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!

First, let’s be skeptical about the beverage industry standing up for the rights of the poor to drink soda.

To address the real issue, of whether a soda tax is unfair to people already struggling to afford food for their families: theoretically, yes, a tax on food items will be felt more by those with less money. Sugar and fat rich foods pack in more calories per dollar, and in the U.S.A. it’s cheaper to eat heavily processed, nutrient-void food than fresh, healthy food. This is the current reality. But no one benefits from us collectively throwing our hands in the air and saying, “Oh well! That’s life!” And no one benefits from a continuation of the status quo. As so many people have argued, the cost of eating junk may be cheaper in the short term, but in the long term is is hugely more expensive. 2 in 3 American adults are overweight. 1 in 3 kids. The money saved at the grocery store is being felt on a nation-wide scale in the rising costs and expenditures in health care.

A tax on soda would be a step towards changing this discrepancy. However, the solution is not to raise the price of processed food so it is as expensive as fresh food and therefore less appealing. We must also lower the cost of fresh food so healthy stuff is affordable for regular working people.

The question we should ask about the soda tax is: what will this money subsidize? Will it directly fund school lunch programs that provide fresh healthy food to kids on free or reduced lunch? Will it be used to change our food system so healthy options are available and affordable?

So far, the soda tax is being touted as a two-for-one fix: funding Medicaid and education, and addressing childhood obesity. Bloomberg has specifically said that this money would go towards keeping teachers in classrooms and preventing further cuts to public education. But I think we should get specific: If this tax is really being done in the interests of nutrition and health, than some of the money should be used specifically to fund healthy food programs. We can’t just make junk more expensive, without making the good stuff affordable.

But that’s just my opinion. What you think readers? Soda Tax: Yay or Nay?

Last Friday team WOYP headed over to the Neighborhood School in NYC for some screening, eating, and talking. There was a signup for the Angel Family Farm CSA (Season 2! alright!), homemade tamales, a Q&A, and a chance for parent and kids to see their school on the big screen.

Remember the part from WOYP that takes place in a school cafeteria? Going into the kitchen and kids talking about school food and their lunches? That was the Neighborhood School. There’s other neat stuff happening over there as well: a school garden which also serves as science classroom, and ongoing projects to make the school green and sustainable.

It might actually go down a little differently, but yes, there is a Chef’s Day of Action planned for March 17th 2010 in Washington D.C. All those involved in the culinary profession are invited to join in the action — which will involve visiting representatives and talking to them about the crucial importance of funding child nutrition programs.

It’s great to see chefs building as a political force. We often think of cooking as an entertainment or leisure activity — it’s about butter, and chocolate, and fennel — but not politics. No longer. Chefs around the country are speaking out about food justice, childhood obesity and the need to change our food system. And as lovers and masters of quality food, they are great spokespeople.

Spread the news to other Chefs, cooks, sous chefs, and culinary pros! For more information visit the NYC Alliance for CNR.

Mihail Kossev  is a  young farmer, a NYU alum from Brooklyn, who is, in his words:
“pursuing my dreams and starting a small CSA in southern Albany county.”

He’s looking for CSA members for his first growing season. (The drop-off location will be in Catskill, NY.) He also has a really nice and informative website where he is selling seeds he personally collected from organic farms all over the Northeast. All seeds are open-pollinated, grown and processed organically.

If you live in the area, or need seeds for your own garden — check out his Collected Seed Farm or get cozy on  Facebook.

Young farmers are courageous warriors! Let’s support them.

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.

Food-miles reevaluated.

Together, we’d all make a great cookbook.

The American Beverage Association makes excuses (remember, Internet, being less bad isn’t the same thing as not being bad at all, which is still different from being good)