Posts Tagged ‘Michelle Obama’
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Senate Passes Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act
The Senate passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act on Thursday, a bill that will provide $4.5 billion to make school food more nutritious. The New York Times reports the bill was passed unanimously by the Senate and will now move to the House of Representatives, where it is also expected to pass. The current school nutrition legislation will expire on September 30.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act will continue the existing nutrition programs in schools and add the first non-inflationary increase in funding since 1973.The funding will allow schools to update their menus with healthier choices and set higher health standards that include more fruits and vegetables and less salt and fat. School vending machines will be overhauled to provide nutritious options instead of junk food.
The funding will expand afternoon snack programs into full meal services for needy children and will also provide an increased number of free or reduced-price school lunches.
Michelle Obama has voiced her support for the passage of the bill in conjuction with her Let’s Move campaign, which aims to reduce childhood obesity.
More National News
Aug. 7: Farm Aid announced it will hold its 2010 concert at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
Aug. 6: Valley Meat Company, based in Modesto, California, has recalled one million pounds of ground beef for possible E. coli contamination. USDA
Aug. 6: Crayola LLC has installed 26,000 solar panels at its headquarters in Easton, Pennsylvania. Associated Press
Aug. 3: Heat in the Northeast has pushed up the apple harvest and may affect apple color. The Packer
July 30: New York Governor David Paterson signed a new law that will prohibit the sale of child care products containing bisphenol A. North Country Gazette
July 26: Despite the recession, sale of organic produce has grown by 12.1% for the year. Supermarket News
Regional News
Aug. 8: Late blight has affected gardens and farms in Vermont. Burlington Free Press
Aug. 7: Frank Perretta, the co-owner of the now defunct Vermont slaughterhouse Bushway Packing Inc., was arrested for animal cruelty charges. Associated Press
Aug. 4: Vermont will receive $116 million to increase broadband access in underserved areas. Vermont Business Magazine
Aug. 4: Vermont conservationist Elizabeth Putnam was honored at the White House with a 2010 Citizens Medal. Vermont Business Magazine
Aug. 2: The oldest family farm in the country is up for sale. The Tuttle Farm in Dover, New Hampshire, has been run by the Tuttle family for 378 years. NPR
July 31: Magic Hat Brewing Company may be sold to North American Breweries of Rochester, New York. North American Breweries owns Labatt USA. Boston Globe
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Michelle Obama Prompts Food Giants to Get Healthy
Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the Grocery Manufacturers Association to emphasize the importance of producing healthy, affordable foods to reduce childhood obesity. Mrs. Obama asked that the major food manufacturers take responsibility for improving their offerings in grocery stores by improving food labels and reducing salt and fat in the products they sell.
With the national consciousness trending more and more toward healthy food consumption, big businesses are taking note. Several major food companies including PepsiCo, Kraft Foods and ConAgra have since announced that significant and voluntary improvements will be made in the nutritional value of their products in order to better serve the consumer and meet market demand.Yesterday, PepsiCo announced it will cut sodium in its key brands by 25 percent in five years. In the next ten years, the company will cut the average amount of added sugar per serving by 25 percent and saturated fat by 15 percent.
ABC News reports that PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi told investors the company will focus more on producing healthier foods even before additional legislation is passed requiring changes because “the consumer is shifting” and demanding healthier, more nutritious foods that are a better value.
Last week, PepsiCo also announced it would remove full-calorie sweetened drinks from all schools globally by 2012, a policy that is currently in place in the U.S.
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Federal Funding Coming for Farmers’ Markets
The USDA’s Know Your Famer, Know Your Food initiative has earmarked $5 million in funding from the 2010 Farmers’ Market Promotion Program for grants to develop new farmers’ markets and enhance existing markets, roadsides stands and CSA programs as part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign.
USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced the grant funding on a visit to New York City last Thursday, where she said, “The benefits of direct-to-consumer marketing are two-fold. Consumers are provided with fresh, healthy, affordable and locally grown products, while meeting the farmers that produce it. Farmers, on the other hand, are able to expand their economic opportunities and grow their incomes.”The grants are an effort to reduce what the first lady has labeled as “food deserts,” areas in the country that don’t have access to healthy foods from supermarkets or farmers’ markets.
According to the USDA, there are 5,274 farmers’ markets in the country. This figure marks a 13 percent increase in farmers’ markets since 2008. Despite this increase, there are still many areas nationwide that do not have farmers markets. Click on the Local Foods tab then select “Farmers’ Markets” on the USDA Economic Research Service’s recently launched Food Environment Atlas for a visual representation of the so-called “food deserts.”
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The Power of Food Labels
Listing nutritional information on fast food could affect what parents choose for their children to eat, reports a new study to be published in the February 2010 issue of Pediatrics. The study, “Nutrition Menu Labeling May Lead to Lower-Energy Restaurant Meal Choices for Children,” was conducted at a pediatric practice in Seattle, Washington.
The 99 parents who participated in the study had children aged three to six years old. Participants were given photos of McDonald’s food and asked which menu items they would pick for themselves and their children. Half of the group was given menus labeled with the number of calories in each selection.
Parents who saw the calorie-labeled food items chose a meal for their child with an average of 102 fewer calories than those who saw unlabeled choices.Pooja S.Tandon, MD, lead researcher of the study and graduate fellow in pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle, emphasized, “One hundred calories over time is actually a significant amount in terms of weight gain, given the rates of fast food consumption and childhood obesity in our country.”
Thirty-two percent of American schoolchildren are overweight or obese, and childhood obesity is a growing topic of national concern. Ed Bruske, the blogger behind The Slow Cook, recently published an eye-opening six-part series “Tales from a D.C. School Kitchen,” which chronicled a behind-the-scenes look at exactly how school lunches are prepared at his daughter’s elementary school.
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White House Chef Wins Super Chef Battle
Cristeta Comerford, the first woman and first Filipino-American to be named White House Executive Chef, put another feather in her chef’s hat on Sunday night by winning Iron Chef America’s Super Chef Battle. With help from her teammate Bobby Flay, Comerford took down cooking show royalty Emeril Lagasse and Mario Batali.
After working as an assistant chef during the Clinton administration, Comerford was appointed to the prestigious role of White House Executive Chef in 2005 by former First Lady Laura Bush and was reappointed to the position by First Lady Michelle Obama, who appreciated Comerford’s dedication to healthy cooking.Comerford is the first White House chef to compete on the Food Network’s cook-off show, Iron Chef America. The show challenges professional chefs to incorporate a “secret ingredient” into a five-course meal in one hour.
Michelle Obama was a special guest on Sunday’s show, introducing the “secret ingredient” as vegetables from the White House Garden. The much-acclaimed garden has been an instrumental part of Mrs. Obama’s initiative to promote the benefits of eating healthy food while supporting sustainable agriculture and local foods year-round.
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Winter at the White House Garden
Nineteen inches of snow and the White House Kitchen Garden is still growing. Fresh off the success of the fall harvest, Michelle Obama’s garden was prepped for the winter growing season with hoop houses just days before this weekend’s record snowfall.
A hoop house is constructed using metal bars and then stretching fabric or plastic tightly around the outside of the structure, creating a temporary energy-efficient greenhouse. The sun warms the hoop house, and the structure protects and insulates crops from snow and frost. Hoop houses also improve soil and water quality.
Volunteers and USDA staff planted spinach, lettuce, carrots, mustard greens, chard and cabbage, as well as a crop of rye, which is used by farmers to balance soil and prevent erosion of topsoil during the winter. Assistant Chef and Food Initiative Coordinator Sam Kass announced the White House Winter Garden on a video posted to the White House blog.
On hand to help with the construction of hoop houses was USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, who announced a new USDA program that will help farmers finance hoop house construction to extend their growing season. Merrigan notes the value of producing year-round, explaining it’s “important because that helps build local and regional food systems–something USDA wants to help you with.”
Financial assistance will be provided to fund hoop house construction on farms of various sizes in 38 states. The three-year project is part of the
USDA’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative.The timing for erecting the hoop houses at the White House Garden couldn’t have been better, considering the massive snowstorm that hit Washington last weekend. According to blogger Eddie Gehman Kohan, of the ObamaFoodOrama blog, the hoop houses were cleared of snow after the storm and the vegetables remain protected.
Kass has already been showing off the benefits of growing through the winter. D.C. elementary students toured the White House Garden with Kass as part of the Operation Frontline program, which focuses on nutrition and healthy eating habits for children. Kass captivated the students with the garden’s cold weather spinach, which tastes sweet, and taught them about preparing healthy meals.
More National News
Dec. 18: A new study shows local food businesses play a critical role in economic development. Business Week
Dec. 20: In Wisconsin, a man argues for his right to sell raw milk. Chicago Tribune
Read the rest of this entry »
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Consumer Reports Finds BPA in Food
Need one more reason to purchase local, fresh food whenever possible?
A new report by Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, shows an alarming presence of the chemical bisphenol A, a synthetic estrogen, in many canned foods manufactured in America.Bisphenol A, known as BPA, has been used for years in the manufacture of clear plastic bottles and in the lining in tin cans. BPA is more likely to infiltrate foods stored in plastic containers if the container is cleaned in a dishwasher or used in a microwave.
The Consumer Reports’s tests found various levels of BPA in the 19 name brand food products tested, including canned soups, tuna, juices and green beans. Canned goods generally had the highest levels of BPA, including Del Monte green beans, Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup and Progresso Vegetable Soup.
The chemical was also found in products labeled “BPA-free” as well as in canned food labeled organic.
In the wake of the study, food manufacturers have countered that the BPA levels found in their products meet federal regulations, reports ABC News. The Grocery Manufacturing Association said in a statement, “The public should not be alarmed.”
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Bountiful Harvest at 1600 Pennsylvania
Michelle Obama is reaping the fruits of her labors.
Last Thursday, the First Lady- with help from DC fifth graders- harvested sweet potatoes, carrots, fennel, lettuce, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, broccoli and turnips from her backyard vegetable garden.Since its first planting in March, the White House kitchen garden has yielded over 740 pounds of vegetables, and cost a mere $180 to plant, reports the Washington Post.
Produce from the garden has been donated to Miriam’s Kitchen, a soup kitchen that provides fresh food for the homeless in Washington, DC.
The White House Organic Farm Project (aka The WHOFarm) “began as a non-partisan, petition-based initiative to respectfully request that our 44th President oversee the planting of an organic farm on the grounds of The White House.”
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