wheat flour (enriched with niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, modified wheat starch, salt, soybean oil, spice, yellow corn flour, paprika, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, monocalcium phosphate), garlic powder, natural flavor, extractives of turmeric, fumaric acid. Breading set in vegetable oil.
These used to be described as "all beef" sliders - but they are not. Buns are not whole wheat - 279 mg of sodium, and they do contain high fructose corn syrup. The Beef Patties(13g of fat) are a processed food made from USDA commodity beef. Here are the ingredients: Beef, water, textured vegetable protein (soy, flour, zinc oxide, niacinamide, ferrous sulfate, copper gluconate, vitamin A palmitate, calcium pantothenate, thiamin mononitrate (B1), pyridoxine hydrochloride (B6), riboflavin (B2), cyanocobalamin (B12)). Arrives frozen.
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.
And that's the last lunch of the year. We hope it's a final good-bye to highly processed USDA commodity foods and have a lot of reason to hope that it is. The administration has voiced a commitment to getting rid of the worst of these foods for next year and has hired a consultant to help put these and other changes in places thanks in part to the commitment of the parents on the nutrition committee. If you'd like to read a recap of all we've done this year, you can see our guest post at http://betterdcschoolfood.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-we-are-changing-food-at-our-school.html.
You may be wondering what will happen to the blog with no lunch to report on -- but don't despair, we'll be here for you all summer. We have several interesting guest blogs scheduled, lots of food news and ideas, camp lunch talk, and most importantly, the district will be working on revamping the menus for next fall with the involvement of the nutrition committee. We should also get an outside evaluation of our current lunch program.
Feel free to post a comment on any topics you'd be interested in.
Sara
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