The sagging economy is taking a bite out of federal school-meal subsidies as more students take advantage of free or low-price breakfasts and lunches, nutritionists say in a report released Thursday.

The School Nutrition Association surveyed more than 130 school nutrition directors from 38 states to produce its report, “Saved by the Lunch Bell: As Economy Sinks, School Nutrition Program Participation Rises.”

The nonprofit organization said that about 425,000 more students are participating in the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program in 2008-09 than in the previous school year.

That represents an average increase of 2.5 percent from 2007-08, the report says.

These numbers hold true despite a slight decline in the number of students enrolled in public schools this school year, according to the study.

More than three-quarters of the districts surveyed reported a rise in the number of students eating free meals under the U.S. Department of Agriculture program, the report says.

Many of the school district employees who monitor the food programs complain that the federal subsidies fall far short of the rising costs.

According to the association, the estimated average cost to prepare a school meal is $2.90, but the federal reimbursement is $2.57.

School lunch programs are experiencing a potential loss of at least $4.5 million per school day, based on 30 million school lunches provided, the group says.

The good news, according to association President Katie Wilson, is that “this year, when hunger is more common, more students are able to eat a balanced, nutritious meal at school.”

Meals served under the USDA programs must meet nutrition guidelines based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. For lunches, that means no more than 30 percent of calories can come from fat and fewer than 10 percent from saturated fat.

Register now!

Registration is now available for the 2009 NM Organic Farming Conference to be held in Las Cruces, NM February 25-28. The conference will include dozens of workshops in the following five tracks of interest for farmers and ranchers:

• Livestock
• Crops
• Marketing, Certification and More
• Demonstrations
• Farm Support

Also included are keynote addresses by Secretary of Agriculture, Dr. Miley Gonzalez and Paul Johnson, founder of the Leopold Center at Iowa State University.

Before the conference you can also attend a HACCP (food safety) training, offered by NMSU Cooperative Extension (February 25th) and a tour of NMSU and the Department of Agriculture (February 26th). Following the conference will be a special tour of Del Valle Pecan Farm.

Click here to register online (can pay by credit card).

If you do not wish to register online, please download the registration form, print, fill out and send with a check to

Farm to Table
3900 Paseo del Sol
Santa Fe, NM 87507

If you would like to participate in the tour of NMSU, please write a special note on your registration form.

The conference is being held at the Hotel Encanto. For details on booking a room, see page 6 of the conference brochure. If you book a room before February 1st, you will receive a $5 deduction from your registration fees.

September 8, 2008
(505) 795-0180

Governor Bill Richardson and Education Secretary Veronica García Announce Statewide Healthy School Report Card

SANTA FE- Governor Bill Richardson and New Mexico Education Secretary Veronica García today announced plans for a statewide report card that will measure how New Mexico’s public schools are responding to increasingly alarming child health issues.

“We’ve eliminated junk food from our schools, increased physical education and doubled the number of school based health centers,”
Governor Bill Richardson said. “This report card will help us track our progress in ensuring that New Mexico’s students are healthy and ready to learn.”

This school year, 67 schools across the state, including all Santa Fe public schools, will use the Healthy School Report Card developed by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. It will measure each school’s efforts to promote physical activity, provide nutritious foods and encourage family involvement in the health and education of their children.

All New Mexico public schools will begin using the report card within the next three years. Each school’s data will contribute to the statewide report card.

Research shows direct links between student health and academic progress. About a quarter of New Mexico students are considered overweight or obese and increasing percentages are suffering from preventable diseases, such as type two diabetes, caused by poor nutrition and sedentary lifestyles. The problem is worse among the state’s Hispanic and Native American students.

“In New Mexico we know that healthy students make better learners, which is why Governor Richardson has placed a focus on the whole child in New Mexico’s school reform efforts,” said Secretary Veronica García.
“The Healthy School Report Card will provide our schools with a cost-effective planning tool in order to affect positive change, determine policies, and establish programs at the local level.”

In addition, the report card will help districts and schools meet the state’s wellness policy mandate, which requires school health advisory councils to provide twice-yearly data-based recommendations for improving student health.

“We need a community approach to address rising rates of obesity among our students,” said Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil. “Getting schools more involved in promoting healthy lifestyles is an essential key to helping youth develop patterns now that will carry with them through adulthood.”

Des Moines Municipal School in Des Moines, New Mexico is one of 11 school and district sites from across the United States and Canada that have been using the HSRC to involve their communities in improving student health and academic performance as part of a pilot study. The school opened a school-based health center last August that provides physical, dental, and mental health care for students, staff, and the surrounding communities.

“The work at Des Moines Municipal School epitomizes community collaboration to ensure all children are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged,” said Gene Carter, Executive Director of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. “I admire and applaud Governor Richardson and Secretary Garcia’s commitment to providing resources so that all New Mexico schools can work with their communities to address a critical - but often overlooked - element of academic achievement.”

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For Immediate Release
September 15, 2008

For More Information Contact:
Jill Le Brasseur
Communications Specialist
Produce for Better Health Foundation
Tel: 302-235-2329
Email: jlebrasseur@pbhfoundation.org
TAKE YOUR CHILD TO THE SUPERMARKET DURING NATIONAL FRUITS & VEGGIES-MORE MATTERS MONTH

New Kids Activities Available Free Online

Wilmington, Del. - September is National Fruits & Veggies-More Matters® Month! In honor of this celebration, the Produce for Better Health Foundation website team has developed “Take Your Child to the Supermarket” activities to help parents introduce the bountiful variety of fruits and vegetables to their children. These materials are available to everyone online, free of charge. Just print them out and plan a trip to the store!

The “Take Your Child to the Supermarket” materials were designed as a series of fun, educational activities that encourage parents to get involved in teaching their children about fruits and vegetables during a trip to their favorite grocery retailer. The activities are age appropriate for kids four through ten years old, but may be appropriate for kids a little younger or a little older depending on the individual child. They are designed to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables.

The “Take Your Child to the Supermarket” activities give parents new tools to help them engage the whole family in the shopping experience and teach children that fruits and veggies can be fun in an entertaining, memorable way. The activity pages can also be printed out by teachers to provide a way to reinforce nutrition lessons while the kids enjoy a fun game.

The new activities include:
• Eat Your Colors Everyday - It’s important to eat a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables everyday. This activity encourages kids to find five different fruits and vegetables in each of five color groups.
• I’m Stuck on Fruits & Veggies - This activity encourages children to collect the PLU stickers from each piece of fresh fruit or veggie eaten at home and place them on the “I’m Stuck on Fruits & Veggies” card. When the card is full, the child can receive a special treat and then begin another card!
• All Forms Count - Fruits and vegetables come in many different forms, fresh, frozen, canned, dried, and 100 percent juice, and they’re all good tasting and packed with good nutrition! This activity encourages children to check off the different forms of fruits and veggies they find as they explore the supermarket!
“Parents have a tremendous influence on their children,” said Elizabeth Pivonka, Ph.D., R.D., president and CEO of Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH) the nonprofit entity behind the Fruits & Veggies-More Matters national public health initiative. “Taking a little extra time at the grocery store to interact with kids and single out fruits and vegetables as important could make those kids more willing to give healthy fruits and veggies another try. We hope to help moms by offering the ‘Take Your Child to the Supermarket’ activities as a fun way for kids to learn about good nutrition.”

The new “Take Your Child to the Supermarket” materials can be printed from the Fruits & Veggies-More Matters website, www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org. The website also features great tips for adding extra fruits and vegetables to the whole family’s diet, from user-friendly cooking advice and recipes, meal planning help, nutrition information and interactive areas where parents can have their questions answered by other parents or a registered dietitian.

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About Produce for Better Health Foundation
Produce for Better Health Foundation (PBH) is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) consumer education foundation whose purpose is to motivate more people to eat more fruits and vegetables to improve public health. PBH is a member and co-chair of the National Fruit & Vegetable Alliance (NFVA), consisting of government agencies, non-profit organizations, and industry working to collaboratively and synergistically achieve increased nationwide access and demand for all forms off fruits and vegetables for improved public health. This vision of the NFVA is a nation in which half of the foods Americans eat are fruits and vegetables. Fruits & Veggies-More Matters is the nation’s largest public-private, fruit and vegetable nutrition education initiative with Fruit and Vegetable Nutrition Coordinators in each state, territory and the military.

PBH’s mission is to lead people to eat more fruits and vegetables because it matters for their better health. The foundation achieves success though industry and government collaboration, and a variety of marketing and nutrition education programs. To learn more, visit www.pbhfoundation.org and www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org.
Produce for Better Health Foundation | 5341 Limestone Road | Wilmington | DE | 19808

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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91687769&sc=emaf

Morning Edition, July 2, 2008 · Chef Dominique Valadier starts each day at 5:30 a.m., just as the fish market opens in the southern French provincial town of Salon de Provence.

On one particular day, he picks up 20 pounds of fresh, live mussels at the market before heading off to Lycee de l’Emperi, the public high school where he is the cook.

At the school, he prepares meals for about 800 students, using all fresh, local ingredients. The introduction of healthy school lunch programs, like this one, is one major reason France has been able to curb childhood obesity rates after two decades on the rise, according to two recent studies.

From Within 30 Miles

The menu on this day at Valadier’s high school: mussels in cream sauce over rice with leeks and stuffed turkey thighs, accompanied by a squash au gratin casserole.

Nothing here is frozen or pre-prepared, Valadier says.

“Voila. This sticker here shows where these mussels came from and when they were harvested,” he says. “This guarantees their freshness.”

Eyes twinkling and knives flashing, Valadier opens up the plump turkey thighs, cutting out the bones.

The flattened turkey filets are wrapped around a stuffing of ground up parsley, garlic, cheese and smoked pork shoulder. The loaves are then tied with twine and baked for three hours at low temperatures to keep in the juices and flavor. When sliced, they will serve hundreds of students, 10 times the number that could have been fed on the plain turkey thighs. Preparation and proximity are the keys to high quality meals at lower prices, says Valadier.

“We try to get our base products — meat, fish, vegetables — within a 30-mile radius, because there are fewer intermediaries and we can negotiate prices and quality with the producer. These turkeys were raised and slaughtered just near here,” Valadier says. “If I have a problem, I’ll ask the producer to come see me, and I can guarantee you things will be a lot better the next time!”

Healthy and Cheap

All around the school kitchen, food is cooking in various pots and pans. Gallons of bechamel, a seasoned white sauce, bubble for the squash casserole. A vat of chickpeas boils for homemade hummus. It is hard to believe this is a public school cafeteria and not a three-star restaurant.

Perhaps what is most impressive about Valadier’s meals is that they cost the students only $3 a day, less than the typical fast food fare served at many French high schools.

Another way Valadier saves money is by getting maximum use out of every ingredient. He never throws anything away. In one corner of the kitchen, he is boiling down the fish heads, flesh and bones from yesterday’s salmon to make a tasty bouillon for today’s mussels.

As lunch hour begins and the students file in, Valadier serves them while answering questions about the meal. He reaches across the counter with a forkful of the squash au gratin to give 17-year-old Valentine Biemence a taste. Biemence says she and her friends have all but quit eating lunch at McDonald’s and have discovered a lot of new dishes.

“It’s all the time different food and very, very good,” Biemence says. “People are really happy, because it’s really hard now to eat well and cheap.”

Investing in the Future

Valadier once worked in the glamorous world of Riviera restaurants. He says he left that life for something more meaningful. Investing in students’ well-being is also an act of citizenship, he explains. If young people learn to eat well early on, they will cost the country’s health care system a lot less in the future.

He has clearly found his calling here, while winning over the students — and teachers. Danielle Viou teaches drama and English at the high school.

“We are very, very lucky because it’s a real project. It’s not just doing the cooking, it’s a whole concept of educating and taking time and enjoying it,” Viou says. “And it’s artistic at the same time.”

May 5-7th, more than 250 people from all over the Southwest and beyond attended the 6th Annual Southwest Marketing Network Conference held at the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe. The attendees were a diverse group of farmers, ranchers, community organizers, students, and representatives of governmental agencies.

The conference began with an all-day tour of three Northern New Mexico farms and a stop at the Feasting Place for a delicious lunch. Concurrently, Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap, and Keecha Harris, consultant for Harris & Associates, led participants through the ins and outs of developing a food and agriculture policy council. Farm to School stakeholders also participated in a regional meeting and training session led by Le Adams, Farm to Table, Marion Kalb, Community Food Security Coalition, and Craig Mapel, NM Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, Ra Vernon, Director of the Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance, engaged ranchers and other interested folks in a lively discussion about the future of grassfed beef in the SW and how to build your direct-marketing business.

Tuesday morning began with two inspiring keynotes from Anthony Flaccavento, of Appalachian Sustainable Development, and Gary Nabhan, author of Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Marketing Place-Based Heritage Foods. Over the next two days participants attended 25 sessions on a variety of topics including:

· Alternative marketing strategies

· Food and Agriculture Policy

· Tribal initiatives

· Farmers’ markets

· Climate change and energy options

· Youth and new farmer initiatives

· Grant writing, business planning and organizational development.

Throughout the conference, participants enjoyed a cornucopia of local foods, including greens from Monte Vista Organic Farm, grassfed beef from Soaring Eagle Ranch, and cheese, jams and salsas from all over the Southwest.

The Conference also provided a number of opportunities for participants to meet, share their experiences and learn from each other. One participant said the best thing about the conference was “the absolutely incredible people. [It was] so great to have challenging conversations with people around food and agriculture issues.”

Conference participants enjoyed the “Great keynotes, great diversity of people and gracious accommodations” and noted that the Southwest Marketing Network had provided them with ”great connections; useful information in the newsletters, and collaborative project opportunities that we need to pursue more assertively.”

The conference could not have happened without the help of the expert presenters, the steering committee of the SWMN, the great staff of La Fonda Hotel and the support of the USDA Risk Management Agency.

Thanks to all who attended, and we hope to see YOU at the SWMN conference next year.

May 19–Renowned Valley chef and restaurateur Eddie Matney was joking with the lunch crowd he served Friday, addressing most customers by name as he handed out fruit and vegetable kabobs and low-fat cookies.

And it’s a good thing he knew them, too, because the students shopping at Chef Eddie’s Snack Wagon in the Cherokee Elementary School cafeteria are also his son’s classmates at the school in Paradise Valley.

Even though Matney sometimes comes in to see the students and help serve, the local television personality doesn’t claim this is his venture.

The idea for the snack cart came from Sue Bettenhausen, the Scottsdale Unified School District’s food services director, as a way to encourage kids to eat healthful snacks while reducing the wait time in the lunch line.

“The entire trend is once they get out of the meal line, anyone who is interested in additional items can go to the snack table,” Bettenhausen said. “We’re not encouraging kids to eat a fruit stick first before their entrees.”

It was an accident that Matney got involved at all.

Bettenhausen wrote a letter home to parents explaining the benefits of the a la carte options coming to campus. Matney saw the e-mail message and responded, asking if he could help.

So Matney came in and met with the schools’ fourthand fifth-graders, asking what kind of food they’d want. He took those requests and made some sample dishes for Bettenhausen’s staff to look at, who weighed those and other options as they developed the menu.

Matney said the students’ top request was roasted salmon. While that hasn’t made it on the menu — at least, not yet — there are several other healthy options, like fruit with yogurt dips and salads.

Matney hopes that giving students healthy food options will encourage them to keep making healthy choices, even outside the Cherokee cafeteria.

“It’s awesome that the kids say they want hummus and pita chips,” Matney said. “They can’t keep edamame (a soybean concoction) in this place.”

The food cart has proved popular so far. Cafeteria staff said it brought in about $370 its first day of operation and generally attracts between 320 and 350 of the school’s approximately 550 students daily. The upscale snacks go for 50 cents to $2 apiece.

And this is just a pilot project — Bettenhausen wants to replicate the carts at other elementary schools starting this fall.

“I’d like to see two more starting at the beginning of the (school) year,” she said. “We weren’t even sure it was going to be successful, but now it is.”

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

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About farm to college

Farm-to-college programs connect colleges and universities with producers in their area to provide local farm products for meals and special events on campus. These programs may be small and unofficial, mainly involving special dinners or other events, or they may be large and well-established, with many local products incorporated into cafeteria meals every day.

The Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) has a National Farm to College Program, which works to help farmers, food service personnel, students, faculty and others to establish and maintain farm-to-college programs.

Beginning in Fall 2004, CFSC has been working to create a comprehensive list of active farm-to-college programs in the United States and Canada.

If you would like to add information about your college’s farm-to-college program, please see instructions on the survey page.

A Food Guide Scooby Doo?

So what shapes did kids suggest? How about the Food Guide Lava Lamp - or the Food Guide Flower? Animals were big. Would you like the Food Guide Frog or the Food Guide Dog? Marissa, 12, even suggested a cartoon dog - the Food Guide Scooby Doo.

“He is my favorite character on TV and I know a lot of people would pay more attention to the good food groups,” she said.

Hey, Marissa is on to something. If the new food guide is something kids like and understand, they might listen to the message it’s trying to send about what to eat. Everybody wants kids to hear this message so they eat nutritious foods, feel good, and grow up healthy.

The Shape Matters

If the new food guide were Scooby Doo, it might get your attention, but it probably wouldn’t say much about healthy eating. The shape of this nutrition symbol is important.

Thirteen years ago, experts picked the pyramid shape because it could be divided into sections and those sections were different sizes. Different food groups were placed in these different sections. The bigger sections could show people that they should eat a lot of those. And the tiny tip, where fats, sweets, and oils are, could show people that they don’t need as much of those foods.

In the new version, the foods are vertical stripes to show that variety is very important. One side of the new pyramid also features a little guy running up the stairs. That’s to show people they need to be active and eat right!

Kids Get a Pat on the Back

We asked some nutrition experts about the ideas that kids sent us. The ones they liked best were those that made this connection between the shape and the message the shape sends. What do we mean? Some shapes would be fun to look at, but other shapes help say something about healthy eating.

“It sounds to me like we should have engaged these kids in this decision a long time ago,” Dr. William Dietz said.

Hey, that’s a big compliment to kids! Dr. Dietz has a top job at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heading up the division on nutrition and physical activity. His job is to figure out ways to help kids and adults eat healthy and get plenty of physical activity.

Another nutrition expert also praised the creative suggestions. Dr. Marion Nestle is a professor at New York University and has written books about food and nutrition.

Dr. Nestle said: “What’s so impressive about the ideas in your set are that they deal with the real issues: eating healthfully, eating less, being active, and not eating too much junk food. Good advice for everyone!”

Dr. Dietz liked the Food Guide Human Body, suggested by McKinzie, 11. She explained her choice this way: “The human body reminds us of the fact that you are what you eat.”

McKinzie made different parts of the body stand for different foods. For instance, the heart would be vegetables because they’re heart-healthy foods. The legs would be grains - for energy. Bones would be dairy products and the arms would be meat to keep your muscles strong. Just the tongue would stand for sweets, fats, and oils, which are “a good thing in small amounts,” she said.

“McKinzie has this right,” Dr. Dietz said.

He also liked suggestions for a Food Guide Star and a Food Guide Sun. Brandi, 9, suggested the sun because of “the beams of health beaming down on us.”

Dietitian Marilyn Tanner also liked the kids’ ideas for the new pyramid. Tanner said it’s a good idea for kids to learn about the Food Guide Pyramid. She teaches a class about healthy habits for kids and parents through St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri. Tanner, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, says that when kids understand something about eating healthy sometimes they can teach their parents!

“I wish there could be a Pyramid song to go along with it,” she said. Then, like the songs in the old “Schoolhouse Rock” series, kids would know it by heart.

Saying Goodbye to the Old Pyramid

Now that there’s a new pyramid, kids will have to get adjusted to it. For instance, grains are no longer on the bottom. Instead, grains are represented by the orange stripe on the new pyramid. Some kids said they were ready for the pyramid to be a new shape. When we asked Sharmaine, 10, if she’d miss the old pyramid, she wrote “No” 47 times!

Grace, 12, agreed: “A pyramid wasn’t so exciting for the children to follow, so a new, funky one would be exciting!”

But Dana, 13, said she will miss the old pyramid because the new one will probably discourage too much white bread and pasta. “That stuff is good!”

To older people, like your parents, the old Food Guide Pyramid still seems kind of new. (They grew up learning about the 4 basic food groups.) But the old pyramid was around for 13 years - as long as many kids have been alive! So it’s OK if you think you’ll miss it a little now that the new one has arrived.

Jordan, 11, put it this way: “It is pretty hard to change something that you’ve known all your life and expect to learn it easily … What will they be changing next? The alphabet?”

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD
Date reviewed: April 2005