Get Funds for a Farm to School Lunch Program

Ever wish for local food for your kid's school lunch? How about just real food for your kid's school lunch? You have a chance to make that happen.

The current stimulus plan allows funding for reform of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization act. Congress is currently setting the funding for this. The funding can help get better foods for school lunch programs, perhaps even local food from area farms, a farm-to-school food program.

Read more to learn how to make this possible for your school.

CHILD NUTRITION BUDGET

To help, contact your U.S. senators and your congressional representative and ask them to seek $20 billion over five years for the Child Nutrition Reauthorization in this year's budget. The budget will be finalized this week.

When you contact them, make sure they know you are a constituent. This is very important as they tend to only respond to constituents. Specify how a farm to school program could benefit your school and why it is important. You can find their contact information at congress.gov.

Second, may schools have outsourced school lunch programs to save costs and many lack equipment in order to prepare better meals. This funding can be used to purchase new equipment like salad bars that make better choices available for kids who need them most.

STIMULUS MONEY FOR SCHOOL KITCHEN EQUIPMENT
The economic stimulus package provides $100 million for school food service equipment grants. Local school food authorities (SFAs) may competitively apply for National School Lunch Program equipment assistance grants. Priority will be given to SFAs in which at least 50 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-priced meals.

This will require state-level action. Find your contact here and ask this agency to request in their grant application to set aside some of these funds for Farm to School projects, which will help get fresh, local foods in your school.

Finally, you need to talk to your school and ask them to apply for this funding. Given the current state of things, not too many schools will ignore potential to get funding.

Links to Learn More About Stimulus Money, School Lunch, and Farm to School
USDA Memo on 2009 Equipment Assistance Grants for School Food Authorities
Obama Stimulus Targets Fresh, Local Food by Diane Conners
U.S. Congress
Food program highlights in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Many thanks for this information to Deb Eschmeyer, Kellogg Food & Society Policy Fellow, National Farm to School Network.

The Good Old Salad Days: Why Vegetables Today Have Less Nutrition

I will confess I am a bit of a science geek. Not totally as I tend to skim all the statistical analysis parts where the nitty gritty details of the methodology are transcribed in excruciating detail (yawn). But I read enough of it to see if the b.s. detector goes off. I have a finely tuned b.s. detector.

So, when I tell you the broccoli you are eating is not what it used to be, well, it’s true. In fact, some 43 most commonly eaten vegetables have between six percent protein and up to 38 percent riboflavin amounts LESS than their 1950 counterparts. And less of other “good stuff” too.

So, are we going to have to eat more than five servings?

Well, most kids are not eating enough anyway, so this is really not good news. Read on.

The study, “Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999,” was published by Donald R. Davis, PhD, FACN, Melvin D. Epp, PhD and Hugh D. Riordan, MD. The research team narrowed suspected causes for this drop in nutrition to a few variables.

One theory was the difference in the environment and soil in which the crops where raised. They concluded while this is plausible (and previously proven that organic methods produce vegetables with more nutrition) the difference between these two was not enough to account for the total difference in nutrition found.

So, it is not just about organic versus industrial growing methods.

It’s actually more about the type, or cultivars, grown. You see, in the last 50 years large-scale growers have been selecting for varieties that grow quickly, grow larger and have higher yield. That, in addition to ones that ship well. Nutrition suffers in the tradeoff for yield (i.e. profit).

It’s kind of like that whole triangle diagram from work, the one where the three points say, “fast, good, cheap” and you can only pick two for a realistic project. In this triangle, however, you can’t pick good and fast or good and cheap. Fast trumps flavor and nutrition, and the only goal the growers have is fast and cheap.

Think of each little head of broccoli like a closed loop with the same amount of nutrition no matter what, it just gets spread thinner when the plant gets bigger faster.

Proof. Slow food really is best. Which can leave a health-minded eater wondering, “Where do I get me some of that 1950 broccoli?”

Your back yard is a good place, just like the Obamas. Or your farmers market if you have the right farmers selling there. However, you will want to be sure that the varieties you are buying are heirlooms. Heirloom varieties by name must be at least 50 years old for the seed origin and must open pollinate. These old varieties of seed are the kinds of things you don’t see on store shelves. Many don’t ship well, or don’t have the high yield that commercial farms require. Heirloom tomatoes are probably the most familiar, sexy, tasty, ugly tomatoes full of flavor and character, and apparently, more nutrition.

Heirlooms are not just tomatoes, however. Take a scan through my favorite seed porn and you will get a glimpse of what you are missing. Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Romanesco, Cosmic Purple Carrots. And some old varieties you’ve probably not tried; Amaranth greens, Cardoon, Salsify to name a few.

If you’re still standing in the grocery store produce section, well, you’re missing out on more than just nutrition.

Flavor, variety, new tastes. And nutrients. It’s a lot to miss.

*If you’re curious as to why organic methods produce more nutrition, (fellow geek!) it is because the artificial inputs cause the crop to grow in size and weight more rapidly. The plant doesn’t have enough time to reach its nutrition potential before it gets big enough to get chopped off and shipped.

Wow, Life Got Crazy

I am currently figuring out how to write a grant for a community project. I have these grand ideas on how big it could be and all these potential ways for it to grow. I forget sometimes that I need to crawl a bit first. Still, it's a great learning experience.

At the same time I am helping with an Urban Farm Tour event for this summer. Thus, I spend a lot more time hanging out in soup kitchens and libraries for these meetings. The urban farmers are inspiring. Some of the programs that they have started are just incredible, like the Refugee garden. It's been a pleasure to work with them.

For the first time, I am starting to feel a very deep sense of connectedness to my community. I am looking forward to the day when I can watch people actually gardening at a community site that I had a small part in helping establish. I hope the project will have some Food Justice elements, as well. There is so much potential.

I am sorry, though, this has all taken me a bit away from the blog and from visiting all of your sites. Kind of like the whole new mom days, I am struggling to figure out how all this new stuff is going to fit in my 24-hour day constraints. I'll get there.

Some good recipes to share soon. Yes, I have still been cooking at least!

I'm the Gatekeeper

No, not looking for the Keymaster. Just some good vegetables and spices, apparently. Today's NYT has a good review of the trend of getting back to the kitchen and just how much influence (up to 70% of all food choices, even while eating out) that this gatekeeper holds.

Plus, a quick quiz to find out just what kind of cook you are.

Garden Beginnings

There it is. Our whole garden. Right now, you can't tell the heirloom Romanesco broccoli from the Wild Rocket (arugula), the Siberian Red Kale from the Mesclun lettuces. It all looks pretty much like long-stem clover with only two leaves.

Honestly, I thought I'd killed the lot of it. All 250 would-be vegetables on our table. If they live. But the tiny seedlings proved more resilient than they look. Slowly, slowly, the delicate sprouts come up and begin to reach for the weak winter sun just outside the southern exposure window pane.

We planted all of these, the Kiddo and I, on her birthday. Even more reason to hope for them to thrive.

But if they do, where am I going to put 250 plants?

Ah, that's another problem for a much warmer spring day to come.

Quote of the Day

Michelle Obama, read the full post at Eating Liberally (good read):

I want to urge people who are listening that if you have an opportunity, to come by -- not just this soup kitchen but any soup kitchen in your community. And helping is an easy thing to do. Collect some fruits and vegetables. Bring by some good healthy food. You know, we want to make sure that our guests here and across this country are eating nutritious items. Today we had fresh risotto with mushrooms. We had broccoli. We had fresh baked muffins with carrots in it. And my understanding is that this facility is able to provide that kind of meal for about $1.50. And that's an incredible thing to remember: that we can provide this kind of healthy food for communities across this country, and we can do it by each of us lending a hand.

Waiting

I am waiting to get sick. Every time the kiddo gets a bug from school, I can count on it, too. Because, you see, I don't just get coughed on. No. I get the rollover in the night, power blast of germs not on my nose, but up my nose. All night long. It's one of those mom fringe benefits along with being up every two hours and getting very far behind at work.

Still, the little ones are so sad, so tired, and such a bundle of need, there's no way you could turn your back on them — even when they are coughing. On your face.

So, I wait. Get as much as I can done. And batten down the hatches.