Internet, please direct your attention to the following piece of hogwash, a glimpse of an ad industry not yet accustomed to subtlety:

For those of you who can’t read the tiny print, the block text underneath the baby reads:

HOW SOON IS TOO SOON? Not soon enough. Laboratory tests over the last few years have proven that babies who start drinking soda during that early formative period have a much higher chance of gaining acceptance and “fitting in” during those awkward pre-teen and teen years. So, do yourself a favor. Do your child a favor. Start them on a strict regimen of soda and other sugary carbonated beverages right now, for a lifetime of guaranteed happiness. – The Soda Pop Board of America

Frankly, Internet, holy crap! That first line in bold really speaks to what I think is the worst part of the advertising industry: ads are not designed to answer our questions about a product, or to provide us with information useful in deciding whether or not to buy a product, ads choose questions that assume desire and preclude choice. In an ad clearly directed toward concerned parents trying to look out for their children’s health, the question “Is soda healthy for my child?” does not exist. Instead, the question is “Am I giving my child enough soda?” the answer, of course, is no.

This ad has everything we’re all familiar with in ads, perhaps a little more obvious: happy customers, a directive from the company (at the top), a prompt for the consumer (we are supposed to ask “how soon is too soon?”), false statements in tricky language that can’t really be traced (“laboratory tests”), outrageous claims that are too vague to be technically wrong (“a lifetime of guaranteed happiness”), it should all sound pretty familiar. Compare with this Gatorade commercial, where the product is presented as an integral part of playing sports, and the company is portrayed as having invented some kind of miracle elixir (it’s just sugar water, right? Green sugar water. Wikipedia was pretty vague on what the heck “electrolytes” are, and I’m far from a biochemist, but they seem to be abundant in, you guessed it, fruits and vegetables). Shake your head and frown, if you dare, at the demise of New York’s sadly quixotic soda tax, which is getting its cavity-free teeth kicked in by as slick and vicious an ad campaign by a very, very wealthy industry.

I digress, Internet, I don’t need to tell you that advertising is insidious, despicable, and manipulative, that it’s always been that way, and that it got that way on purpose. Here’s my point: branding is a part of our lives, and it is a huge part of every choice we make. When I was little, I was (thank God) not allowed to drink soda at the dinner table. I would sit there with my glass of milk, and I remember thinking it was a bit unfair that my dad could choose to have a beer with dinner. This was not because I didn’t like the milk, or wanted to party hard at 8 years old, I am almost entirely certain that it was because of branding. I saw my dad pour the bottle with the label on it, that looked like a glass soda bottle, into a glass, and he could have it at dinner. I wanted to be a grown up and drink a grown up drink with a brightly colored logo. I’m being completely serious, I was a brand-conscious kid from day one, and I’m certain that every kid in this country is too. The end of my story is that my parents took the hard line and told me that soda was unhealthy and I couldn’t have it for dinner, and they kept telling me that until I was old enough to understand it for myself, and at 22 years old I would rather have milk for dinner because it’s delicious. Happy ending. But I’m telling you, Internet, that when kids want sugary food and soda, it has almost nothing to do with the way the stuff tastes. There’s sugar addiction, and that’s it’s own kind of bad news, but the real story here is branding. What would childhood be like in a logo-free house, I wonder? What if the fridge of my childhood was full of plain glass bottles, big reusable ones, so the logos could never get in the house. It’s not so far-fetched, simply buy the stuff at the store, pour it into the blank bottle, and throw the logos out (recycle them and get your 5 cents, of course) I’ve heard of some places that will fill big glass jugs with milk or juice or beer or whatever you keep in your fridge (there should be more of those places). When the logo is gone, you have to call a food what it is. Without the bright red label and the icy-cool pictures on the vending machine, Coca-Cola isn’t Coke, it’s fizzy brown sugar water, and that’s sort of gross. The world is full of branding, and you’ll never escape it, you’ll never protect your kids from it completely, but there is something to be said for parents who eat food and not brands, and for kids who learn that being a grown up means making food decisions based on the actual food, not the exciting label, not the happy looking people in the ads, not the snappy product name, just the food.

P.S. The kid in the ad looks a little creepy. Mouth hanging open, eyes fixed on a point in space somewhere above and past his mother, mind a complete sugar-crash blank. Mom smiles at Jr. with an air of anxious non-comprehension, as if he were telling a joke she does not understand. Weird.

Hey there, Internet! It is a lovely day just outside the WOYP windows and I can’t think of anything substantive to blog about, yet I feel the need to share. The sun is shining, the plants are growing, the CSA is up and running. The CSA is the best part of the summer, Internet. I just made some lunch from the WOYP fridge, which is packed with incredibly fresh, green vegetables, and oh-muh-gawsh it smells so nice in there. The CSA is cool for two very good reasons: it brings wonderful fresh food (which is what summer is all about – seriously, Internet, I dare you to think of a single great summer memory in which there was not delicious fresh food) from the farm to the city, and it’s given us some totally excellent, totally unexpected recipes. Sometimes we get foods we’ve never heard of in our CSA shares, but it turns out that someone always seems to know what to do with them. We got a recipe for purslane potato salad! Wild! That’s pretty much all I had to say, Internet, that and playing in the dirt is scientifically good for you, so act accordingly. I’m going out into the sun now.

The kids of East Harlem in New York have something to look forward to this summer.

The NYC Strategic Alliance for Health, the Harvest Home Farmer’s Market and Transportation Alternatives plan to open up a new playground in Harlem on the East Side. The goal is to give kids in that area access to fun physical activities and educational programs (arts, health, nutrition, for example) during the summer. The PlayStreet is going to be located on E. 104^th St between 2^nd and 3^rd avenue.  The NYC Strategic Alliance for Health is being sponsored by many great organizations, including Union Settlement, NYC YMCA, Communities IMPACT Diabetes, New York Road Runners, and Grow NYC! However, they still need all the help they can get.

They are inviting you to the upcoming meeting taking place Wednesday, June 16^th at 10 am, where you can  give programming suggestions, develop a schedule activity, and go over the details of PlayStreet. The meeting will be located at the Union Settlement Association on 237 East 104^th Street. To confirm your attendance please email garroyo@health.nyc.gov. We hope to see you there.

Here at WOYP? we think that this is a great opportunity to help kids grow and have fun in a productive way. We can’t wait to see the results.

New York City schools are trying to change the way lunches are eaten.

Approximately 25 schools are taking an initiative. They vow that their kids will not only eat all organic goods but also grow the food in the soil. The program – Green Thumb – also offers workshops about nutrition for people of all ages. Sure, this might not be the first time schools have produced cafeteria lunches in their own backyards, but its never happened on such a large scale in such a big city.

Here at WOYP? we are participating with a new program focusing on child fitness and nutrition. The Highway to Health Festival and Youth Forum is a community dedicated to youth empowerment and making healthy choices. It will take place June 12, 2010 in P.S. 64 in The Bronx. The goal is to improve kids’ lifestyles and promote a healthy living among their peers. The event will showcase a youth led workshop, fitness activities, entertainment, cooking competitions, as well as fitness activities.

Everyone is invited, so we hope to see you there!

Please visit there website and register here.

I’m talking about chickens, Internet, keeping ‘em, caring for ‘em, making ‘em part of our lives. Regard, if you will, this sad tale from Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore (a top-notch blog about folks living the locavore lifestyle all over this great land, with loads of great stories and information useful to any locavore). The condensed version of the story is that Jill woke up one morning to an email about two chickens free to a good home, and of course she thought “Yippee! What on earth could be better than two chickens of my very own!” (I’m paraphrasing). The chickens had been found in the street by someone who was not up to caring for them, but wanted to see them taken care of, and Jill was just the woman for the job. Unfortunately, the plot thickens: chickens are illegal in Jill’s town, and her boyfriend, who is running for city council, does not want his ambitions to serve his community dashed by a potential chicken scandal (though he would love to keep chickens once they are legal).

Internet, I’m sure you’re as confused here as I am: what the heck is so wrong with keeping chickens in your backyard? I mean, I can understand a regulating how many chickens you can keep, and I would actually support laws regulating how much space you need per chicken, but a chicken ban? Exiling chickens? What gives? Well, something must give because it turns out that chickens are pretty highly regulated in these United States. And that totally sucks! Keeping chickens in your backyard is pretty easy and very excellent. Plus, they eat weeds, bugs, and maggots in your yard. Could it get any better? It does. Chickens that eat weeds and bugs lay healthier eggs, eggs that you can give to your neighbors for a healthier, happier neighborhood (stronger communities are a real, wonderful benefit of local food in any form, but neighborhood eggs are just about the best thing ever). And really, why not keep chickens in your backyard? True, roosters can be aggressive (confession: I was attacked by a rooster at a young age and I still don’t trust them) but really, you run the same risk having kids or a dog.

There’s more, Internet. Witness this blog post from Slow Food USA (warning: the video on the post is very sad, and not really kid-friendly). The post is a dispatch from the Department of Justice/USDA hearings in Normal, AL about competition in the poultry industry. The gist of the hearings is that big poultry companies, which run huge monopolies, in which individual farmers are basically serfs, are accused of threatening and intimidating farmers, and finally sending them into financial ruin. Those familiar with stories of depression-era tenant farmers and sharecroppers will find a similar story: chicken farmers are given non-negotiable contracts by companies that are the only game in town (contracts which are often replaced a few years on by new ones with worse terms) and end up forced to spend huge sums of money on farm “improvements” (some of which are real improvements, some are debatable). To spend that kind of money, many have to take out loans, put their houses up as collateral, and few ever make the money back. This cycle of ever-increasing input costs and diminishing returns could actually be disrupted, at least a little bit, with a few backyard chickens. The reason that chicken farmers are forced to work for these companies is that we are used to getting our food from huge, global production structures. There simply aren’t ways for farmers to sell chickens close to home without huge companies as middlemen (or, at least, there aren’t enough ways). But what if the model for chicken farming was a little more “backyard”? Farmers closer to their customers, raising fewer chickens, spending less on raising them, cutting out the terrifying corporate middle-man. It’s not so far-fetched, Internet. Hopefully, Jill’s husband isn’t the only city council candidate who wants to raise chickens, because we could use more of them in our backyards.

That’s all it takes, a simple chicken coop. It doesn’t even have to be painted to look like a barn either, though that’s pretty cute. And the whole thing looks like it’s 8-feet long, max. Doesn’t even need a big yard.

This picture isn’t real. It is totally possible for humans and chickens to live together in harmony in urban areas.

Hey, Internet, so this week we’re celebrating School Nutrition Professional Week. You’re supposed show you cafeteria staff at school how much you appreciate them. Here are some tips we got from School Nutrition:

1.     Be polite in line and give the professionals a special greeting. Please, thank you and a smile can go along way in making someone’s day.

2.     Recognize your School Nutrition Professionals’ achievements during morning announcements or even during a special segment.

3.     Ask the student government or another student group to help out in the cafeteria by cleaning tables, taking out trash, sweeping floors, etc.

4.     Introduce your staff during the lunch period and prepare the students ahead of time to give them a standing ovation and a huge round of applause.

5.     Arrange with your principal to have the teachers and their classes write notes of appreciation to your staff. Post them in the cafeteria for the customers to read.

Another cool idea would be interviewing the cafeteria staff about how they feel about school lunch. Here are some of our own ideas of things you could ask, also found in the WOYP? Curriculum guide:

1.     How many meals are prepared each day?

2.     What are the common items ordered?

3.     How are the meals prepared?

4.     How do you decide how much food and what foods to purchase?

5.     Where does the food come from?

Feel free to make up your own questions as well!

You should also ask the staff if you could “tour” the lunchroom, while you’re at it. Keep notes on what you observe. For example, what kind of kitchen equipment does the lunchroom have? Do they use stoves or microwaves? Do they keep the nutritional facts? What ingredients are most commonly used?

Don’t forget to check out the WOYP? video clip, with our own school nutrition professional, Head Dietician Jackie Vargas!

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.

Earth Day is fast approaching, Internet. In fact, it’s tomorrow. In the holiday spirit, check out this article on supermarkets and what they throw away. It turns out that when food reaches its “sell by” date, supermarkets tend to just throw it out. That means a single store can throw out tons of food (literally tons) per year. However, some community-minded stores have started programs in which the expired food (which will probably be safe to eat for a few days at least after the sell by date) is donated to food banks and homeless shelters. Not only does this cut down on waste, but donations of perishable food are incredibly valuable for these organizations, which get a lot of non-perishables, like canned foods, but really lack fruits, vegetables, and meats. The article lists five major supermarket chains and details their food disposal policies.

I think articles like this are really cool. First, I totally hadn’t thought of donating expired food that is still perfectly edible, and I just like that idea. Second, I think lists like these comparing supermarkets can potentially be a big help in changing food systems. Part of what WOYP is trying to accomplish is to show people the ways that local, organic food systems can benefit communities. If people start thinking about the larger community when they choose where to buy groceries, big supermarkets will take local and organic ideas into account when they decide how to run their stores. There aren’t laws requiring extra food to be donated to those who need it instead of thrown away, but if people look at this article and keep it in mind when they shop at one supermarket instead of another, even big companies like Wal-Mart might have to wake up and realize that people expect supermarkets to be responsible within their communities.

Hey, New Yorkers of the Internet, have you heard about the New Amsterdam Market? It’s a monthly market, with all kinds of vendors (seriously all kinds, from meat and produce to readymade soups and sandwiches, bread, seaweed, anything edible) that’s trying to be a permanent one. New York used to have a few year-round markets like that one, and the Fulton Fish Market is one of the surviving ones, and such markets still exist all over the world, but New York is in dire need of a year-round all-kinds-of-food public market. If you’ve ever been to a big public market, you probably know they’re awesome. Huge, often maze-like places filled with stalls and stalls of vendors, with delicious food to take home and cook with, or eat right there, and lots of people yelling at you to buy something awesome. It’s kind of like a farmers’ market that is there every day, but with much more stuff for sale (wholesale as well as resale, and cooked food as well as ingredients). They’re meant to be places you spend a few hours at, or maybe half a day, and you can never see the whole thing. Markets like these draw vendors selling food you can’t get anywhere else, as well as stall for your favorite restaurants and farms. I’m getting really excited here, but seriously, I love the idea of a huge public market in New York City, pulling the best of the city’s food and more from miles around into one overwhelmingly crowded mass of delicious food. It would be worth it for the smell of walking through it alone. The point of this post is that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is on the case, pushing for the New Amsterdam Market to be a 365-day institution in this great city. Go to the market’s website, donate a few dollars, tell your friends, and get excited.