Caramel coloring, which gives the colas their signature brown color, is formed in heating and browning processes of sugars. It can be formed either naturally (if you’ve ever caramelized onions, you have some idea of what I’m talking about here) or in mass quantities as an added food coloring. Commercially, it’s added to pretty much every type of food and beverage you can think of, as well as some household cleaning products.

Source: glamour.com

The two soft drink giants are adjusting their manufacturing process for caramel color in the United States because otherwise they would have to slap a giant cancer warning on their California labels. See, the problem ingredient is 4-methylimidazole, also known as 4-MEI, high levels of which seems to only be a problem in commercially produced caramel color. California recently put into law that products need to have less than 29 micrograms of 4-MEI per 12 ounces, which is 1/4-1/5 of the level that Coke and Pepsi currently contain.

Since the color doesn’t add anything but aesthetic value (and since the rival Dr. Pepper Snapple group’s levels were already below that limit), the two companies decided that rather than fight the label mandate, they would just change their production of caramel coloring. Despite their decision, Coke, Pepsi, and the American Beverage Association (an organization which represents the interests of the U.S. beverage industry) still want us to know that these requirements are “scientifically unfounded” “scare tactics”, and are sure to add that “not one single regulatory agency around the world considers the exposure of the public to 4-MEI as present in caramels as an issue”. Duly noted–California is often ahead of the curve.

4-MEI has in fact been linked to cancer in rodents in lab testing, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims that you’d need to drink around 1000 cans a day to get the same dose as those mice and rats. Frankly though, I think it’s definitely possible for humans to get up to that level over a long period of time, especially for kids who grow up drinking soda like it’s water.  In a similar health case, complications from smoking cigarettes can take a good couple decades to manifest themselves but that doesn’t make cigarettes any less carcinogenic.

Regardless of the posturing, this development is yet another reason why people should really cut down on their soda intake. Water and juice might seem too bland in comparison, but if you give yourself a chance to get used to them you probably won’t even miss it. Plus, you’ll be so much healthier for it!

The back-story is that parents at TNS offered to pay for a new stove out of their own pockets, but as it turned out the issue wasn’t simply a question of funds—the real problem was with the ansul system (i.e. fire suppression system) and not the stove itself. The old ansul system is extremely out-of-date and they need to upgrade it in order to operate a stove. This all means that TNS essentially needs to remodel their entire kitchen just to cook with a stove.

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chiropractic/

There hasn’t been a usable stove at The Neighborhood School for ten years. The vast majority of the kitchen’s food arrives frozen or precooked, so the TNS kitchen is very limited in what they can actually cook (not just reheat) for their students. Jackie Vargas, the head dietician, and the other kitchen staff roast a chicken every month and make sandwiches for the kids’ lunches, but that’s all they can do with their current resources. They’ve come up with many creative workarounds, such as using the oven to sauté foods, but there are still many things that they can’t cook without a stove, like pastas and soups. The kitchen staff is very frustrated because they can’t make food as fresh as they would like.

We found from Helen Martineau, of The Neighborhood School’s Wellness Committee, that in January 2011 TNS was able to get an inspector from the Department of Education (DOE) to come through the kitchen for a feasibility study. The inspector determined that it would be possible to put in not only a new exhaust and ansul system but also a new stove (and maybe even some new floors and counters). TNS planned to go forward with this remodeling, but found out in April 2011 that to get DOE funding, they would need to fill out a capital budget application. The application is very involved (around 120 pages long!) and they needed the feasibility study’s results in order to submit it. However, those results weren’t finalized until mid-May and the deadline was the beginning of April. What a crazy system!

A few of the parents tried to figure out a way to pay for it without the DOE’s support, but it was too complex to accomplish in the time they had left. So, they were unable to complete the application in 2011. As of now, they do plan on re-applying. There is just one more potential hurdle: the DOE prioritizes school renovations according to how much of a direct physical threat the current situation poses. That said, here’s some food for thought: while preventing immediate physical harm is imperative, physical health down the line is just as important. You also have to think about what happens in the long run—this generation may be the first generation of Americans in over 200 years to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents due to complication from obesity. And that, my friends, is scary to think about.

Anyway, this Department of Education policy would mean that…

It might still take a few more years for TNS to finally be able to cook with a stove, even if their application gets accepted.

We will continue to keep you updated on the progress, and hope to have good news for you in 2012 on The Neighborhood School’s stove and kitchen renovation.

Also, a big thank you to Cat Gund and Helen Martineau for contributing research!

Source: http://knowledgeoftheday.com/category/brain/

According to a recent study out of the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, good nutrition leads to better brain function. This specific study looked at biomarkers in the blood to determine the effect different levels of different vitamins had on brain health. The article I read mentioned biomarkers, but didn’t clarify what they were (true also of the reputable sources of Google and Wikipedia.) I was a bit confused as to what exactly they are, but after much research, suffice to say they are one of many forms of protein in the bloodstream that can reflect a person’s state of wellness. In this case, they would be the way by which the scientists studied the change from vitamin levels.

Previous studies in this vein have focused mainly on personal reports of subjects’ diets to judge the correlation between brain function and nutrition which tends towards unreliable and subjective evidence. What makes this study notable is that its methods are more objective.

Researchers studied the vitamin levels of 104 participants and had them take cognitive tests to measure their thinking and memory. They also performed MRIs on 42 participants to measure their brain volume. They found that those with higher levels of B family vitamins, as well as omega-3s and vitamins C, D, and E, performed better on these cognitive tests than those with lower levels.

Credit: http://uliwestphal.de/expanded.html

On the other side of things, participants with high levels of trans fats (a favorite of processed foods) in their blood had poorer performances. Their MRIs also revealed more brain shrinkage than those with low levels of trans fats in the blood.

It should, however, be noted that variances in nutrient levels did not account for 100% of the differences in scores: nutrient measurements accounted for 17%, whereas age, education, high blood pressure, and brain volume accounted for 83% of variance. 17% isn’t a big slice, but still surprisingly substantial!

This study still needs to be confirmed, but author Dr. Gene Bowman is very excited about the potential of the results. He says, “it is very exciting to think that people could potentially stop their brains from shrinking and keep them sharp by adjusting their diet”.

Source: http://blog.heartland.org/2012/01/humility-and-skepticism-in-scientific-debate/

Exciting indeed!

Yet more evidence for the importance of eating right, not just for physical health but also for your brain. Happy thinking!

What’s On Your Plate? is a piece of the curriculum in one of the Studio in a School art education programs. The program works to promote lifestyle change in kids through visual arts. By combining nutrition lectures and art workshops, kids learn how to make healthier food choices by conceptualizing the food through art. Their Art & Healthy Living exhibit opened on February 28th and will be open for viewing until Wednesday March 14th.

Studio in a School gallery
1 East 53rd Street, Manhattan

Be sure to check it out!

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/studioimages/6935562835/

Or rather, it will be.

Elysium, Credit: Jeffrey K. Bedrick

That’s right, out in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle they’re devoting seven acres of land to what is likely our nation’s first food forest. It’s the next step forward in urban agriculture, a self-sustaining forest full of fresh food for the community.

The Beacon Food Forest started as a group project for a permaculture design course and with huge amounts of outreach, it’s becoming a reality. And seriously, they really care about what the community thinks–they even hired translators so that the Chinese-speaking residents of the area could have a say in the planning.

The best part, of course, is that anyone who happens to wander in can take what they like. No limit, no cost–pretty cool, eh? But Connie, you may ask, what if someone comes around and picks every single apple in the forest? Well according to lead landscape architect Margarett Harrison, “There was major discussion about it. People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we’re successful.” So for all you Seattleites out there, when the time comes strike while the iron is hot!

The Beacon Food Forest folks are hoping to break ground this summer, plant the trees in the fall, and open next July. I’m excited to see how it all turns out!

Credit: http://beaconfoodforest.weebly.com/design.html

I recently read about the Rid-All Green Partnership, an urban farm smack in the middle of Cleveland, Ohio dedicated to promoting sustainability and healthy eating as well as creating jobs for the community. The land they’re on used to be an illegal dump in the Forgotten Triangle, an area in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood which is apparently so devoid of people it might as well be Wyoming, but through hard work and a great deal of enthusiasm they were able to turn that land into the bustling farm it is today. These guys are really at the forefront of urban agriculture and have been able to do some outstanding things for their city!

Rid-All was started in 2010 by three childhood friends–Randell McShepard, Keymah Durden, and Damien Forshe–who grew up together in the Lee Miles neighborhood of Cleveland. McShepard is a corporate executive and co-founder of a public policy think tank; Durden is a mechanical engineer who had a chain of vegetarian soul food restaurants; and Damien Forshe is an independent businessman with an environmentally-friendly exterminating service, from which Rid-All borrowed their name. The three are all very passionate about urban agriculture and extremely devoted to their main goal, which is to transform Cleveland into an environmentally sustainable city. Another goal of theirs, one they find equally as important as the one for sustainability, is to help create jobs. Many of Cleveland’s low-skilled workers have suffered in the recent economic downturn, so Rid-All offers training classes and employment at their farm. I think it’s fantastic that they put the same amount of effort into this goal as they do sustainability, as farming is the sort of trade where there’ll always be jobs and that really helps to provide better opportunities for people who wouldn’t get them otherwise. Rid-All joined up with urban farming association Growing Power to become one of their 15 urban training centers, giving workers a chance to learn new skills.

Right now, Rid-All has four greenhouses at around 7000 square feet each, with each growing crops like corn, tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, peppers, celery, collared greens, kale, broccoli, spinach, and herbs like sweet basil, thyme, and oregano. They’re able to get out 150-200 pounds of vegetables each week, distributing them among the community, and are also raising thousands of tilapia! They have quite a novel system going on to grow their plants and raise their fish, using hydroponics, aquaponics, and nutrient-rich soil courtesy of their enormous compost pile.

Photo Credit: Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer

For those of you who don’t know what aquaponics is (e.g. me before I started writing this), it’s the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. Aquaculture is fish farming and hydroponics is growing of plants with water, not soil. As a hybrid of the two, aquaponics works by filtering out the fish’s waste and using it as fertilizer for plants which, by using said waste, clean up the water for the fish. Essentially, the plants keep the tilapia from getting poisoned by their own waste.  Here’s a diagram for all the visual learners out there:

Photo Credit: http://aquaponicssystemseasy.com/

Pretty clever, huh? What a great way to conserve water, take up less space, and keep everything organic!

As for composting, Rid-All gathers a whopping 4000 pounds of food waste each week from local stores and restaurant–that’s a pretty awesome way to take advantage of the seriously ridiculous amount of waste these places are known for. Since that’s an huge amount of food to turn into soil, they also use worms to speed up the process. They distribute a portion of their soil around to the community for those at risk for soil contamination from heavy metals, like lead. This is extremely common in big cities like Cleveland, and one of the easiest, cheapest solutions is to lay compost in raised beds so that plants can be still be grown on the land.

Rid-All also focuses on community outreach, teaching Clevelanders the importance of their mission of sustainability. One way they do this is by writing and publishing a comic book, “Brink City–Green in the Ghetto”. Brink City is a superhero comic where the characters fight environmental injustices and it gets handed out to local students. It’s been a big hit, even spawning a play inspired by the it, performances of which were held at Cleveland’s amazing Karamu House in January.

Looking into the future, Burten, Bell, Carr Development, Inc., a nonprofit development company, is helping to secure Rid-All the acre of land right across the street. Rid-All intends to build another greenhouse on it, one big enough for training classrooms and a kitchen, and they’re aiming to get started on that sometime this year. Rid-All is hoping to gain enough support that they’ll be able to generate income for the farm year-round in order to get food out to those who need it. Judging by the amount of support they’ve managed to generate so far, from organizations like the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland, JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Neighborhood Leadership Institute, the Walmart Foundation, Inner Visions of Cleveland, Farmer Jones Indoor Market, and the Cleveland Food Bank, their community truly believes in Rid-All’s mission to transform Cleveland and is more than eager to help. They should definitely be able to reach their goal!

For more information, check out these links:

Sources

• 3 childhood friends start urban farm in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood
• Urban farming, and lots of it, in Cleveland: editorial

Videos

• Rid-All solar station
• Rid-All Green Partnership – An urban farm

Here they are!

The Project School

The Project School’s fourth and fifth grade class, led by their teacher Sarah Jerasa, incorporated the What’s On Your Plate? program in a unit on global and local homelessness and hunger in December. They held a screening of What’s On Your Plate? as a fundraiser, raising money to carry out projects related to their studies: funding a well for a village in Africa, donating an animal to a community through Heifer International Organization, and donating medical supplies and food to area shelters.  The bundles were used to educate their school and members of their community to promote awareness of larger food-related issues, like food insecurity and local food.

It was a great success, and the response they received from the screening was incredible. The students were able to raise over $300 for their projects! They engaged their community in a discussion that later continued into the classroom.

Take a look at some pictures from their screening!

Tribe One

Tribe One of Knoxville, Tennessee is an organization founded in order to encourage leadership skills and economic self-sufficiency in the youth of East Knoxville. Tribe One used What’s On Your Plate? as a part of their after-school holistic health programming in an effort to focus students on the importance of  keeping their body, mind, and spirit healthy.

Here are some pictures showing a few of the kids at Tribe One making Sadie’s Fruit Smoothie at an after-school program:

YUM!

As for Harlem Seeds, we’re expecting an update from them soon. They’re busy organizing events to bring healthy food to kids in Harlem. Watch out for a post about their event soon.

Thank you to all of our Bundle recipients and a very special thank you to everyone who helped us give these bundles away by purchasing one for their home.

Sarah Jerasa’s 4th and 5th grade class project on homelessness and hunger awareness at The Project School in Bloomington, Indiana, is a recipient of the What’s On Your Plate? Buy a Bundle – Give a Bundle Initiative.

Just a few weeks ago, we received a letter from Sarah Jerasa, one of the teachers in a combined 4th and 5th grade classroom at The Project School, a charter school in Bloomington, Indiana. She inquired about hosting a screening of What’s On Your Plate? this December on behalf of her students. She wrote: “Our students and school are truly passionate about working towards making change in our community and reaching out to other communities. I think our work would be really inspiring for others to see.” We are always looking for passionate kids like Sadie, Safiyah and Oliver, who are devoted to affecting positive social, political and environmental change. We did some research and found that The Project School’s mission and Ms. Jerasa’s class proposal were perfectly in line with our goals!

The Project School and What’s On Your Plate?  share a commitment to inspiring kids to engage with issues that directly impacts their lives. The Project School describes their school curriculum as, “project-based, problem-based, and place-based” and “directly connected to issues in their local and global communities.”

Ms. Jerasa’s current class project focuses on issues that What’s On Your Plate? is very much concerned with: addressing homelessness and hunger on a local and global scale. When Ms. Jerasa wrote to us, the class had already watched What’s On Your Plate? and performed the calorie experiment from the film. Her class was so excited by the experience, they decided they would like to host a public screening of What’s On Your Plate? to raise funds to support the following hunger-focused initiatives:

- Funding a well for a village in Africa to provide clean water
- Donating an animal for a community through the Heifer International Organization
- Donating medical supplies and food to local shelters in their community.

The Project School’s focus on community engagement, and the student-led campaign to address homelessness and hunger motivated us to include Ms. Jerasa’s class project in our Holiday Buy a Bundle – Give a Bundle Initiative. We have no doubt The Project School will make amazing use of the What’s On Your Plate? bundles they receive. We hope you will join us in supporting Ms. Jerasa’s 4th and 5th grade class project on homelessness and hunger awareness!

If you have the chance to make it to Harlem Seeds’ Harlem Family Dinner on December 16, chances are you might hear one of the following exclamations around the dinner table:

“This is delicious!”

“I never knew Kale could taste this good!”

And one of our favorites:

“What’s on your plate?”

Harlem Seeds, co-founded by sisters Michele Hatchette and Stephanie Mack, is a Harlem-based non-profit organization dedicated to empowering Harlem youth to fuel their bodies with clean, safe, and healthy foods.

We first met the women behind Harlem Seeds at a community screening of What’s On Your Plate? in Harlem on October 3, 2011. An instant connection was established. We were working towards the same end: educating and empowering youth to make happy, healthy and informed decisions about what they put in their bodies.

In November, we invited Harlem Seeds co-founder, Stephanie Mack, to speak at the What’s On Your Plate? Story Leads to Action event at the 92YTribeca. She was joined by two other panelists: Maritza Owens, founder of the Harvest Home Farmer’s Market and Deb Lewison-Grant co-founder of Food Fight.

Stephanie’s discussion with the audience was uplifting and exciting. She described different components of Harlem Seeds’ programming like the Cooking Club, a group of fifteen students that meet every Friday to cook and learn about making healthy food choices. She also described Harlem Seeds’ community outreach work, and the Thanksgiving Produce Bags they put together for GrowNYC to sell at La Marqueta just prior to Thanksgiving.

Stephanie talked about the philosophy behind Harlem Seeds. She mentioned the inspiring thought that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is a right we all share, and if we commit to that idea, making healthy choices can evolve from a burden to a means of empowerment.

Stephanie will be integrating the holiday bundles into the Harlem Seeds Harlem Family Dinner on December 16. We hope you will support their work, and buy a bundle and donate a bundle (or three!) to Harlem Seeds!