Are Fatty Foods Addictive?

How can anything on my plate be compared to serious drugs like heroin and cocaine? How is it possible that we are feeding our children addictive foods and not expecting it to make a difference in their lives? How can we expect children to make a nutritious decision when faced with either a salad or a highly addictive cheeseburger?

These are some of the things I have been wondering when I hear both sides of arguments about school lunch reform. Of course the children are going to pick a cheeseburger over a salad if they are addicted to it. Cheese is a highly addictive food.read more:

http://plantingprogress.org/

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Jamie Oliver's food revolution has been sweeping the country for a while now and it is obvious why. He is a leader in transforming the way we think about school lunches, health and nutrition. He seeks detailed answers for obvious questions like, why can't we make our school meals healthier? Jamie brings together people from all over the world to recognize our childhood obesity epidemic and help school lunch reform.

He states some pretty disturbing facts on his website (http://www.jamieoliver.com/school-dinners/facts-and-figures):

• One quarter of teenagers are already obese.

• 14% of boys and 17% of girls between the ages of two and 15 are overweight.

• Nearly one quarter of adults are already obese.

• Kids with fat parents are twice as likely to become obese.

• Kids who are obese by the age of 12 are 85% more likely to remain obese into adult life.

• Kids who are obese in their early teens are twice as likely to die by the age of 50.

This is part of the reason why we need school lunch reform! We need to educate our children about nutrition so they can begin to think for themselves and make healthy life style decisions. We are not being fair to our youth if we raise them on food that is bound to kill them.

Fruits & Vegetables

The USDA has started The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. It is a federally assisted program that provides all students in selected elementary schools either a free or reduced price of a wide variety of healthy fresh fruits and vegetables.

With the goal of improving children’s overall diet and creating healthier eating habits, to also impacting their present and future health The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program offers educational information as well federal assistance. They have created a tool kit which includes Webcasts, templates, PowerPoint presentations, fact sheets and resources from state agencies to help you build a successful Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program in your school.

The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program works by granting each school participating in the program between $50.00 ‐ $75.00 per student for the school year.   Fresh fruits and vegetables are purchased to serve free to students with these funds during the school day.  However, there are some guidelines involved.  The fruit and vegetables are not included in either breakfasts or lunches and  must be served in times between meals.

Here you can find State and Local Resources for your school:

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/FFVP/Toolkit/FFVPfindresources.htm

These resources include menus, nutrition information, lesson plans and other fun facts.

Planting Progress Overview

Our vision is to encourage all schools to have seasonal school gardens and curriculum to provide garden-based learning experiences for students. We want to expose children to fresh seasonal vegetables, and encourage them to make better nutritional decisions improving overall health and education.

Although we believe in setting a foundation through the basic understanding of school gardening, we understand that is only a starting point. It is imperative to integrate school garden programs with local farms and provide better nutritional food for students. By encouraging interaction between local farmers and schools, children can understand more of where their food comes from while farmers reduce their carbon footprint by delivering locally.

We also believe it is essential to reform the nutritional standards by which school meals are served. Children will preform better in school if they are served the right kinds of nutritional food in a way that appeals to them. We want to encourage programs that are working on lunch reform throughout the country to use eachother, along with local farms and school gardens to form the ideal vision of nutrition and education.

Pictures are of school garden in Mt. Rainer, Maryland, Spring 2010

School Gardens | PlantingProgress

The California School Garden Network

is an example of a system of school gardens. The following curriculum is from their program.

*More information can be found at http://www.csgn.org/

• Getting to Know Your Garden: Garden Basics — Bed & box Preparation, Tools & Equipment


• Digging In: Soil, Weather, and Seasons


• Seeds and Planting: Propagation, Germination, Transplanting


• The Growing Plant: Botany, Reproduction, Pollination, and Life ycles


• Garden Habitat: Critters, Beneficial Insects and Pest Control


• Garden Stewardship: Watering, Weeding, Erosion, and Crop Maintenance


• Harvest: Seed Saving, Food Storage and Processing


• Composting: Recycling, Organic Gardening, and Soil Amendment


• From Farm to Table: Food Systems at Work


• Gifts From the Earth: Plant Based Crafts


• Cooking and Eating for Healthy Living: Eat Well for Nutrition


• Food Around the World: Origins, History, and Cultural Uses of Foods

This curriculum is only one example of how school gardens can be incorporated into everyday education. The main idea is children need to be involved the entire time. If they can see how seeds are planted, they can begin to understand where the process starts. The children will realize through out the program how much work is involved in growing food and gain an appreciation for the time it takes to happen. They will also develop a sense of ownership in the garden; therefore, teaching environmental stewardship and social responsibility.

The Berkeley Unified School District | PlantingProgress

One of the best examples

of school lunches and nutrition is The Berkeley Unified School District in, Berkeley, California. As a pioneer in the movement of school lunch reform, The Berkeley Unified School District has changed their entire lunch program.

The Berkeley Unified School District is one of the first school districts to combat childhood health problems by school lunch reform including cooperation with local farms and adding fresh vegetables and fruit to school lunches. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we’re on the path to seeing diabetes in 30 to 40 percent of today’s children if trends continue. Berkeley has responded by making the following improvements to their food programs:

Salad bars in all schools

Hormone and antibiotic-free milk

Fresh fruit and vegetables served daily

Almost all food is made from scratch

All bread and dinner rolls are organic

All other rolls are whole-grain

Swipe card systems in almost all of our schools

A majority of the food is now purchased locally:

Breakfast muffins

Whole-grain pizza crust

Sliced bread and dinner rolls

Salad dressings

25% of our produce

Organic salad bar at the high school

All hamburgers and hot dogs are natural and grass-fed

More information can be found at:

http://www.berkeley.net/student-nutrition-menus/

Farms To Schools | PlantingProgress

Farms To Schools

provides programs for schools to connect up with local farmers. The National Farm to School Network provides training and technical assistance, information services, networking, and support in policy and media and marketing activities.

Farms To Schools encourages schools to get involved with local farms and to provide healthier, more nutritional school lunches. To find out more of what Farms To Schools is doing, visit their website:

http://www.farmtoschool.org/

Community Supported Agriculture | PlantingProgress

Local Farms and Community Supported Agriculture:

If you have a farm and would like to list it with other farms in Community Supported Agriculture, check out The Robyn Van En Center. It provides a national resource center about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) for people across the nation and around the world. The Robyn Van En Center also offers outreach and works to gain publicity about CSA farms in order to benefit community farmers and communities everywhere.

List your CSA Farm or Update your Farm Listing

https://www.wilson.edu/wilson/asp/content.asp?ekfrm=1642

Let's Move | PlantingProgress

The First Lady's new initiative Let's Move focuses on Healthy Choices, Healthier Schools, Physical Activity, and Access to Affordable Healthy Food.

This program is reforming school lunches, bringing together school lunches and nutrition, and helping to provide people with access to affordable healthy food.

Let's Move has started The Healthier US Schools Challenge Program which changes and challenges the standards for schools’ food quality, children's participation in meal programs, general physical activity, and nutrition education. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will be working with these schools to ensure the success of this program. To sign your school up please visit: http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/healthierus/index.html

Contact Planting Progress

We would love to connect up with you.

Any information you would like to share with us is appreciated.

Info@PlantingProgress.org

Planting Progress is a social and educational networking site created to provide resources to educators and people interested in bringing together school gardens, local farms, and lunch programs.

The following are just a few positive impacts we believe will happen if people start to work hand in hand.

School Gardens and Educational Impact.

Children will learn where their food originates, be exposed to tangible nutritional education and ultimately perform better in school if they incorporate a plant based diet into their lifestyle.

School Gardens and Health Impact.

By teaching children the benefits of a plant based diet the rates of obesity, attention disorders, and depression can be lowered.

School Gardens and Environmental Impact.

Raising children to become environmental stewards will help transition this country into the sustainable leader it is striving to become. Children will have more of an understanding of the earth, a stronger connectivity to nature and a greater desire to preserve it.

Why Reform Through School Gardens?

1. School Gardens and Knowledge.

A recent interview done by Jamie Oliver, leader of The Food Revolution, suggests that children know very little about where their food comes from. Many do not know that French fries come from potatoes, and ketchup from tomatoes.

2. School Gardens and Improved Health.

Children need to learn about nutrition and see good examples in schools. The New England Journal of Medicine says severe obesity, particularly in children, is so great that the associated diseases and complications, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, cancer, that children are likely to have shorter life expectancies than their parents.

3. School Gardens and Environmental Awareness.

There is a need to fulfill the absence of nature in children’s lives. A study published two years ago in an issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences finds the use of America's parks and forests may be down by as much as 25 percent since 1987. Richard Louv explores research linking the absence of nature in children's lives to rising rates of obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

4. School Gardens and Awareness of Social Responsibility.

The lack of social responsibility by our youth is becoming apparent, not only in performance based studies, but in student apathy, lack of self-responsibility and false self-esteem.

There is a need for children to be exposed to an integrated curriculum encouraging hands-on, inquiry-based learning in a cooperative setting. Environmental stewardship can be learned by designing, planting, and maintaining gardens; harvesting, preparing food and learning respect for the environment from which food comes. Children need to learn responsibility for their environment and community. Taking ownership of a school garden helps provide a foundation of attentiveness, awareness and corporation for children. Children who grow their own food are more likely to eat fresh fruits and vegetables (Canaris, 1995; Libman, 2007; McAleese & Rankin, 2007; Pothukuchi, 2004) Therefore, combating the rising rates of obesity, attention disorders, and depression and providing the foundation for higher academic achievement.