Thursday, April 29, 2010

Weed It and Reap

Weed It and Reap

By MICHAEL POLLAN
Berkeley, Calif.

FOR Americans who have been looking to Congress to reform the food system, these past few weeks have been, well, the best of times and the worst of times. A new politics has sprouted up around the farm bill, traditionally a parochial piece of legislation thrashed out in private between the various agricultural interests (wheat growers versus corn growers; meatpackers versus ranchers) without a whole lot of input or attention from mere eaters.
Not this year. The eaters have spoken, much to the consternation of farm-state legislators who have fought hard — and at least so far with success — to preserve the status quo.
Americans have begun to ask why the farm bill is subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils at a time when rates of diabetes and obesity among children are soaring, or why the farm bill is underwriting factory farming (with subsidized grain) when feedlot wastes are polluting the countryside and, all too often, the meat supply. For the first time, the public health community has raised its voice in support of overturning farm policies that subsidize precisely the wrong kind of calories (added fat and added sugar), helping to make Twinkies cheaper than carrots and Coca-Cola competitive with water. Also for the first time, the international development community has weighed in on the debate, arguing that subsidized American exports are hobbling cotton farmers in Nigeria and corn farmers in Mexico.
On Capitol Hill, hearings on the farm bill have been packed, and newspapers like The San Francisco Chronicle are covering the legislation as closely as The Des Moines Register, bringing an unprecedented level of attention to what has long been one of the most obscure and least sexy pieces of legislation in Congress. Sensing the winds of reform at his back, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told a reporter in July: “This is not just a farm bill. It’s a food bill, and Americans who eat want a stake in it.”
Right now, that stake is looking more like a toothpick. Americans who eat have little to celebrate in the bill that Mr. Harkin is expected to bring to the floor this week. Like the House bill passed in July, the Senate product is very much a farm bill in the traditional let-them-eat-high-fructose-corn-syrup mold.
For starters, the Old Guard on both agriculture committees has managed to preserve the entire hoary contraption of direct payments, countercyclical payments and loan deficiency payments that subsidize the five big commodity crops — corn, wheat, rice, soybeans and cotton — to the tune of $42 billion over five years.
The Old Guard has also managed to add a $5 billion “permanent disaster” program (excuse me, but isn’t a permanent disaster a contradiction in terms?) to help farmers in the High Plains struggling to grow crops in a drought-prone region that, as the chronic need for disaster aid suggests, might not be the best place to grow crops.
When you consider that farm income is at record levels (thanks to the ethanol boom, itself fueled by another set of federal subsidies); that the World Trade Organization has ruled that several of these subsidies are illegal; that the federal government is broke and the president is threatening a veto, bringing forth a $288 billion farm bill that guarantees billions in payments to commodity farmers seems impressively defiant.
How could this have happened? For starters, farm bill critics did a far better job demonizing subsidies, and depicting commodity farmers as welfare queens, than they did proposing alternative — and politically appealing — forms of farm support. And then the farm lobby did what it has always done: bought off its critics with “programs.” For that reason “Americans who eat” can expect some nutritious crumbs from the farm bill, just enough to ensure that reform-minded legislators will hold their noses and support it.
It’s an old story: the “hunger lobby” gets its food stamps so long as the farm lobby can have its subsidies. Similar, if less lavish, terms are now being offered to the public health and environmental “interests” to get them on board. That’s why there’s more money in this farm bill for nutrition programs and, for the first time, about $2 billion to support “specialty crops” — farm-bill-speak for the kind of food people actually eat. (Since California grows most of the nation’s specialty crops, this was the price for the state delegation’s support. Cheap indeed!)
There’s also money for the environment: an additional $4 billion in the Senate bill to protect wetlands and grasslands and reward farmers for environmental stewardship, and billions in the House bill for environmental cleanup. There’s an important provision in both bills that will make it easier for schools to buy food from local farmers. And there’s money to promote farmers’ markets and otherwise support the local food movement.
But as important as these programs are, they are just programs — mere fleas on the elephant in the room. The name of that elephant is the commodity title, the all-important subsidy section of the bill. It dictates the rules of the entire food system. As long as the commodity title remains untouched, the way we eat will remain unchanged.
The explanation for this is straightforward. We would not need all these nutrition programs if the commodity title didn’t do such a good job making junk food and fast food so ubiquitous and cheap. Food stamps are crucial, surely, but they will be spent on processed rather than real food as long as the commodity title makes calories of fat and sugar the best deal in the supermarket. We would not need all these conservation programs if the commodity title, by paying farmers by the bushel, didn’t encourage them to maximize production with agrochemicals and plant their farms with just one crop fence row to fence row.
And the government would not need to pay feedlots to clean up the water or upgrade their manure pits if subsidized grain didn’t make rearing animals on feedlots more economical than keeping them on farms. Why does the farm bill pay feedlots to install waste treatment systems rather than simply pay ranchers to keep their animals on grass, where the soil would be only too happy to treat their waste at no cost?
However many worthwhile programs get tacked onto the farm bill to buy off its critics, they won’t bring meaningful reform to the American food system until the subsidies are addressed — until the underlying rules of the food game are rewritten. This is a conversation that the Old Guard on the agriculture committees simply does not want to have, at least not with us.
But its defiance on the subsidy question may actually be a sign of weakness, for one detects a note of defensiveness creeping into the rhetoric. “I know people on the outside can sit and complain about this,” Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, told The San Francisco Chronicle last summer. “But frankly most of those people have no clue what they’re talking about. Most people in the city have no concept of what’s going on here.”
It seems more likely that, this time around, people in the city and all across the country know exactly what’s going on — they just don’t like it.
Mr. Peterson’s farm bill passed the House by the smallest margin in years, and might have been picked apart on the floor if Representative Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, hadn’t leapt to its defense.
(She claimed to be helping freshmen Democrats from rural districts.)
But Senate rules are different, and Mr. Harkin’s bill will be challenged on the floor and very possibly improved. One sensible amendment that Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, and Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, are expected to introduce would put a $250,000 cap on the payments any one farmer can receive in a year. This would free roughly $1 billion for other purposes (like food stamps and conservation) and slow the consolidation of farms in the Midwest.
A more radical alternative proposed by Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, and Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, would scrap the current subsidy system and replace it with a form of free government revenue insurance for all American farmers and ranchers, including the ones who grow actual food. Commodity farmers would receive a payment only when their income dropped more than 15 percent as the result of bad weather or price collapse. The $20 billion saved under this plan, called the Fresh Act, would go to conservation and nutrition programs, as well as to deficit reduction.
What finally emerges from Congress depends on exactly who is paying closest attention next week on the Senate floor and then later in the conference committee. We know the American Farm Bureau will be on the case, defending the commodity title on behalf of those who benefit from it most: the biggest commodity farmers, the corporations who sell them chemicals and equipment and, most of all, the buyers of cheap agricultural commodities — companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.
In the past that alliance could have passed a farm bill like this one without breaking a sweat. But the politics of food have changed, and probably for good. If the eaters and all the other “people on the outside” make themselves heard, we just might end up with something that looks less like a farm bill and more like the food bill a poorly fed America so badly needs.

Michael Pollan, a contributing writer at The Times Magazine and a professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and the forthcoming “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.”

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

How the feds make bad-for-you food cheaper than healthful fare

How the feds make bad-for-you food cheaper than healthful fare

by Tom Philpott

22 Feb 2006 9:46 PM



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Big Ag, Department of Agriculture, environmental justice, gardening, grassroots, local food, New York, Placemaking, Poverty and the Environment, sustainable agriculture





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If you're going to talk about poverty, food, and the environment in the United States, you might as well start in the Corn Belt.


So good, and so good for you -- until it's turned into soda.

Photo: stock.xchng.

This fertile area produces most of the country's annual corn harvest of more than 10 billion bushels, far and away the world's largest such haul. Where does it all go? The majority -- after accounting for exports (nearly 20 percent), ethanol (about 10 percent, and climbing), and excess (another 10 percent) -- anchors the world's cheapest food supply in purchasing-power terms.

Our food system is shot through with corn. It feeds the animals that feed us: more than 50 percent of the harvest goes into domestic animal operations. About 5 percent flows into high-fructose corn syrup, adding a sweet jolt to soft drinks, confections, and breakfast cereal. All told, it's a cheap source of calories and taste. Yet all this convenience comes with a price -- and not just an environmental one.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the amount Americans spend on food as a percentage of disposable income has fallen from 15.4 percent in 1980 to 10.8 percent in 2004. But while we've spent less money on food, our waistlines have expanded. The obesity rate, after hovering around 15 percent from 1960 to 1980, surged to 31 percent in the last 25 years, USDA figures show. The percentage of overweight children tripled in the same time period. Meanwhile, incidence of type II diabetes, a diet-related condition with a host of health-related complications, leapt 41 percent from 1997 to 2004.

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This trend has hit low-income groups particularly hard. The obesity rates for "poor" and "near-poor" people stand at 36 percent and 35.4 percent, respectively, against an overall average of 29.2 percent for "non-poor," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. While the CDC doesn't break down diabetes rates by income, a look at the disease through the lens of ethnicity shows that those rates tend to align with economics: African Americans and Mexican Americans, for instance, have higher diabetes rates than whites, and lower median incomes.

Why do low-income people tend to exhibit more diet-related health problems? Adam Drewnowski, professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, posits a simple answer: people are gaining weight and getting sick because unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food -- thanks in large part to federal policies.

Sweetness and Power
If the USDA's food pyramid recommends two to five cups of fruits and vegetables per day, its budget -- mandated by Congress through the Farm Bill -- encourages different behavior altogether.


Will the real food pyramid please stand up?

Photo: Klaus Post/stock.xchng.

Under the Farm Bill, the great bulk of USDA largesse flows to five crops: corn, soy, cotton, wheat, and rice. Of the $113.6 billion in commodity subsidy payments doled out by the USDA between 1995 and 2004, corn drew $41.8 billion -- more than cotton, soy, and rice combined. By contrast, apples and sugar beets, the only other fruit or vegetable crops that draw federal subsidies, received $611 million over the same period. (The latter are generally processed into sweeteners.)

The huge corn payouts encourage overproduction, and have helped sustain a long-term trend in falling prices. According to figures from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, the inflation-adjusted global commodity price for corn plunged 61 percent between 1983 and 2002. Today a bushel, roughly 56 pounds, fetches about $2.

Cheap corn, underwritten by the subsidy program, has changed the diet of every American. It has allowed a few corporations -- including Archer Daniels Midland, the world's largest grain processor -- to create a booming market for high-fructose corn syrup. HFCS now accounts for nearly half of the caloric sweeteners added to processed food, and is the sole caloric sweetener for mass-market soft drinks. Between 1975 and 1997, per-capita consumption jumped from virtually nothing to 60.4 pounds per year -- equal to about 200 calories per person, per day. Consumption has generally hovered around that level since.

According to Drewnowski and his student Pablo Monsivais, cheap and abundant additives such as HFCS allow manufacturers to sweeten food liberally without adding much to their production costs. For people on a tight budget, these additives can also make cheap food the most efficient way to get calories.

To illustrate his point, Drewnowski distinguishes between "energy-dense" and "nutrient-dense" foods. For energy-dense, think of a package of Ding Dongs -- 360 calories, 19 grams of fat, and a liberal dose of high-fructose corn syrup. For nutrient-dense, think of a three-ounce chunk of wild salmon, delivering high-quality protein and essential fatty acids, among other nutrients, in a 185-calorie package. The former will run you about a buck at any convenience store, bodega, or supermarket in the country. For the latter, prepare to sidle up to a pristine Whole Foods fish counter and shell out about $5.

From a short-term economic viewpoint, the Ding Dongs present a better deal: 360 calories per dollar, and no need for the time or skill to cook. "If you're on a limited income trying to feed a family, in a sense you're behaving rationally by choosing heavily sweetened and fat-laden foods," Drewnowski says.

The price gap between these two categories is growing. Drewnowski and Monsivais show that the overall cost of food consumed at home, when adjusted for inflation, has been essentially unchanged since 1980. But over the same time, the price of soft drinks plunged 30 percent, and the price of candy and other sweets fell 20 percent. Meanwhile, the price of fresh fruits and vegetables rose 50 percent.

"Energy-dense foods ... are the cheapest option for the consumer," Drewnowski says. "As long as the healthier lean meats, fish, and fresh produce are more expensive, obesity will continue to be a problem for the working poor."

Thus far, government efforts to address diet-related health problems among low-income Americans have done little to reduce incidence of obesity and diabetes. One reason may be that even when they do account for the economics of different types of foods, such programs often neglect other pressures faced by low-income families.

In 1999, for example, the USDA began promoting a revised "Thrifty Food Plan," designed to help people choose low-cost, healthy foods. But as Diego Rose of Tulane University's Department of Community Health Sciences showed in a 2004 study, the plan failed to account for time stresses on working-class families. Rose calculated that it would take an average of 16 hours per week to prepare the meals outlined in the Thrifty plan, and that working women tended to have only about six hours per week to devote to the kitchen at the time the plan was unveiled.

Changing Diets, and Lives
Grassroots, community-driven efforts may prove more effective in transforming diets than any federal policy. The Los Angeles-based Community Food Security Coalition represents 325 organizations in the U.S. and Canada dedicated to "building strong, sustainable local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food to all people at all times."


Tending a community garden in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Courtesy of Added Value.

Unlike the USDA and other pieces of the federal bureaucracy, groups like CFSC tend to view food as part of a broader economic-development effort. "Not only are people in low-income communities getting sick from the food they have access to, but the economies are sick, too," says Hank Herrera, a pioneer in the community food-security movement who has served on CFSC's board. Herrera runs the Rochester, N.Y.-based Center for Popular Research, Education, and Policy and the New York Sustainable Agriculture Working Group. "You can't separate community-level economics from food advocacy."

Herrera became active in food politics in 1993, after the only supermarket in his northeast Rochester neighborhood burned down. Median household income in the neighborhood hovered below the poverty line; its economic profile resembled that of the South Bronx. The chain that owned the store opted not to rebuild, and residents faced two options familiar to people in poor neighborhoods all over the country: travel to a wealthier neighborhood to buy food, or shop at corner stores, where the prices are high and fresh food is scarce.

Herrera helped found North East Neighborhood Alliance. Although the group put the numbers together to convince the Dutch multinational supermarket chain Tops to open an outlet in the area, residents weren't satisfied. "We realized it was great to have a supermarket in the area. But the profits leave the neighborhood, and local farmers and producers are ignored," Herrera says. So NENA kept organizing. Today, the group oversees a 2.7-acre tract that houses a working organic farm and a restaurant. "There was a pent-up demand for consistent access to fresh fruits and vegetables, and we delivered it," Herrera says. "And we created not only jobs, but capital formation. The profits stay here."

Ken Meter has seen the same dangerous patterns in less populous places. "The situations in rural and urban areas aren't that much different," says Meter, of the Minneapolis-based Crossroads Resource Center. "Most farmers in the Midwest are producing for a global commodity market, not for their neighbors or even themselves." Not only has that model helped lead to rising obesity rates -- according to a recent study by the University of Pittsburgh Center for Rural Health Practice, 20 percent of rural seventh-graders qualify as obese, versus 16 percent for their urban peers -- it has also been disastrous for local economies.

In one study in southeastern Minnesota, Meter found that between 1997 and 2003, local farmers sold an annual average of $912 million into the global commodity market. But to do so, they spent a jaw-dropping average of $996 million each year -- meaning an average annual loss of $84 million. Meanwhile, area residents spent $500 million per year buying food from outside the region, and another $500 million purchasing farm fertilizer and other inputs produced outside the region. Combined, that makes an outflow of $1 billion -- or more than the area brings in by selling into the commodity market.

"Essentially, this economy is extractive," Meter says. "Our food system doesn't build wealth in our high-producing areas, it extracts wealth." Meter says the area's economy benefits not local farmers or consumers, but rather the large operations like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill, which thrive on low prices for commodity inputs. The federal government picks up the tab for a failing economy; between 1997 and 2003, federal subsidies poured into southeastern Minnesota an average of $98 million per year.

Meter reckons that if the region's consumers were to buy 15 percent of their food from local sources, it would generate as much income for the region as two-thirds of farm subsidies. He says the Southeast Minnesota Food Network, an organization formed in 2001 to refocus area farmers on producing for the local market and encourage consumers to buy local, has been using his data to recruit new members.

As the federal government dithers with its food pyramids and ruinous cheap-corn policy, low-income communities are organizing to gain control over the quality of their food supply. Meter's work in the Midwest and Herrera's in the Northeast represent the rumblings of a growing real-food underground -- an upsurge that challenges not just the hegemony of processed food, but also the social relations that allow it to thrive.


Click here to read about a community food uprising in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Turn the Eat Around

Wander into Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood on a Saturday morning in summer, and you'll see a sight not uncommon in New York City these days: a thriving and diverse farmers' market. Neighborhood denizens cluster around stands offering free-range meat, fresh cheese, cream-on-top milk, and a whole array of fresh fruit and vegetables, many of them grown right down the block.


An Added Value youth leader at the Red Hook farmers' market.

Courtesy of Added Value.

Yet unlike most of New York's bustling green markets, which tend to thrive in upscale residential and shopping areas, this one lies in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. Red Hook's median family income is below the federal poverty line of $19,000 for a family of four, and 40 percent of the neighborhood's families live on less than $10,000 per year, according to the 2000 census. More than 80 percent of its population lives in public housing.

In fact, not many outsiders actually wander into Red Hook. When New York City's legendary city planner Robert Moses patched together plans for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the 1940s, he let the road slice right into the working-class area, leaving it shoehorned between the traffic-choked highway and New York Harbor. According to Ian Marvy -- cofounder of Added Value, the nonprofit that runs the farmers' market -- that isolation is only one of the historical legacies haunting the neighborhood.

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I'm Hatin' It How the feds make bad-for-you food cheaper than healthful fareAttack of the killer corn Why the heavily subsidized corn harvest amounts to an annual environmental calamity.
In the 1950s, the maritime industry that had long defined the area moved to New Jersey, leaving a void not only in dock jobs but also in the support economy: small shops, restaurants, and the like. Rapid white flight followed, financed partially by the GI Bill and facilitated by the construction of highways and suburbs. According to Marvy, by 1960, Red Hook's population had plunged from 50,000 to 15,000. Today it stands at 11,000 and, local sources say, is about 40 percent black, 40 percent Latino, and 20 percent white.

Marvy, a youth advocate, first came to Red Hook in 1998 to work with young offenders through the Red Hook Community Justice Center. "I realized that the kids doing community service weren't doing anything that was meaningful to them, or to the community," he says. "It was this wasted resource -- here you had these kids who really needed to learn some new skills, and this community that could really have used some youthful energy. And all they were doing was picking up trash in a park, or re-shelving books in the library."

Marvy talked a local nonprofit into letting his group manage a community garden that had fallen into disuse. He was surprised by how readily the kids embraced the work. "Not only did the kids dive right into gardening, they kept coming back to hang out in the garden even after their service was done," he says. While they loved to garden, they also needed a legitimate way to make money. Because Red Hook's only supermarket had closed down -- making high-priced, low-quality produce sold in bodegas the only option for fresh food -- market gardening suddenly seemed like an ideal solution.

Along with colleague Michael Hurwitz, Marvy launched Added Value in 2001. Their first project was the Red Hook Farmers' Market, where they sold goods grown on their own garden plots and by area farmers. By 2003, they had gotten permission from the city to farm an abandoned three-acre baseball park in Red Hook. Today, a local supermarket has reopened, but Added Value is still going strong. In addition to offering fresh, high-quality goods to neighborhood residents through the farmers' market, the nonprofit sells salad greens to two nearby restaurants, both recently named among the five best restaurants in Brooklyn by New York magazine. Since opening in 2001, Added Value has provided training and a paycheck for 85 neighborhood teenagers.

Red Hook still has its problems; there's an active drug trade, and residents suffer the health issues common in many low-income neighborhoods. Marvy notes that of the seven students currently in the program, two have diabetes, "and every one of them has at least one family member with it." The neighborhood's diabetes hospitalization rate is twice the New York City average for children, and 50 percent higher than the city average for adults.

But there's no shortage of hope, either. Added Value is currently working with a local elementary school on a food-systems curriculum for first-graders. "The whole first-grade class is spending three of their 35 hours of classroom time each week on our farm, learning all about where food comes from," Marvy says. At a recent PTA meeting, the kids brought their parents to the farm. Says Marvy: "There were all these little kids tugging their parents by the shirtsleeves, saying 'See? I told you there was a farm in Red Hook!'"


Click here to find out how federal policies are making low-income eaters sick.


Friday, April 23, 2010

guilty?

Did you go in the garbage?

Hmm i'm all in.

Cali has no poker face.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Drumsticks for all

Mom who? Temporary sugar memory block. & yes they will brush after.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Crumbs

note the crumbs...
note that the cookies were not put out until 1:30 pm.
official check in time, 4:00 pm.
only crumbs are left.
vultures i tell you... they are all vultures.
did i ever mention i work for a fitness company?
really... i do... really.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Creamy One Pot Pasta

This is a great recipe from the Pampered Chef for those busy nights when there isn't much time to cook or those lazy nights when you want a meal fast but don't want to succumb the fast food drive thru option.


Recipe of the Month - Creamy One-Pot Pasta
This one-pot wonder combines slivered garlic and fresh vegetables for a light pasta dish your family will be sure to request again.
Ingredients:
4 large garlic cloves, peeled
1 jar (7 oz) sun-dried tomatoes in oil, undrained
3 cans (14.5 oz each) chicken broth (5 1/4 cups)
1 lb uncooked penne pasta
1 head broccoli (2 cups small florets)
2 medium carrots, peeled
4 oz reduced-fat cream cheese (Neufchtel)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
Grated fresh Parmesan cheese (optional)
Snipped fresh basil (optional)

Directions:
1. Thinly slice garlic using Paring Knife. Place garlic and 1 tbsp oil from sun-dried tomatoes into (8-qt.) Stockpot. Cook garlic over medium heat 2-3 minutes or until garlic is golden brown, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; add broth. Return to burner; increase heat to high. Cover and bring to a boil. Stir in pasta; cover and simmer vigorously 8-10 minutes or until pasta is almost cooked but still firm, stirring occasionally using Mega Scraper. 2. Meanwhile, cut broccoli into small florets; place into Classic Batter Bowl. Cut carrots in half lengthwise; thinly slice crosswise on a bias using Santoku Knife. Drain sun-dried tomatoes; pat dry with a paper towel. Slice tomatoes into thin strips. Add carrots and tomatoes to batter bowl. 3. Cut cream cheese into cubes. Add vegetables, cream cheese, salt and black pepper to Stockpot. Stir until cream cheese is melted and fully incorporated. Reduce heat to medium; cover and cook an additional 2-4 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Serve immediately in Simple Additions Dots Large Round Bowl. If desired, top with grated fresh Parmesan cheese and snipped fresh basil. Yield: 6 servings
Cook's Tips: For an interesting flavor twist, omit salt, black pepper, Parmesan cheese and basil. Add 1 tbsp Moroccan Rub or Greek Rub. For a heartier version of this recipe, add grilled turkey Italian sausage or sliced grilled chicken breasts to pasta. If desired, 2 cups halved cherry tomatoes can be substituted for the sun-dried tomatoes.

Nutrients per serving: Calories 410, Total Fat 11 g, Saturated Fat 3.5 g, Cholesterol 15 mg, Carbohydrate 65 g, Protein 15 g, Sodium 1000 mg, Fiber 5 g ?

2010 The Pampered Chef used under license.
This recipe was developed and tested in The Pampered Chef Test Kitchens by professional home economists.


Friday, April 9, 2010

CPS pledges to provide healthier cafeteria food

Informing article from Catalyst Chicago, an independent reporting outlet, regarding the new CPS commitment to better school food for the Chicago schools.
CPS' pledges or promises don't make me sleep better at night, but maybe this is something they will be able to succeed in seeing the national focus on food, obesity and school food in particular is in the spotlight..

CPS pledges to provide healthier cafeteria food Posted By Rachel Schneider On Wednesday, April 7, 2010 In Government and Policy
The lunch ladies weren’t just serving students this morning at Sharon Christa McAuliffe Elementary School. They also handed green plastic trays to officials from the Chicago Public School, the United States Department of Agriculture and members of the Healthy Schools Campaign. The officials were there to launch CPS’ new nutritional standards—a move demanded by students who showed up at last month’s Board of Education meeting complaining of unhealthy and unappetizing school food. At McAuliffe on Wednesday, whole wheat pizza, cucumber salad and chicken jambalaya replaced the usual nachos, potatoes and assortment of deep-fried foods. By the Fall, every CPS school will have a new menu featuring healthier options like these, CPS Logistics Coordinator Louise Esaian said. They’ll also have whole grains and a different vegetable every day, including more that are dark green and orange. And they will have more fiber and reduced-fat salad dressing and mayonnaise. CPS put out a bid for its cafeteria food based on the new guidelines. The current food service provider Chartwells Thompson Hospitality responded to the bid that it could provide this more nutritional fare for the same $58 million it got in its previous contract. The new nutritional guidelines set Chicago Public Schools up to be part of the Healthier U.S. Schools Challenge, which recognizes schools for increasing nutritional offerings and physical activities. CPS officials also are expanding its breakfast programs. Currently, 181 schools have in-class breakfasts so all of their students eat before studies begin. Schools without the program serve an additional 40,000 students every day. And with the new food standards, students are eating cereals with more fiber and less sugar instead of donuts and Pop-tarts. “We are pleased to see that CPS sees that health is an important pathway to learning,” said Rochelle Davis, executive director of Healthy Schools Campaign, a national organization based in Chicago. Students and parents also are happy with the changes. Two McAuliffe students spoke during the presentation Wednesday and said they are thankful for the fresh food and fresh air. They said they enjoy eating the healthier dishes and think their classmates will too. Davis said parents were a big part of this initiative. Even those who are not part of the Healthy Schools Campaign have been supportive. “Parents educated themselves, made changes in their homes and reached out to the school,” Davis said. Maria Duarte and Jovita Flores, McAuliffe parents and members of the Healthy Schools Campaign, have children with nutrition-related health problems. They are worried about their kids getting sick from unhealthy food. “We want to avoid the diseases,” Duarte said. They have been working hard to achieve the changes CPS is implementing and think they will be beneficial.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

On the road again... Move on cold weather. Spring is here!

goodbye cold weather and winter and snow! take a trip till next year... we'll miss you so.

and not to jinx myself, but tonight when i fold up the snow pants and put away the scarves, i will forget that it still is only April here in the Midwest and we are still at risk fo scarves and glove weather. But we must choose to move on and if we perchance get 2 in of the fluffy white next week or in a month, we'll have to suffer through it and think sunny thoughts!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Are you digging a hole or building a cathedral?


I received this e-mail the other day...

Are you digging a hole or building a cathedral?
Last month I attended a professional development and networking luncheon. It was more interesting than it sounds.
Something from that lunch has stuck with me and I don't mean the dozens of announcements or painfully basic tips on getting involved in social media.

During a conversation about the characteristics that make up a leader, the woman facilitating our discussion told a story.

    A woman was walking down the street and saw three men, each one digging a hole in the ground. The woman stopped and asked the first man, "What are you doing?"

    That man didn't hesitate at all. He answered, "I'm digging a hole."

    The woman moved on to the next man and asked him, "What are you doing?"

    This man looked at his toolbox, then back at the woman. Then he said, "I'm building something."

    The woman walked a bit further and reached the third man. She asked, "What are you doing?"

    That man leaned back on his shovel and stared into space for just a moment before replying, "I'm creating a cathedral."

Each of those men performed the same task, but they had different perspectives on why they were doing it. The point of that story, as I'm sure you can figure out, is that a leader is someone who not only completes the task at hand, but also understands how it fits into the larger goal and shares the vision of that bigger picture.

I left that luncheon a little disappointed, as I'd hoped to take away some more tangible tips for positioning myself as a leader. But later, as I sifted through the stack of business cards I'd collected that day, I kept coming back to that phrase: creating a cathedral.

I thought about creating a cathedral and what that means to me. I thought about it as I listened to Matchbox 20 sing about being the head honcho. I thought about it as I read blog posts by stay-at-home moms who consider themselves family managers. I thought about it as I looked at my to-do list and wished I could delegate the less fun tasks to someone else.

And I realized I'd learned more than I realized about leadership.
Leadership is more than being in charge, being the boss of somebody. It's more than a fancy office or an impressive title. It's more than having underlings follow your directions; it's more than having underlings.

Leadership is about stewardship. It's about understanding that each item on our to-do list is part of a goal, a vision. Even when it's not fun. Or seemingly important. Or glamorous, rewarding, gratifying. And it's about doing those things well, because the bigger picture is more important than the tedium, the boredom, the sweat, the tears.

It's remembering that writing 300 press releases in one month, while repetitive, is my contribution to the success of 650 small businesses across this country. It's remembering that balancing my checkbook, though boring and full of math, is the accountability that keeps my family within the budget that will free us from debt. It's remembering that changing diapers, while at times disgusting, is a gesture of love to my daughter.

I become a leader even when I'm just leading myself when I treat my tasks as part of the bigger picture that I believe in. And no big surprise here it's what God tells us to do anyway.

While the image of a cathedral is new to me, the idea of working with honor no matter how large or small the task, is one the Lord has taught me over and over. After yet another reminder a few months ago, I finally wrote it out on a giant post-it and stuck it above my computer at work:

"Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus."
(Colossians 3:17)
"Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men."
(Ephesians 6:7)

Your to-do list may look different than mine, but we can all create a cathedral with even our most mundane tasks. What is your cathedral today?

After reading this and mulling it over for a while I was inspired to think about perspective and what it really means to me.

I came up with the following statements:

It is something I have control over.

It is something I can change.

It is something that I can use to produce results with those around me. Positive or negatively.

I was challenged to write down 20 things that I am grateful for to help spur my perspective positively.

This is what I came up with, and although most are very surface level things, I know they are things that I take for granted and don't always appreciate.

1. my freedom

2. my husband

3. my children

4. being healthy

5. eating food I choose

6. eyes to see

7. clean water

8. warm/ dry house

9. mysic

10. cali

11. my mom

12. good schools

13. vitamins

14. friends

15. my church

16. tv

17. books

18. laughter

19. prayer

20. washing machine/ dryer