DISEASE DRIVEN EARNINGS: Is It Time for a New Prescription For Generation Rx?

by Robyn O’Brien

Today’s headlines are enough to make any mother wary. As we battle our toddlers in the grocery store, we hardly have the energy left to decipher the headlines: Organics aren’t healthier, death panels await health care reform, bankers receive record bonuses, swine flu pandemics swirl .  What has happened to the world that our children are inheriting?  And does anyone care?
Perhaps we should.  Because the children of today represent the economy of tomorrow.  Today’s parents and grandparents are raising the “think tanks” that are going to be the solutions to tomorrow’s problems .  Today’s children will reinvent energy technology, redefine reform and regulations and enhance agricultural productivity in ways that we can not even begin to imagine.  But only if we give them the tools with which to do it. 
Obama insisting on school and education, with the support of Laura Bush, is a start.  But more fundamentally, what about health? Today, 1 in 3 American children now has autism, allergies, ADHD or asthma.  90% of the worlds ADHD medications are prescribed to the American kids, while the US only represent 5% of the world’s population. According to MSNBC, sales of EpiPens are up, while test scores are down.  And according to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 2 African American kids and 1 in 3 Caucasian kids born in the year 2000 (that is this year’s 4th Graders) will be insulin dependent by the time they reach adulthood. 
And while Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart formulate their products differently for children overseas (with reduced fat, salt and synthetic ingredient content), our National School Lunch Program continues to be a dumping ground for the remnants of the agrichemical corporations who are unable to dispose of their technology laced corn and soy in grocery stores, restaurants or to the livestock industry.  And while we allocate $600 billion to the Pentagon in 2009, we only allocated $9 billion to the National School Lunch Program and a meager $2.4 billion to the FDA. 
And we wonder why our children have earned the title “Generation Rx” or why our economy is heaving under the burden of health care costs. 

More after the jump

No Impact Man and the Pursuit of Happiness

In dieting, I learned early on, exercises in extremes do not yield good results.  Starve yourself of chocolate, and you can be sure the first thing you’ll do when no one is looking is dive into a kiddie pool of chocolate, roll around in it and then lick your own arms.  I once even tried to give up bread.  After two weeks I sat down and ate an entire baguette, crusty end-to-end. Walk the middle ground, I decided, in food and all things.

Maybe it was this hard-earned (and hard-learned) lesson that led me initially to avoid Morgan Spurlock’s “Supersize Me.”  It reeked of gimmick, and seemed on the outside to offer no takeaway lessons.  Nobody eats fast food all three meals (right?) so what could be the point?

I did see the movie later and had to admit that I was wrong.  It turned out that the parameters of his experiment were more rigorous than I expected, and it also turned out that setting an extreme goal yielded behavioral and biological results that could be extrapolated for meaning in the not-so-extreme.  And it turned out that, in truth, the way many Americans were/are eating is extreme.  And I was forced to confront that extremity.

Similarly, I was wary of “No Impact Man.”  I admired the gesture, and appreciated its Thoreauvian allusions (did I just make up a word?), but I wondered if there was anything of merit for me in there.  Again, similarly, I had to admit I as wrong.

More after the jump

Battling Bio-Uniformity

by Biodiversity Intern Alaine Janosy

If everyone looked, dressed, acted, and thought exactly the same, the world would be a pretty dull, bland place to live; diversity keeps things interesting. Human beings like to have choices in all aspects of life; from our mobile phone to our shampoo, we are presented with hundreds, if not thousands, of options and we are able to exercise our free will to determine which option suits us best.

Although we rarely think about it, we exercise this same free will every time we make a decision about what to eat. Eating is something all of us do multiple times every day, whether it be alone or with friends, at home or at a restaurant, we must eat to survive. Humans thrive when they consume a diverse diet comprised of the many plant and animal species we share the planet with, but that diverse diet that keeps us happy, since we like to have choices, and healthy, since we cannot get everything we need from a single source, is threatened. A combination of various factors, including climate change, and the commercialization of agriculture on a global scale, has resulted in this worldwide loss of variety. This decrease in biodiversity not only makes mealtime dull, but also, more significantly, it makes the world food supply more vulnerable to disease and less adaptable to changes in climate or population growth.

Steps are currently being taken on a global level to reverse this seemingly unstoppable course toward bio-uniformity. A new $116 million fund was established this summer when members of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) met in June. The fund will pay the 11 communities around the world, chosen based on the crops they grow, to continue farming these threatened crops thereby helping to maintain diversity in our food system. The money will provide the compensation necessary to prevent these farmers from switching to more commercially successful, and therefore more profitable, crops. Although on a much smaller scale, Slow Food USA and partners in the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Alliance are also working to increase the biological and cultural diversity of our food supply. Every time Slow Food USA chapters start a project to save an apple, a strawberry or a rare potato, they are making a difference.

Currently, the United States is not a signatory of the treaty, but signing is under consideration. As one of the richest nations in the world, the United States would send a strong message about its commitment to maintaining the health of people and the planet by signing this treaty and committing funds to both this and future initiatives agreed upon by treaty countries. Then again, an equally strong message would be sent should the United States choose to remain aloof. 

Vote With Your Fork To Save Wild Salmon!

by Biodiversity Intern Regina Fitzsimmons

Trout Unlimited—the nation’s largest coldwater fisheries conservation organization—has asked Slow Food Seattle and Seattle Chef’s Collaborative to partner in a public awareness campaign to protect the wild Bristol Bay sockeye salmon.  These three organizations are asking their neighbors and community members to “Vote with their Fork.”  Trout Unlimited hopes that people will seek out and eat at restaurants that are serving wild Bristol Bay sockeye salmon on their menus and in so doing, support a sustainable food source that has renewed itself for the past 9,000 years that salmon have returned to Bristol Bay.

These fish need our protection now.  Pebble Mine is attempting to set up new open pit mining operations (to the tune of $345-500 billion) at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, a territory prone to earthquakes.  Pebble Mine wants to extract gold – a non-renewable resource that could be mined 50 years before running out.  (FYI, as you can read in our previous blog post from last January, the EPA ranks open pit mining as the most polluting industry in the nation.)

If Pebble Mine were able to set up camp on the banks of Bristol Bay, the development and pollution would be irreversibly harmful to the watershed and the 80 million wild salmon that migrate back to the Bay each year, not to mention the animals one notch up the food chain that depend on wild salmon for sustenance.  What’s more, Bristol Bay is home to many people who also rely on the Bay’s fisheries for their income.  If the sockeye faded off the world fishery stage, there would be an international crisis; Bristol Bay salmon make up 40% of the world’s sockeye salmon. 

More after the jump

Nationwide “eat-ins” show way to a revived National School Lunch Program

by Slow Food USA Board Member Chef Kurt Michael Friese

All across the country this past Labor Day, folks gathered for picnics. That’s no surprise, of course. After all, it was a holiday, and the weather was grand across nearly the whole continent. But there was something unique about one group of picnics; 307 of them to be exact, in all 50 states. They were dubbed “Eat-Ins” (modeled on the sit-ins of the ‘60s), and they were a call to action by Slow Food USA

At those picnics, including one right here in Iowa City, more than 20,000 people gathered around tables in parks and farms and school grounds to tell Congress to fix the School Lunch Program. Most of the discussions at these events and in the press afterwards centered on improving the food itself through increased Federal spending and local food initiatives. But there was another topic directly relevant to Labor Day: the call to create green jobs with a “School Lunch Corps.”

via Grist (click here for rest of article)

Legislation Update: The Healthy Food for Healthy Schools Act

by Debbie Lehmann

Deborah Lehmann is an editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University and joins us to weigh in on the breaking news that Senator Harkin has stepped down from chairing the Senate Ag Committee to chair the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee—news that Grist’s Tom Philpott calls “dismal.”

Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark), who is taking over as the chair of the Senate Ag Committee, has just introduced a new child nutrition bill. This one is called the Healthy Food for Healthy Schools Act of 2009, and it’s supposed to “improve the purchase and processing of healthful commodities for use in school meal programs.”

The text requires the secretary of agriculture to issue model food product specifications and practices to schools, state agencies and processors to ensure that foods served in school meals are in line with the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The bill also requires the secretary to conduct a study on the quantity and quality of nutrition information available to schools regarding commodities and other food service products, and to submit a report to Congress with legislative recommendations. In addition, the bill requires the USDA to purchase “the widest variety of healthful foods that reflect the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans.”

As far as improving the commodity program, this legislation will help somewhat. Right now, most schools use their commodity dollars for meat and dairy products, and the USDA spends just a small percentage of its budget on fresh fruits and vegetables. Requiring the secretary of agriculture to make purchases that are in line with the Dietary Guidelines will ensure that he considers health, and not just farmers’ financial health, when he buys up foods for schools. That means cafeterias will probably get increased access to fresh produce through the USDA.

But improving commodity offerings isn’t the end of the story. Upgrading facilities and equipment goes hand-in-hand with upgrading the nutritional content of food products. Faced with ill-equipped kitchens and high labor costs, cafeterias outsource about half of their commodities these days to manufacturers, who process their government chicken into nuggets and their government fruit into sherbet. The USDA can offer the most nutritious foods possible, but if schools don’t have the means to cook those foods, processed fast-food fare will continue to dominate menus. I’d like to see some legislation that funds the renovation of cafeteria kitchens, or that creates a School Lunch Corps to cook in schools nationwide. Paired with Lincoln’s bill, that would really revolutionize the commodity program.

Touring campaigns for students to look out for this fall

by youth programs intern Heather Teige

Students, as you transition back into a new school year and find yourselves thinking about exciting opportunities and events to organize on - campus, take a closer look at Food Not Lawns, The Beehive Design Collective, and Fair Food Across Borders.

Founded by Heather C. Flores, Food Not Lawns’ goal is to encourage and promote food sustainability by growing food in our own backyards. They focus on deepening community ties through gardening and offer advice on how to start a local Food Not Lawns chapter, as well as the how-to’s of organizing a community seed swap.

The Beehive Design Collective is a grassroots collective that works by creating social discourse through images. Their belief is that images are a more accessible medium, and that they allow people-despite their social background- to better engage urgent social matters. On an international level they are most known for their graphic campaigns which address globalization and the global justice movement.

Fair Food Across Borders is a Chiapas Media Project (CMP)/Promedios advocacy campaign geared to expose human rights injustices inflicted on Mexican migrant workers by Mexican agribusiness camps. They aim to accomplish this by providing video equipment and training to marginalized indigenous populations in Southern Mexico so that they may create their own media.

Be sure to keep a lookout as all three of these initiatives will be touring this fall. Securing a visit to your campus would create a greater campus awareness of current issues, the opportunity to engage them in a creative manner, and the possibility of making great connections.

[images courtesy of Fair Food Across Borders (Rodrigo Cruz) and The Beehive Design Collective]

Across America, Eating for a Cause

by Slow Food USA President, Josh Viertel
This post originally appeared on the Atlantic Monthly Food Channel, the day before the National Day of Action for the Time for Lunch campaign. Check out the Food Channel for Corby Kummer’s reflection on the first Eat-in, a year ago.

I was lucky to attend an Eat-In in Chicago, on August 26, organized by Slow Food Chicago‘s Lynn Peemoeller and her team. It rained all morning, and, as if by divine intervention, stopped about 20 minutes before the event kicked off.

A big, beautiful table sat in the middle of Daley Plaza, abounding with local peaches and plums. People from all over the city had come for the meal: young people from Growing Power, friends from Windy City Harvest, representatives from the Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force, and state representative, soon-to-be senator Julie Hamos.

The whole staff of Angelic Organics showed up wearing cardboard hats with messages like “I grow my own tomatoes: Ask me how,” “I keep bees: Ask me how,” “I raise goats: Ask me how!”

And the Cornettes were there. They were my favorites. These advocates for urban agriculture made corn-ear costumes, salt and pepper shaker costumes, and a stick of butter costume. And their costumes were made out of cut up seed-bags for round-up ready, genetically modified corn. Good movements incorporate good theater. Just being right isn’t enough. No movement is worth being part of that doesn’t inspire creativity, art, a sense of humor to change the system. In Chicago, they were inspired.

On Labor Day, we are going to see this kind of creativity and dedication all over the country, in 300 locations, in every state as people gather for a Day of Action to kick off the Time for Lunch campaign. The campaign aims to update the National School Lunch Program (which expires in Sept. 2009) so that schools have the ability to serve food that benefits our children’s health, rather than the fast food and junk food that makes them sick. We’re telling Congress that it’s time to provide America’s children with real food: food that tastes good, is good for us, is good for the planet, and is good for the people who work to grow and prepare it.

You should come to one. They are easy to find. Just use this map or search by state. While you’re there, sign the Time for Lunch petition.

More after the jump

Labor Day Potlucks—with a purpose

by Gordon Jenkins
This post originally appeared on The Atlantic Monthly Food Channel

On Labor Day, people in nearly 300 cities and towns across America will gather in public places, sit down, and share a meal together. We will do it for two reasons: one personal, one political. The personal reason is that we love to cook and share food. Nourishing people, making them smile and momentarily making life good is something that we find deeply satisfying—and at potlucks, we share this feeling en masse.

The political reason to organize potlucks is actually the same motive. Potlucks bring people together. And people who come together in the spirit of goodwill and for the joy of sharing food are more likely to stand together when political push comes to shove. If you’re an organizer, potlucks can be one of your best agents of change: rather than goad people to name enemies and point fingers, you can gather them for something that they enjoy doing and that replenishes their will to fight. Potlucks are a ripe opportunity for inviting people who may not have sat at the same table together in the past and then celebrating what we all have in common: the need to eat and the need for support.

On Labor Day, the tens of thousands of us who will sit down together in public parks, on school grounds, at churches, and in front of City Halls will do it for an overtly political purpose: to tell Congress to stop giving our children food that hurts them. We’re calling these events “Eat-Ins,” because they’re part potluck, part sit-in. They are a launching-point of the Time for Lunch campaign, the goals of which are to give schools the ability to serve real food at lunch and to link local schools to local farms. The Eat-Ins that take place on Labor Day will rally support for the cause by organizing communities, getting some media attention and thereby sending a clear message to Congress: It’s time to provide America’s children with food that benefits their health, not food that makes them sick.

My colleagues and I organized the first Eat-In a year ago in San Francisco. The event brought together more than 250 young people, most of them fresh out of college. The day before, we had formed teams and piled into apartment kitchens across the city to cook up our favorite dishes. On Labor Day, the final day of the Slow Food Nation extravaganza, we showed up at Dolores Park armed with our dishes. We sat down on a grassy hill and we took turns rousing nearby sunbathers with rallying cries about our intention to take back the American food system in the name of everyday people. And then we sat down to eat.

More after the jump

Eat-ins out in the wild, wild west

by campaign intern Alex Tung

The Time For Lunch Campaign’s National Day of Action is only four days away! As Slow Food USA’s staff, volunteers and Eat-In organizers nationwide are busy making final preparations, I’d like to share our excitement by giving you a short preview of a few of the fine, innovative Eat-Ins that I’ve been following in my time here as a Regional Coordinator for the campaign. (As you’ll see, I’ve mostly worked with organizers in the West.)

Some Slow Food chapters have done a great job reaching out to their local school districts and working directly with city officials. Attendees at Slow Food Boulder, CO‘s Eat-In on the Boulder County Courthouse Lawn will hear stories from individuals who work hard to provide the food in Boulder’s schools. They include Boulder Valley School District’s School Food Project’s member and parent Syliva Tawse, the Growe Foundation’s School Gardens program and the Parent Education Network and St. Vrain Valley School District‘s Director of Nutrition. The potluck-style picnic will be complemented by tasty food samples made with locally sourced ingredients by students of the Culinary School of the Rockies. There will even be fun activities for children and a bluegrass band!

Others have made headway by bringing together new groups of people. At the Eat-In in Salt Lake City, UT you can share a dish with Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon and Dave Everett from the Salt Lake City Mayor’s office, who will be at Slow Food Utah‘s Eat-In to show their support for giving kids real food at school. They will be joined by Primary Children’s Hospital Pediatric Dietitian Margaret Braae, and Valerie Hammel, who spearheaded the Open Classroom‘s “Real Food Lunch Program.”  Volunteers at the family-friendly event will help kids plant seeds in little pots they can take home and watch grow. Children can also participate in fun games with local apples as prizes.

A few chapters have had to be creative about their location. To beat the heat, the Slow Food Phoenix’s Eat-In in Phoenix, AZ will be an indoor even—a “bring your own” picnic and a potluck dessert buffet at the Home Arts Building at the Arizona State Fairgrounds. Attendees can expect to see local chefs leading cooking demonstrations for kids, and interactive booths on topics ranging from “seed planting” to “a nutrition pyramid bean bag toss” and a “school garden complete with plants and bales of hay.” Strolling the event and entertaining kids and parents alike will be a trio of veggies and fruits to promote healthy eating.

In Portland, OR, real food and creativity will set the stage for “re-framing an abandoned lot as an urban grid of neighborhoods and gardens.” Teaming up with the the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and their annual Time-Based Art Festival, Slow Food Portland will take over the lawn of the old Washington High School with a flurry of planting, harvesting, and cooking. At this sprawling picnic surrounded by temporary gardens, participants will be fed wood-fired flatbreads and joined by local food organizations.

At present, 295 Eat-Ins are scheduled to take place on Labor Day, September 7th 2009. The better we tell the stories from the Eat-Ins, the more people we’ll reach—so if you are attending an Eat-In on Labor Day, please take pictures and videos and upload them to Flickr with the tag “timeforlunch.” Post about it on your blog and email us the link (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)). Tell your friends, your neighbors, your local farmers and your elected officials.

Looking for an Eat-In near you? Visit the Time for Lunch website, here.