Please make a public comment to the USDA re: Healthy Foods

[Guest guest]

Below is a notice from the New York Coalition for Healthy School

Lunches. Please help get healthy food into our schools by offering a

comment to the USDA. Comments are due by the end of the day this

Wednesday.

Thank you!

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This is an urgent notice!!!

 

Wednesday October 15th (by the end of the day, as in just before

midnight) is the deadline to make public comments to the United States

Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the 2009 Reauthorization of the

Child Nutrition Programs and the Special Supplemental Nutrition

Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). This is the regulation

for the school meal programs.

 

To do this online, go to:

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment & o=090000\

64805f47dd

 

Note: If for some reason the link does not work, you can cut and paste

the above address into your browser or use this link:

http://tinyurl.com/6lof2g

 

It is unclear which of the two boxes are for comments, so we recommend

entering your comments into one box, and then copying and pasting them

into the second box as well.

 

In your comments, please ask for the following:

 

1. Ask for universal free meals. This means that all children get

free meals. This is a good idea because currently the amount of money

that paying students pay is far less than the amount schools are

reimbursed for free meals. As a result, the money intended for

students receiving free meals is used to subsidize the paid meals,

thus lowering the average per meal cost overall.

2. Ask that a plant-based entrée, free of artificial ingredients

and animal ingredients, be required on the menu each day, and that

peanut butter and jelly or a bagel and margarine, or other such items,

not count toward this. The meal should be bean, lentil, or tofu based.

In addition, ask that tofu become a reimbursable protein under the

“traditional food-based†menu planning system.

3. Ask that artificial ingredients not be allowed: no artificial

colors, flavors, preservatives, sweeteners, or transfats. While

eliminating these ingredients is essential, it does not guarantee a

healthy product. For example, some schools serve animal crackers as

snacks through the USDA snack program. They are free of artificial

ingredients, but they are made from white flour, white sugar, and oil.

In this case, the lack of artificial ingredients does not make them

healthy.

4. In relation to transfats, the food industry allows up to ½ gram

of transfats even when the nutrition information or package says “0â€.

Ask that the food contain no “partially hydrogenated†oils on the

ingredient list †" because if the food has “partially hydrogenatedâ€

oils in it, it contains transfats, regardless of labeling that says “0â€.

5. Ask the focus be on fresh and unprocessed, or minimally

processed foods. Only then does low fat, low sugar, or low oil mean

something more healthy. For example, no matter how low in sugar, fat,

and sodium a packaged food is, it may still be junk. For example, many

schools are serving low-fat ice cream (which is still high sugar),

baked potato chips (which are not health supporting, they are not a

“healthy†choice as is often stated). We need to focus on fresh.

6. Ask that non-dairy calcium fortified beverages be available to

all students who wish to consume them, and have the schools reimburse

for them based on their cost, rather than based on the cost of cow’s

milk. Many students are not drinking their milk or don’t drink milk at

all but would benefit from the non-dairy alternative. Students should

not have to have a doctor’s note or note from their parents in order

to consume these beverages as is currently required as it places a

burden on the very populations who most need it. Because students of

color have a much higher rate of lactose intolerance, denying them a

beverage amounts to racial bias.

7. Ask that the USDA stop supplying red meat as part of the

commodity program. Red meat and processed red meats have been shown to

promote cancer. In fact, processed red meats are now known to be

“convincing†carcinogens. While the USDA does not supply processed red

meat directly to schools, schools are allowed to send their commodity

food to a processor and have it made into a processed red meat. But

processed or not, our tax dollars should not be funding food that we

know promotes cancer.

8. Finally, ask for more funding. The amount of money that schools

have to actually spend on food for lunch, for example, is just 90

cents per student. The rest of the money goes to labor and overhead.

Out of that 90 cents, 20 cents comes in the form of commodity foods.

In New York State, the top 4 commodity foods are: beef, chicken,

cheese, and white potato products.

 

Remember, the comments are due by the end of the day this Wednesday.

Also remember that if the link does not work, just cut and paste the

address and it should work.

 

If every person on this list would take just 5 †" 10 minutes to make

these comments it could make a tremendous difference. I know that

sometimes people don’t want to bother, feeling that it doesn’t make a

difference. But I am telling you that if they get emails from every

one of you, it will make a difference, at least to some extent, to

push things a little farther than they would have otherwise been pushed.

 

So please, we are counting on you to do this now †" for the children.

 

Thanks,

 

Amie Hamlin

Executive Director

 

PS †" If you’ve been wanting to sign up for our fall benefit this

Tuesday, it’s not too late. We still have some space available. Just

go to our website at www.healthyschoolfood.org and click on the banner

at the top to sign up on line. It’s on Tuesday night, in Manhattan, at

the Art Studio of Peter Max. Mehmet Oz, MD, Jayni Chase, Alex Jamieson

& Morgan Spurlock, are just a few of the people who will be there. If

you can’t come, won’t you please consider going to

www.healthyschoolfood.org/donate.htm and make a donation? We can

accept any donation over $10, and if everyone on the list would donate

just $10, it would make a tremendous difference in helping us to reach

more students.

NY Coalition for Healthy School Food

amie

www.healthyschoolfood.org

[Guest guest]

I'd like to add that we ask to rid the schools of non-organic hormone-laden milk

and replace it with cartons of organic milk and provide a choice for other

" milk " (preferably almond not soy). Not to make anyone squeemish, but

precocious puberty is a concern and getting those icky hormones out of our kids'

lunches should be a priority!