Farm To School Home
Farm to School: More local fresh fruits and vegetables and other farm products that feed children in schools for meals and for snacks. Educational activities that help extend and strengthen the changes happening in the school cafeteria. Grades Pre-K through 12.
Farm to Cafeteria: Specifically the fresh foods part of Farm to School.
Farm to College: Similar to Farm to School, but for College level.
Farm to School Education: Those educational activities mentioned above that can include many associated disciplines such as nutrition and health, cooking, agriculture basics, cultural history, environmental studies, outdoor education and activities such as composting and recycling, farmers in the classroom, school gardens, and field trips to farms and other food system sites.
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Results of the third school nutrition dietary assessment study published
Post Date: February 2, 2009
Journal of the American Dietetic Association presents study findings and policy implications for improving the health of US children and adolescents
St. Louis, MO, USA, February 1, 2009 – A special Supplement to the February 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association presents findings from the recently released Third School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study (SNDA-III), conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., as well as research from other studies using SNDA-III data. Sponsored by the Food and Nutrition Service of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), SNDA-III assesses the quality and contributions of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP), longstanding government efforts to bring good food to the children of America.
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP), created in 1946, currently operates in nearly all public and many private schools in the United States, providing subsidized meals to more than 30 million children each school day. More than 10 million children also take advantage of the School Breakfast Program (SBP), which became a permanent federal program in 1975.
SNDA-III examines the school food environment, children’s dietary behaviors at school and outside of school and child overweight/obesity. SNDA-III was based on a nationally representative sample of 130 public School Food Authorities (districts that offer federally subsidized school meals), 398 schools within those districts and 2,314 public school students in grades 1-12 in 287 of these schools. Data were collected in the second half of school year 2004-2005 from district foodservice directors and their staff, school foodservice managers, principals, students and their parents. In addition, field interviewers who were collecting data from students and parents observed and recorded the types of competitive foods available in visited schools.
Supplement Guest Editor Mary Story, PhD, RD, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, emphasizes the importance of the SNDA-III study. She writes, “Results of SNDA-III show that many schools have improved the nutritional quality of the NSLP and SBP school meals and foods sold outside of the reimbursable meal programs (competitive foods). However, there is much more room for improvement. Schools need to do even more to reduce the availability of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods and make school meals more nutritious. Although the majority of US schools offer breakfasts and lunches that meet the standards for key nutrients (such as protein, vitamins A and C, calcium and iron), reimbursable school meals remain too high in saturated fat and sodium, and children are not consuming enough fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Many public schools are constrained in providing better meals because of limited funds. It is time to reexamine the formulas used to set national reimbursement rates with reference to the costs of producing and serving school meals that meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005.”
“As an Institute of Medicine expert panel considers revisions to the meal patterns and nutrition standards for USDA’s school meal programs and Congress takes up reauthorization of the school nutrition programs again in 2009, the SNDA-III findings are particularly important,” commented Anne Gordon, PhD, a senior researcher at Mathematica in Princeton, NJ, who led the SNDA-III analysis. “Future studies will look back to SNDA-III to examine how school meals and school food environments have changed after implementation of subsequent federal policy initiatives. SNDA-III data could also be used to estimate the potential effects of proposed changes in policy on schoolchildren’s diets.”
Clare Miller, MS, RD, a nutrition consultant and member of the American Dietetic Association School Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group, offers a commentary on the key findings of SNDA-III, and identifies many areas of concern for food and nutrition professionals, as well as for policymakers and parents. She notes, for example, that few schools provided lunches that met the recommendations in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for fiber and none of the schools met the recommended sodium limitations. Also, she discusses the availability of competitive foods in public schools and how, regardless of whether children ate a school lunch, the competitive foods purchased were generally low-nutrient, energy-dense foods, including candy, desserts, salty snacks, french fries, muffins, donuts, sweet rolls, toaster pastries and caloric beverages other than milk or 100% fruit juice.
In a second commentary, Nancy Montanez Johner, Undersecretary, Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services at the US Department of Agriculture, emphasizes the need for studies such as SNDA-III to address critical challenges that remain to make the programs as effective as they can be in meeting the needs of participating children. Although more than 70% of schools serve meals that meet standards for many nutrients that contribute to healthful diets, few schools (6% to 7%) met all nutrition standards in school year 2004-2005, primarily because most meals served contain too much fat, too much saturated fat or too few calories. Although most schools offer the opportunity to select a balanced meal, few students make the more healthful choice.
The Special Supplement continues with nine research contributions coauthored by staff from Mathematica that expand on the findings of SNDA-III. The first describes the background and study design including complete details of the sampling methods and study limitations. “Because the SNDA-III study is comprehensive, recent and nationally representative, it provides not only a clear picture of the meals currently eaten by many of our nation’s children, but also a strong foundation for future policy development and research,” said Mary Kay Crepinsek, a senior researcher at Mathematica who oversaw the compilation of the special supplement.
Four articles present the central SNDA-III results regarding the nutrient content of school meals as offered and served, students’ nutrient intakes on school days, foods offered in school meals and in breakfasts and lunches consumed by students and the availability and consumption of competitive foods in school.
Two further articles examine students’ consumption of low-nutrient, energy-dense foods at home, school or other locations and the relationship of the school food environment to their dietary behaviors. Two final articles tie the SNDA-III results to the data on children’s body mass index to assess the effects of the school meal programs, the school environment and dietary behaviors on children’s weight status and child obesity. The Supplement closes with a summary of the findings and policy implications.
The Supplement is published with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Improving the nutritional quality of the foods that schools serve their students – and holding officials accountable for that quality – is critically important if the country hopes to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic,” said C. Tracy Orleans, senior scientist and distinguished fellow at the Foundation. “Results from the latest national dietary assessment illustrate the progress that has been made as well as the problems we still confront. They definitely should help guide local, state and national policy-makers.”
These articles appear in a Special Supplement to the Journal of the American Dietetic Association entitled “The School Food Environment, Children’s Diets, and Obesity: Findings from the Third School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study,” published in February 2009 by Elsevier. Access to the Supplement is available at www.adajournal.org. Support for the special Supplement was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The SNDA-III study was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., under a contract with the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.
Topics: Health and Nutrition, National News |
Obama’s New Chef Skewers School Lunches
Post Date: January 30, 2009
Tara Parker-Pope on Health
New York Times
January 29, 2009
Before he agreed to cook for the Obama family in the White House, Chicago chef Sam Kass was already talking about changing the way American children eat.
During weekly Tuesday gatherings at the Jane Adams Hull-House Museum in Chicago, Mr. Kass hosted “Rethinking Soup,” which he described as “a communal event where we will eat delicious, healthy soup and have fresh, organic conversation about many of the urgent social, cultural, economic and environmental food issues that we should be addressing.”
In May, over a meal of locally-produced beef and barley soup, Mr. Kass lamented the sorry state of the National School Lunch Program, which provides low-cost or free lunches to schoolchildren. He noted that what gets served up to kids is influenced by government agricultural subsidies. As a result, he says, meals served to students are low in vegetables and disproportionately high in fat, additives, preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup. (He also links the high consumption of sugary foods and food additives to learning difficulties and attention deficit disorder, although the medical community remains divided on that issue.)
Here’s the text of his talk, as posted on the Hull House Kitchen Web site.
Providing our children healthy food at school, it is easy to say but a monumental challenge to realize. I will quickly give a lay of the School Lunch landscape as it stands, and then let’s hear from our guests.
Malnutrition stemming from the Great Depression had disqualified many potential soldiers from being eligible to fight in World War II; this legacy was still vivid in the minds of our leaders as the U.S. began preparing for the next fight against the Soviet Union. In response, the government launched the National School Lunch Act as a means to boost overall health and nutrition of the population in 1946. Today the program serves about 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools feeding 28 million children a day.
The National School Lunch program also serves another vital role in our agricultural system. The government subsidizes various agricultural industries, creating overproduction in commodities such as beef, pork and dairy. This overproduction depresses prices, endangering the vitality of producers. The U.S. government purchases the overproduction it has stimulated and then disposes of the excess by giving it to schools. In return for the government donation, the schools have to ensure that the lunches reach basic nutritional requirements as set by the government.
In 2003, U.S.D.A. spent $939.5 million dollars buying surplus commodities for School Lunch. Two-thirds of that bought meat and dairy, with little more than one quarter going to vegetables that were mostly frozen; and we should not forget that potatoes are the top selling vegetable in our country. The problem that arose is that between 80 and 85 percent of schools fail the basic government standards for the percentage of fat in the lunches due to the food it supplies schools.
There are a couple major repercussions of this program felt by our children. The first is their ability to learn. There is overwhelming evidence that confirms that additives of colors and preservatives common in lunchroom food hinder a child’s ability to learn. In addition, the abundance of high fructose corn syrup in lunches and snacks has been shown to have a direct link to the attention deficit disorder epidemic.
The second is physical health. According to the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine and the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, by 2010 nearly half of the children in North America will be overweight or obese.
Type 2 diabetes is the new name for adult onset diabetes; the name was changed due to the fact that children are now suffering from this form of diet-induced diabetes. Indeed, the youngest generation might very well live substantially shorter lives than their parents due to diseases related to obesity.
So it is in this context that the speakers who have joined us today spend their lives working. With us is Josephine Lauer from the Organic School Project, which is now working in six schools trying to cook fresh healthy food for students in Chicago; Jean Saunders from the Healthy Schools Campaign, which is doing groundbreaking work in creating a healthy learning environment of which food is a central component; Stephen Menyhart, the brilliant chef of Perspectives-Calumet Charter School; and Angela Mason, coordinator of school and community gardens for the Chicago Botanic Garden.
And if you want to know how Mr. Kass thinks more people should be eating, check out this menu from his private chef business, Inevitable Table. Menu items include citrus salad with fennel, oranges and grapefruit and orange vinaigrette; ancho chili rubbed pork loin with rapini and polenta; and braised chicken in Madeira with root vegetables and prunes, Himalayan red rice, and sautéed escarole with pine nuts.
A new direction for school lunches in the future? We can hope!
Topics: Education, Health and Nutrition, National News |
New Resource: Funding Opportunities for Agriculuture and Community Development Projects
Post Date: January 29, 2009
There are lots of great opportunities to obtain federal funding for your agricultural project. Click here to download this handy Federal Funding Opportunities Matrix.
Topics: Uncategorized |
Weak economy puts more kids in line for free meals, report says
Post Date: December 15, 2008
See the article below from CNN.com from Thursday, December 11.
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.
About 425,000 more students are participating in the National School Lunch Program, a group reports.
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.
Topics: Uncategorized |
Save the Date: Southwest Marketing Network Conference April 6-8
Post Date: December 5, 2008
The Southwest Marketing Network has announced that its 7th annual conference will be held on April 6-8 at the Doubletree Hotel in Durango Colorado. The conference will consist of four in-depth tracks on Farm to School (and other larger markets), Organizational Development, Farm Business Management and Livestock Marketing. It will also include shorter workshops on a number of topic and plenaries on developing Good Food systems. The Conference Program and online registration will be available on this site in February. For questions, contact Farm to Table at 505-473-1004 or info@farmtotablenm.org.
Topics: Farm To Table Conferences, Workshops, and Trainings |
Healthy School Report Card Announced
Post Date: September 17, 2008
For Immediate Release
Contact: Beverly Friedman
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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Topics: Education, Health and Nutrition, Regional News |
National ‘Fruit and Vegetables - More Matters’ Month is Now
Post Date: September 16, 2008
Produce for Better Health Foundation
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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Topics: Education, Health and Nutrition, National News, Resources and Publications |
Great Food in a French High School - Let’s do this here!
Post Date: July 22, 2008
Beautiful account of a public school in France using fresh, local foods within 30 miles for the cafeteria…make sure to listen to the audio version to enjoy the sounds of cooking and laughter.
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.”
Topics: Education |
Southwest Marketing Network Conference 2008
Post Date: June 24, 2008
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.
Topics: Farm To Table Conferences, Workshops, and Trainings |
Chef’s tips help students enjoy healthful snacks: Paradise Valley school cart is big hit in lunch room
Post Date: June 5, 2008
The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz. May 19, 2008
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.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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Topics: Education, Regional News |
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