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FOOD Along with physical activity, food is an
important factor in how children learn and how they behave. Studies have shown that
children who eat healthy foods have higher levels of concentration and perform better on
tests.
One of CHAWK's goals is improving the nutritional quality of
lunches-bought and brought. CHAWK supports the APS Food Services Committee, which is
working to improve the quality of foods served in APS cafeterias. In addition, CHAWK
distributes information on healthy school lunches that parents can pack, invited a
pediatric nutritionist to speak about preparing healthy meals with little time, and plans
a food tasting to generate yet more ideas.
CHAWK is not alone in our vision of schools with healthier
food options. Medical experts seek healthier diets for children to curb the growing rates
of childhood obesity. In states across the country, legislators are weighing measures that
restrict sodas and junk foods sold in vending machines. Virginia Governor Mark Warner
recommends that schools sell only foods and drinks that meet certain nutritional
standards.
Recently, trans fats have been the focus of interest. After
New York's mayor sought to have all New York restaurants stop using trans fats in their
food, parents and school officials started to examine trans fats, which are said to clog
arteries and increase the risk of heart disease, and which exist in many of the snack
foods served to children. To date, many manufacturers of snacks and other foods have
reduced or eliminated the amounts of trans fats in their products.
In addition to the types of foods served, CHAWK believes in
the value of students having recess before lunch. Research has shown that children who eat
first and then go out to play do not have enough time to digest their food. In addition,
school districts that have adopted the recess-first approach say that children are quieter
in the cafeteria and eat more of their meal as well as drinking more of their beverage
(often milk).
In the 2005-06 school year, Ashlawn's principal pilot tested
such a schedule and found that it worked for most grades. CHAWK is pleased that this
schedule will be followed for most Ashlawn students.
For further information on food matters, please click on the
following websites:
http://www.school-lunch.org It may be possible in
some communities to politely ask a food service director to remove harmful additives from
a school lunch program, and have him/her agree to do it. In most communities, however, it
is probably as likely as having the frog you kiss turn into a prince.
This website provides an account of what happened quite a few years ago in Fairfax County,
Virginia. Perhaps this information will prove useful for you as you set about to make
positive changes in your community's school foods program.
A California environmental group has filed lawsuits against the makers and retailers of
soft vinyl lunch boxes, saying they expose children to harmful levels of lead. The levels
of lead are not high enough by themselves to cause acute lead poisoning during normal use,
the group said, but prolonged use or use in addition to other exposure to lead could add
to health risk. Lead has been shown to cause developmental problems in young children. For
more information, go to: http://www.cehca.org/lunchboxes.htm
and /http://www.testyourlunchbox.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/24/opinion/24waters.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
An Op-Ed piece in NY Times, 24 Feb 06, by Alice Waters, founder of the Edible Schoolyard
(featured last summer during the Smithonian Institution's Folk Life
Festival). "It's shocking that because of the rise in Type 2 diabetes experts say
that the children we're raising now will probably die younger than their parents —
the result of a disease that is largely preventable by diet and exercise. But in public
schools these days, children all too often are neither learning to eat well nor to
exercise." more...
www.naturalovens.com Information about the
school that's featured in the film, "Super Size Me," where a firm called Natural
Ovens took over food services and turned the school around, improving behavior and
boosting learning and grades.
http://www.advancedhealthplan.com/miracleschool.htm
A link to another successful school lunch program in Madison, Wisconsin.
http://www.farmtoschool.org
An interesting website that shows one way some school districts work to incorporate
locally grown produce into their school lunch programs.
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/vending.htm
A review of the status of soda and food vending machine sales in elementary,
middle/junior, and high schools, by the National Conference of State Legislators
http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/
Team Nutrition is an initiative of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to support the
Child Nutrition Programs through training and technical assistance for foodservice,
nutrition education for children and their caregivers, and school and community support
for healthy eating and physical activity.
http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/homepage.html
The Edible Schoolyard, in collaboration with Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in
Oakland, California, engages 950 public school students in a one-acre organic garden and a
kitchen classroom. Using food as a unifying concept, students learn how to grow, harvest,
and prepare nutritious seasonal produce. Experiences in the kitchen and garden foster a
better understanding of how the natural world sustains us, and promote the environmental
and social well being of our school community.
http://www.ecoliteracy.org/programs/rsl-guide.html
The Rethinking School Lunch Guide provides a planning framework that contains tools and
creative solutions to the challenges of improving school lunch programs, academic
performance, ecological knowledge, and the well-being of children
www.healthykidschallenge.com Healthy
Kids Challenge was founded in 1998 when Cooking Light staff and volunteers partnered with
nearby Center Street Middle School to raise awareness and encourage healthy changes in the
eating and activity habits of these urban schoolchildren.
And consider the following healthy lunch ideas when packing your own children’s
lunches this year:
The basics:
- Hummus (chickpea spread) on whole-wheat pita triangles with sprouts
- Peanut butter and jelly on whole-wheat bread, or try a different
kind of nut butter, such as almond
- Mini pizzas (mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce on whole-wheat
English muffin half)
- Cream cheese on whole-wheat bagel half
- Cheese pita pocket—cheese and shredded carrots in half a
whole-what pita
- Hard-boiled egg
- Black bean spread on whole-wheat tortilla triangles
- California roll sushi
- Wraps with rice, beans, and cheese filling; add taco sauce and
yogurt or sour cream
- Bean salad made with red or white beans, chopped cucumber, chopped
carrots, chopped tomato, and dressing
- Lentil soup or chili
Sides:
- Mini carrots or carrot sticks
- Cucumber slices
- Edamame beans
- Grape leaves
- Celery sticks stuffed with peanut butter
Fruits:
- Any whole fruit such as apple, banana, orange, pear, or peach
- Cut-up fruits like watermelon, cantaloupe, kiwi, or honeydew
- A bunch of grapes, a mini-box of raisins, a fruit roll-up, a cup of
naturally sweetened applesauce
Why I Choose Organic By Tali Auble
Organic food is food that’s grown without the use of pesticides or other chemicals. I
feed my family as much organic food as possible because I feel it is the safest way to
eat. Yet when friends and family members—and even strangers—ask me to justify
this lifestyle choice, the concern that comes up time and again is the cost of eating
organic. For many people, organic food is still considered gourmet, and for those on
tighter budgets or with larger families, the lower price of many conventional foods
outweighs the little risk that they believe actually exists. So why do I continue to buy
organic? Here are my reasons.
My child: A huge amount of the food source that exists today is, at the very least, not as
safe as it should be. Pesticides in produce are highly prevalent in the fruits and
vegetables my daughter loves the most: strawberries, raspberries, apples, cherries,
peaches, pears, potatoes, and celery. Washing produce eliminates some pesticide residue,
but not all. Pesticides and herbicides are applied throughout the growth stages of many
fruits and vegetables and are therefore systemic and cannot be washed away. In
conventional meats and dairy products, antibiotics, growth hormones, and other toxic
residues are prevalent. The well-documented health issues related to the toxins in our
conventional food supply are, I feel, alarming.
The environment: Conventional farming strips and erodes topsoil, removing precious
nutrients. The use of chemicals in farming in the form of pesticides, fertilizers, and
herbicides is contaminating our soil, groundwater, and air. Organic farmers, on the other
hand, are required by law to adhere to strict guidelines governing use of these chemicals.
I believe that the more we support organic farming, the safer our environment will become
for our generation and for the future.
Supply and demand: I hope that as more people buy organic food, more farms will become
organic to meet the demand and that that will, in turn, lower prices so that safe food is
available at prices everyone can afford. The more consumers realize that the
“hidden” costs of eating conventional foods far outweigh the real costs of
organics at the supermarket, the more the trend will be toward affordable, safe food
sources.
Yet while all these reasons are sound ones for choosing the organic route, the issue of
cost keeps many people from making the leap to organic eating. With this in mind, I
“shopped” five local supermarkets with an eye to comparing the availability and
prices of their organics with some conventional food alternatives. I compared the prices
at Whole Foods, MOM’s (My Organic Market, at 3831 Mt. Vernon Avenue in Alexandria),
Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Harris Teeter, the latter two stores being the closest to
most of the Ashlawn community.
Before I get to my findings, I should note that I converted all package sizes to a common
measure for comparison purposes, whether or not a given store carried an item in that
package size. For example, organic fruit spreads come in containers of varying sizes; I
figured the price for 15 oz. Furthermore, some items were not available at the store on
the day I shopped there. In those situations, I put “n/a” for the price,
although usually the store would stock that item.
As you can see from the accompanying chart, the assumption that organics cost more than
non-organics is borne out some of the time—but not always. From the data I gathered,
several organic items were actually cheaper than their conventional counterparts,
including spinach, romaine lettuce, broccoli, carrots, pears, marinara sauce, peanut
butter, fruit spread, and butter. When possible, I chose the store brand of organic food.
Organic strawberries at MOM’s cost the same as conventional strawberries at Safeway.
Farm-raised shrimp cost the same at Whole Foods and Safeway.
Several organic items were only marginally more costly than the conventional: Organic
apples were only 8 cents more per pound than conventional, organic bananas were only 10
cents more per pound, organic grape tomatoes were only 20 cents more per pound, and
organic cauliflower was only 50 cents more than non-organic. The local Safeway only
carried white flour conventional pasta. The healthier option, organic whole-wheat flour
pasta, which is available at Whole Foods, was only 20 cents more. Conventional meats were
anywhere from $1 to $4 less per pound than organic meats. It should also be noted that
many organic products at Safeway were more expensive than the same organic items at the
other stores.
Lastly, I compared the totals of my “shopping lists” from all five stores using
only the items that were available at all five stores (items that had an “n/a”
value were not included in any shopping list) to come up with the following totals:
- Whole Foods (100 percent of items organic) = $66.46
- MOM’s (100 percent of items organic) = $68.75
- Harris Teeter (88 percent of items organic) = $74.90
- Trader Joe’s (79 percent of items organic) = $59.04
- Safeway (17 percent of items organic) = $63.53
You’ll notice that with 79 percent of the shopping list organic, Trader Joe’s
costs less than Safeway, whose shopping list bagged only 17 percent of items organic. And
buying 100 percent organic at Whole Foods cost only $2.93 more than buying 83 percent
conventional at Safeway.
Grocery stores are not the only way to go when searching for chemical-free food. In fact,
you can find the same or lower-cost, fresher organic foods at some farms, farmers’
markets, and co-ops, as well as through mail order.
Through Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), organic farms offer subscriptions to
produce. Typically, buyers receive a weekly or monthly basket of produce, flowers, fruits,
eggs, milk, coffee, or any sort of different farm products. Even’ Star Organic Farm
in Lexington, MD is a CSA that delivers shares of seasonal produce year round to four area
pickup points, including one in South Arlington. They charge $23 to $28 per week for 90
shares in their CSA. For more information go to: http://www.localharvest.org/csa.jsp.
Washington’s Green Grocer (WGG) will deliver a week’s worth (18 to 25 pounds) of
a variety of farm-fresh, organic produce for $39 (including taxes, handling, and delivery
charges) right to your door. This box is intended to feed a couple or a small family that
eats a lot of fruits and vegetables. As a comparison, a week’s worth of produce for
three people (11.65 pounds worth) from MOM’s was approximately $35. That amounts to
$3 per pound of organic produce from MOM’s versus $1.56 to $2.17 per pound from WGG.
Plus, I had to drive 30 minutes roundtrip to shop at MOM’s. For more information
about Washington’s Green Grocer, go to http://www.washingtonsgreengrocer.com/.
At farmers’ markets, a group of farmers sell their products—a lot of them grown
organically--at a designated public place like a park or parking lot. North
Arlington’s Farmers’ Market is at the Courthouse Metro Station on Saturday
mornings. For more information go to: http://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/.
Food cooperatives are worker- or customer-owned businesses that provide groceries of the
highest quality and best value to their members. Co-ops can be retail stores or buying
clubs. For more information go to: http://www.localharvest.org/food-coops/. Local Harvest
lists co-ops that are relatively close in Bethesda, Silver Spring, and Washington.
Unfortunately, Arlington’s co-op, Uncommon Market, recently went out of business.
Some farms use direct marketing to sell their goods either through online stores, direct
sales or mail order. As mentioned previously, organic produce can be purchased locally and
delivered to your home from http://www.washingtonsgreengrocer.com or from the Local
Harvest site’s on-line store. For more information go to:
http://www.localharvest.org/store/.
Some people purchase a half or whole “organic” animal (beef, pork) and split it
among friends and family (which requires having adequate freezer space). You can find
sources in Virginia of grass-fed, free-range meat at:
http://www.eatwild.com/foodsafety.html. One such source is Hollin Farms in Delaplane, VA,
approximately an hour west of Arlington. Hollin Farms sells beef at an estimated price of
$3.43 per pound for a whole baby beef, $3.50 per pound for a half or side, and $3.60 for a
quarter (half of a half) beef. This price is for all "cuts" -- hamburger to
T-bone steaks. It also includes on-the-hoof bill for the animal plus the cost for
slaughtering, cutting, and packaging. I found this information at
http://www.hayhorse.com/pages/beef.html. Please keep in mind that this is one of several
sources in VA. My intention in mentioning the organic sources in this article is to
provide examples of what is available and is by no means an endorsement or referral.
The ongoing debate about organic versus conventional food sources is compelling. For
further information, check out the following websites:
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