Newsletter: October 2006

GEI Nutrition in the Schools Newsletter #6

October 2006

The Nutrition in the Schools Network Newsletter provides information on events, activities, and resources that help us to educate and advocate for healthy, nutritional food and beverages in schools.

Table of Contents

1. Meetings/Speaker Forum
2. Healthy Food Fair Planning Guide Now Available
3. NISN Speakers Bureau Up and Running
4. Now in Effect – Rules for Foods/Beverages in Illinois
5. Chef Ann Cooper – Renegade Lunch Lady
6. Industry Snack Food Agreement – The Real Scoop
7. Battling Big Food in Schools

1. MEETINGS / SPEAKER FORUM

NEW – we are going to try to alternate Business Meetings with a new Nutrition in the Schools Speaker Forum. We would like to increase the number of people attending our guest speaker events. If you plan on coming, please consider bringing a friend, to hear our speaker and to learn about the Nutrition in the Schools Network.

November 15 – Nutrition in the Schools Speaker Forum

Guest Speaker: Julie Moreschi, Dietetic Internship Director, Nutrition Department, Benedictine University. She serves as the Team Co-Chair of Action for Health Kids, in which the public is made more aware of the benefits of a healthy school environment. Julie will speak about what’s happening in area schools, what we can do to help improve the situation, and how the Internship Program works with areas schools.

December 13 – Business Meeting

January 17 – Nutrition in the Schools Speaker Forum

Guest Speaker: Gary Cuneen, Founder and Executive Director, Seven Generation Ahead, Oak Park, Illinois. Come and learn about Gary’s exciting work with Oak Park and Chicago public schools.  In collaboration with Oak Park River Forest District 200 Food Service and Parent Teacher Organizations, they conduct a Fresh from the Farm Pilot Healthy Lunch program. Lunches currently consist of half whole wheat pitas, a variety of 8-10 veggies, chicken strips, and a homemade salad dressing along with a side of grapes or sliced apples.

TIME and LOCATION: 7:30 pm, at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, 815 S. Washington, Naperville, just south of Edwards Hospital.  Enter at the light for the hospital; at the stop sign, turn left into the Church parking lot; park around the back (side farthest from Washington); enter door #3; we’ll be in the second room on the left.

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2. HEALTHY FOOD FAIR PLANNING GUIDE NOW AVAILABLE

Learn to Eat, Eat to Learn: a Guide to Planning and Coordinating a Healthy Food Fair at Your School is now available! The cost for the printed guide, which includes a CD-ROM version, is $35.00.  The cost for the CD-ROM-only version is $25.00.

The 150 pages of the Guide contain sections on planning, advertising/communication, games, displays, room preparation, staffing, resources, and evaluation.  The Guide contains detailed lists of materials and “how-to” information for the games and displays and over twenty information sheets you can use at your resource table.

The Guide is based on the experience of Food Fest '06, held at Pierce Downer Elementary School in Downers Grove in April 2006. The food fair was created by three members of NISN (Beth Schuller, Sandra McDonnell, and Terese Wall) to help educate other parents, students and teachers about healthy eating. The event was held in the school's gym on the night of the annual Open House, with 250 families in attendance. The gym was a buzz of activity, with nutrition-themed games and displays, staffed by both parents and health professionals. Healthy food samples were available to eat and drink! While some had been skeptical about "other people telling them what to feed their children," the response was overwhelmingly positive. Parents, who thought their children would not eat healthier foods, were surprised when their children asked them to buy the healthier food choices they sampled!

For more information and to obtain a copy of the Guide, please contact Michelle Hickey-Fouts at Nutrition@GreenEarthInstitute.org or 630-305-0504.

We also have a flyer that you can distribute to those you think would be interested.

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3. NISN SPEAKERS BUREAU UP AND RUNNING

Do you need a speaker to talk about healthy eating?  To parents, students, teachers?  Now, you can find a speaker right for your event through the NISN Speakers Bureau.

All speakers support the NISN mission: to educate and advocate for healthy, nutritional food in schools. Nutritional food - defined as whole food close to the way nature made it, minimally processed and without additives - properly nourishes the brain and the body for optimal health, learning, and social behavior.

Speakers are available for a variety of audiences: pre-school children, children in school, parents, teachers, community organizations, professional associations.  Currently, speakers are available to speak in Cook, DuPage, Will and Kane counties. Speaker fees vary, so please contact us and we can discuss in more detail.

Sample titles include:

• Nutrition 101 - The Basics of Healthy Eating
• Sugar and Salt - Why Should I Care?
• Changing Behavior, One Bite At A Time
• Healthy Snacks & How to Have Kids Asking for More
• What's In a Label? How to Shop for Healthy Foods
• What Can You Do to Help Johnny/Sarah Eat the Lunch You Packed?
• Learn to Eat, Eat to Learn - Organizing a Healthy Food Fair in Your School
• Improving Food and Beverage Choices in Your School

If you want more information, or if you would like to become a speaker, please contact Sharon Brauer at Nutrition@GreenEarthInstitute.org or 630-435-1533.  Our Speaker Request Form is available on our website.

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4. NOW IN EFFECT – RULES FOR FOODS/BEVERAGES IN ILLINOIS

New food and beverage requirements for items sold to students in grades 8 and below before or during the school day. This applies to schools that receive federal subsidies for breakfast or lunch meals.

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) website has all the details:

On October 10, 2006, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) voted 8-4 to withdraw the filing prohibition on the School Food Service Rules (23 Illinois Administrative Code 305). The new rules are effective October 17, 2006.

It is hard to summarize concisely what the guidelines say, although it’s not really that complicated.  Appendix 2 of the ISBE Guidance Document and a slightly different version of this are available on our website.

The scope of the beverage rules is clear.  They apply to all beverages sold to students before or during regular school hours in all locations in the school, with ONE EXCEPTION: (1) when the beverage is a part of the reimbursable meal.

The scope of the food rules is less clear.  They apply to all food (and snacks) sold to students before or during regular school hours in all locations in the school, with THREE EXCEPTIONS: (1) when the food is a part of the reimbursable meal; (2) when the food is sold inside the food service area during the meal period (e.g., a la carte items); (3) the rules stipulate that participating schools are prohibited from selling confections, candy, and potato chips to students in grades 5 and below.

A few additional points:

• The rules do not apply to beverages or food sold to teachers or parents.
• The rules do not apply to treats or rewards provided to students in the classroom.
• The rules do not apply to beverages or food sold at sporting events after regular school hours.
• The rules do not apply to beverages or food sold as part of a reimbursable meal.
• The rules DO apply to fundraisers, if the fundraiser sells beverages or food to students before or during regular school hours.

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5. CHEF ANN COOPER – RENEGADE LUNCH LADY

I recently heard Chef Ann Cooper speak at Perspectives Charter School in Chicago.  If you don’t know of her and what she does, she is certainly a person to watch!  Chef Ann has recently been hired by the Berkeley Unified School District to implement a lunch program – on a scale larger than ever tried before – that emphasizes regional, organic, seasonal, and sustainable meals.  This Healthy School Lunch Initiative has high aims – to develop a nutrition and business model that can be implemented in public schools around the country.  This work has just started and no such model currently exists – but updates will be available on her website and blog.

Chef Ann’s new website continually improves. She just wrote, along with Lisa M. Holmes, a book with the same name, Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children.

More about Chef Ann (from the website):

At The Ross School in East Hampton, NY, Chef Ann served as the executive chef and director of wellness and nutrition, developing an integrated school lunch curriculum centered on regional, organic, seasonal and sustainable meals. The implementation of her pilot wellness program proved successful, and Chef Ann was invited to work with schools across the country. She has transformed public school cafeterias in New York City, Harlem and Bridgehampton, NY, and now in Berkeley, CA, to teach more students why good food choices matter by putting innovative strategies to work and providing fresh, organic lunches to all students.

Currently, Chef Ann is the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), improving meals at 16 public schools with a population of over 9,000 students. In her work with public schools, Chef Ann is at the forefront of the movement to transform the National School Lunch Program into one that places greater emphasis on the health of students than the financial health of a select few agribusiness corporations. Chef Ann's lunch menus emphasize regional, organic, fresh foods, and nutritional education, helping students build a connection between their personal health and where their food comes from.

Chef Ann's newest book, "Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children" (Harper Collins, Sept. 2006), is overflowing with strategies for parents and school administrators to become engaged with issues around school food - from public policy to corporate interest. It includes successful case studies of school food reform, resources that can help make a difference and healthy, kid-friendly recipes that can be made at home, or by the thousands for a public school cafeteria.

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6. INDUSTRY SNACK FOOD AGREEMENT – THE REAL SCOOP

On October 6, 2006, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation (a joint initiative of the Clinton Foundation and the American Hearth Association) announced an agreement with five of the nation’s leading food manufacturers aimed to combat childhood obesity in America.

However, as CSPI wrote in their press release, it is schools and vending machine companies who decide what to stock in school vending machines and they are not parties to this agreement.  It is still up to US to make sure that our schools and school districts keep junk food out of schools. This can happen through local action, through action at the state level (like the ISBE rules discussed above), and through action at the federal level, like the Child Nutrition and School Lunch Protection Bill.

One concrete outcome of the agreement is that the five food manufacturers are going to develop new snacks that meet these more healthy guidelines – and that is good – although it’s still a far cry from just offering fresh fruit and vegetables and other whole foods to our children.

Note that the beverage agreement signed on May 3, 2006, by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and the large beverage manufacturers has the same weakness in that it is the schools and school districts that need to make the final decision to follow the new guidelines.  The difference is that many school districts sign contracts directly with these large companies and so if the companies are really going to walk their talk, they can have a more direct impact on what goes into the contracts.  However, in the end it is still up to US to make sure our schools do the right thing to provide healthy beverages in schools.

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7. BATTLING BIG FOOD IN SCHOOLS

If you’re interested in “how the food industry undermines our health and how to fight back” (the subtitle), then Michele Simon’s Appetite for Profit is the book for you.  There is a chapter on schools, titled “Battling Big Food in Schools,” and it is available as a PDF file on Simon’s website (scroll down). Michele Simon is a public health lawyer specializing in nutrition policy and food industry tactics.

In addition, Simon writes on her blog: "While researching my book, Appetite for Profit, I interviewed numerous grassroots advocates working hard to get unhealthy food and beverages out of schools. In collaboration with the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, I collected the best of those interviews into four case studies, covering California, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Maine. Many thanks to the Rudd Center for helping to make this important information available.” To read about the four cases, click here.

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