Americans want healthy school lunches and they want them now. Both a study administered by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and a report written by ex-military leaders are advocating for school lunch reforms.

A recent survey conducted by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation concludes that people in America are unhappy with their children’s school lunches. Sixty three percent of parents of school-aged kids described the school lunches in their local school as “poor,” or at best, “fair.” School lunches normally serve tater tots, corn dogs, pizza, and chicken nuggets several times a week, all of which are high in sodium and fats. The study shows that 70% of all Americans want pizza served in school lunches once a week or not at all, and over 60% would want chicken nuggets and hamburgers served once a week or not at all.

Parents of school-aged kids aren’t the only ones who want change. Retired military officers also came out with a report, titled “Too Fat To Fight: Retired Military Leaders Want Junk Food Out of America’s Schools.” It reveals that in one decade (ending in 2008) the states that recorded over 40% of their youth as overweight or obese increased from only one, Kentucky, to a total of thirty-nine. The report also stated that 80% of all the overweight kids aged 10-15 years were obese by the time they were 25. Americans have increased their daily calorie intake by 250-300 calories.

These studies have recognized vending machines filled with junk food as the primary culprit. We hope that something is done fast about this issue, and that kids are offered healthy and nutritious lunches at schools.

It’s a really great time to be an urban farmer. The support system just keeps getting better and better. Enthusiasm is all around us, in our local communities, in our cities and on the internet. Today, we read two stories from two different American cities that are crafting their own approach, bringing the community of local food to new and creative places.

San Francisco has a bubbling and fizzing community of urban homesteaders making their own pickles, kombucha, kefir and cider. Thanks to Jaime Gross of the New York Times for sharing this insight into the food scene out there and for giving us a new favorite quote at the end of the article: “Once you get a taste of your own pickles, it’s hard to go back.”

Austin has another amazing approach. Urban Patchwork brings farming to your front yard, they “want to foster a sense of community, to encourage people to meet at the front of the house.” What a great notion! Let’s meet out front and share some tips on gardening, weeding and cooking. These cities provide a wonderful inspiration to bring your own food community to your doorstep and bring them all the way inside!

*** click on image to download pdf

Presenting our new Family Cook-In! Screening Toolkit. Designed to take your family through an afternoon of learning about food and cooking together — it has games and activites for all aged kids, places to record family recipes, and ideas for real ways you can make a difference.

Enjoy with curious kids and a good meal. Cheers.

Attention, Internet People of New York City! There will be a bake-in to protest Chancellor Regulation A-812 at City Hall on Thursday, March 18th, from 4-6pm.

As you may or may not know, A-812 bans homebaked goods from bakesales at NYC public schools, while allowing store-bought junk foods. If that makes you hopping mad, head down to city hall on the 18th. There will be two tables, one with homemade treats with a list of ingredients, and one with a heap of junk food. To arms, New York! Bake for freedom!

Just hours ago, the Center for New York City Affairs hosted “School Food Matters: Hunger, Obesity and the Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act,” a great panel discussion on the state of school food in New York City. Especially as this very week, Congress is holding the first hearings on the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act. This is a huge opportunity for school food reform, as the Child Nutrition Act dictates how schools approach the goal of feeding kids. The old act (from 2004) expired last fall, and the current hearings in congress will look at whether or not the school food system is working, and how we can make it better. There are petitions all over the internet, and sites that tell you how to contact your legislators, to let congress know how badly school lunch needs to be improved. This is a huge deal, Internet.

Anyway, the Center for New York City Affairs put together this great event just this morning, with a panel discussion featuring some big names in education and food from NYC and elsewhere. The topic of conversation was how to ask congress for what we want, and how to convince congress that a strong Child Nutrition Act is vital to the future of the country, and you can be sure WOYP was there taking notes on the whole thing.

The panel consisted of Kevin Concannon, the undersecretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services in the U.S. Department of Agriculture; Eric Goldstein, the chief executive officer for the New York City Department of Education, Office of Nutrition and Education (he was in What’s On Your Plate?); Jan Poppendieck, professor of sociology at Hunter College (City University of New York) and author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America; Jonathan Stein, general counsel for Community Legal Services (CSL) of Philadelphia; Jim Weill, the president of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC); and Fred Mogul, the healthcare and medicine reporter for WNYC Public Radio, who acted as moderator.

The conference covered a huge range of issues, so our plan is to post in-depth about a few of them in the coming days. If anyone was actually at the conference, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Once we start posting our takes on the issues discussed this morning, we hope that people will respond with their own comments, and the blog can turn into a continuation of the discussion at the conference.

Today is a sad, sad day for bake sales everywhere. In an attempt to make schools health-savvy, The NY Department of Education is reforming what is being sold at bake sales. The DOE has a list of products that meet certain “health” requirements. As it would happen, these products aren’t really healthy at all, and include brands such as Doritos, Pop Tarts, Lays, and Pepsi. Because the DOE cannot regulate what is sold at bake sales in terms of grams of sugar and fat, they are banning homemade goods altogether, replacing them instead with the aforementioned brands. That means no cupcakes, brownies, cookies, or pies. These aren’t necessarily health food choices, but at least you know they aren’t chemically processed and you know where they’re coming from. Although the DOE probably had the best of intentions, this plan wasn’t well executed. We understand that schools should be healthier, but wouldn’t it have been better just to make guidelines rather then banning baked goods completely? Homemade products could easily be safer for kids than the store-bought brands.

This Wednesday at 6pm the Panel for Education Policy will be voting whether to approve the revisions to this regulation, also known as A-812. It’s not too late to stop this. Just sign this petition; it’ll only take a few seconds.

Update: Looks like the regulation passed unanimously. This is a setback which should only encourage us to speak more loudly.

make us tighten our belts on child nutrition programs while the girth of the nation grows. The government spends $1 million per soldier in Afghanistan, yet barely spends $1 on the food in a school lunch.

via Debra Eschmeyer: State of the Union’s School Lunch: Nutrition as National Defense and Fiscal Health.

Obama’s spending freeze is big, awful news lately. Debra Eschmeyer’s article lamenting the effect of the freeze on school lunch programs brings up the kind of disappointment a lot of us feel about a lot of programs that would suffer from such a freeze. It hardly needs to be repeated, but it is becoming increasingly clear that Obama’s priorities are not what the voting public thought they would be. I specifically remember heading to the polls, dreaming of a president who would pull us out of two needless wars, repair the deteriorating financial laws that could no longer hold up the economy, and begin an era of government in which the health and education of the nation (children and adults) would be a national priority. A year and a few months later, that president is talking about a spending freeze with the continuation of the wars an explicit goal, and has done little more than ask banks to pay back the money he gave them. I’m frustrated, we’re all frustrated. Where is the guy we voted for? What the hell happened?

Internet, this is my (limited) understanding of the situation: all that stuff Obama promised to do during the campaign is, in truth, impossible. First of all, most of the big sweeping changes he promised are illegal. Take closing Guantanamo Bay, for example. The president does not have the authority to do that. All the president can actually do is veto laws that have already gone through congress (not very useful, actually) make appointments, and command the armed forces. Actually, Obama doesn’t actually have the authority to freeze domestic spending, so I guess that’s good news. As much as we would like to depend on Obama to change our country for us, all he can really do is suggest things for congress to do, and we’ve seen how well health care reform has been going.

My theory is that Obama thinks a spending freeze is what we want. He’s done what we all do from time to time: he got used to praise and support during the campaign and now he can only see the criticism he faces. It’s incredible after the image of boldness and change he presented, but it Obama has caved. A year ago, I saw in Obama a president who might have the courage pursue a progressive agenda. I think a lot of people saw him as dedicated to a theory of government which prioritized the well-being of its citizens. Maybe I set my hopes too high, but the Obama of the campaign seemed ready to enact major change in this country, despite adversity and opposition, for the good it would eventually bring, but the Obama of a year later is all too ready to fold in the face of political opposition.

In light of all this, I have one major point: Obama is not the legislative Mary Poppins we all thought he would be. Some things he simply can’t do, some things he might not want to do, but many things are still possible. If we want the Child Nutrition Act reauthorized, if we want schools to be better funded, and school lunches to be local, healthy, and delicious, and if we want this country to care for its children, we’ve got to work for it. Spread the word, make it known that America wants better school lunches. And don’t depend on Obama to make the laws you want because that’s not his job. Write to your senator, vote for people that share your views, and get other people to do the same (I’m looking at you, Massachusetts). The reason we’re looking at two foreign wars and a three-year spending freeze is that the people in power (Obama included) think we want them. I know it’s easy to despair, to give it up as a lost cause, but please don’t. I still have hope that if Obama and congress know that people want health and education to be national priorities (and not just city people with blogs) they will act accordingly. Politicians pay attention, and the spending freeze is probably a reaction to high-profile conservative groups like the tea-partiers. Getting politicians to pay attention to a cause is difficult, but at some level, they work for us. Don’t give up, internet, get louder.

So you graduate from college and get psyched up about organic gardening and food justice. You try working on a farm and decide: yes this is for me. You enthusiastically declare to friends and family: I have found my calling, my purpose! I am going to toil in the dirt and grow beautiful, pure food!

You do some research about independent farming and   . . . . WHOOA. The reality sinks in. You need serious $ to start a commercially viable farm, even a small one. Land, tools, seed, labor, insurance, and on and on.

On top of all that you have $60,000 in student loans for your lucrative Anthropology degree from an expensive University.

The economics of farming in this country are deeply skewed. Small farms go out of business every day and and it is increasingly difficult for small operations to compete with Agri Giants. As the population of farmers ages, and farms go out of business, we need a new generation of farmers to take their place.

There is a building movement to make farming a little more financially viable for young folks.

Ever heard of Public Service Loan Forgiveness or Income Based Repayment? They are two options offered by the federal government to encourage college grads to go into public service and non-profit work. Within Public Service Loan Forgiveness, remaining student loan debt is forgiven after ten years. And with Income Based Repayment, one is protected from paying more than 15% of their disposable income to repay student loans.

Farming and food activists are trying to make farming qualify as a public service in these programs. According to this article by Kimberley Hart, adding farming to the pool of public service employment could be the piece we need to make farming more do-able for a new generation.

From my own personal observations and talks with wanna-be farmers, it is not the physical labor, time commitment, or geographic isolation that deters them from trashing their laptops and picking up pitchforks. It is a real concern that you just can’t make a living as a small scale farmer.

If you want to see farming become more financially viable for a new generation of farmers, contact your representatives. You can use this handy letter to get you started.

We are so honored and so excited to be a part of Oliver Taylor’s quest to be awarded a 2010 Disney Friends for Change grant of $500. He wants to bring What’s On Your Plate? to his school or local library! He is more than half way to his goal of 500 friends on Facebook and we hope he gets there before the January 29th deadline. Everyone, go become a fan of Oliver for The Urban Farmers!

From his profile:

Hi, I’m Oliver Taylor. I live in Lafayette and am a 7th grader at Stanley Middle School. I am also the Youth Spokesperson for The Urban Farmers, a pilot program in Lafayette that is striving to plant 1,000 fruit trees in 5 years. My family is planting 20 trees in our backyard this month.

My current mission is to be awarded a 2010 “Disney Friends for Change” grant of $500. I plan to organize a community wide screening of “What’s On Your Plate” at my school or the new Lafayette Library. I hope to have 500 fans before January 29th, the deadline for the grant proposal.

*PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!!!!*

Over here at What’s On Your Plate?, we’ve been hard at work to get a fun and engaging toolkit together for all the home viewers out there who will be joining us on Sunday, February 7th at 2pm. We’ve finally finished it and we’re pretty proud to share it with all of you.

Here it is for all of those looking for something fun to do that Sunday with your friends and family!