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A Healthy Constitution: Nutrition, Our Kids, and Democracy
I was moved by the way Morgan Spurlock framed a narrow long-distance shot down the corridor of a Beckley, West Virginia, middle school in his outstanding 2004 film, Super Size Me. The film is about the toll that fast and processed food takes on all of us. Clearly visible in the background of this particular shot were dozens of students, many of whom were overweight.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Beckley's cafeteria offers only processed food, which is high in fat, sodium and sugar and of very little nutritional value.
Contrast this with the Central Alternative High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. The school serves troubled youth, but teachers, parents and administrators found a way to turn things around; and when they did, discipline problems dropped sharply. Their secret? Instead of the usual processed meals, the school cafeteria offers fresh, locally grown, low-fat, low-sugar alternatives. The healthier meals are delicious. The students love them. They perform better in class and don't get sick as often.
We are learning that when schools serve healthier meals, they solve serious educational and health-related problems. But what's missing from the national conversation about school lunch reform is the opportunity to use food to teach values that are central to democracy. Better food isn't just about test scores, health and discipline. It is about preparing students for the responsibilities of citizenship.
That's why we need to talk about edible education, not just school lunch reform. Edible education is a radical yet common-sense approach to teaching that integrates classroom instruction, school lunch, cooking and gardening into the studies of math, science, history and reading.
Edible education involves not only teaching children about where food comes from and how it is produced but giving them responsibilities in the school garden and kitchen. Students literally enjoy the fruits of their labor when the food they grow is served in healthy, delicious lunches that they can help prepare.
I learned this firsthand through the Chez Panisse Foundation--the organization I helped create to inspire a network of food activists around the world with edible education programs in their own communities. Here in Berkeley, I see children in our edible education program learn about responsibility, sharing and stewardship and become more connected to themselves and their peers. In the process, they come to embody the most important values of citizenship.
Listen to what one student named Charlotte has to say: "Next we went from the blue corn to the sweet corn and each picked an ear to grill. I must say it tasted really good, even without butter." Or Mati: "I think cleaning up is as important as eating. Cleaning up is sort of fun. And we can't just leave it for the teachers, because we made the mess." Or Jose: "I remember the first time I came to the kitchen. I was afraid to do anything. But then I realized, this is my kitchen. So then I started to enjoy it."
Charlotte, Mati and Jose are learning about so much more than lunch. They're learning that farmers depend on the land; we depend on farmers; and our nation depends on all of us. That cooperation with one another is necessary to nurture the community. And that, by setting the table for one another, we also take care of ourselves. School should be the place where we build democracy, not just by teaching about the Constitution but by becoming connected to our communities and the land in more meaningful ways.
In 1785, Thomas Jefferson declared that "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds."
I believe he was right. The school cafeteria, kitchen and garden, like the town square, can and should be the place where we plant and nourish the values that guide our democracy. We need to join a delicious revolution that can reconnect our children to the table and to what it means to be a steward. This is the picture of a caring society, and this is the promise of edible education.
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Show AllThe problem with a policy of using locally grown and healthy food in school cafeterias is that it offers little opportunity for agricorporate profiteering.
If the author can figure out a way for the giants of agribusiness to make a fat profit out of sensible and healthy meals for students then change will be possible.
After all, the beast must be fed before the children can eat.
q
If the children have a heathy diet their brains will work and they will be much less susceptible to propaganda and less likely to become murdering corporate stormtroopers.
Bring America Back !!!!
***The Lesson Plan for next week's Obama talk with Students is rumored to contain edible education as a primary topic.
***Last month, a Chef was consulted on the hor 'oerderves
served with the Beer politics meeting, and the popular food
consultant has recommended that "Pork Fat Rules" and
"Want Fries with That " ????
=====In Beckley, WVA, students will give a rousing cheer while chanting "Yummy, the honey is in the Rock !
"But what's missing from the national conversation about school lunch reform is the opportunity to use food to teach values that are central to democracy."
This is precisely why the "national conversation" isn't occurring. The aim of the national government and its corporate allies is to destroy democracy, not promote it.
Here's an excerpt from an article i wrote for my co-op newsletter, with a Jefferson quote similar to Waters' citation, contrasted with a Hamilton quote from the same time, about the importance of business interests:
****************************
The politics of agriculture
In the cultural mythology of the United States, everything emerges from supply and demand in a “free market” and arises naturally from the character and choices of the people. But political leaders have always believed that politics matters. Law and policy have shaped the economy, and politics profoundly affects agriculture.
In the early days of the United States, most people worked the land. In letters to James Madison a few years after the Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, the second President, wrote:
"It is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.... I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural."
It is ironic and self-contradictory that Jefferson, a large landowner who held other humans in slavery to work his Virginia estate, professed this vision, but as President and as citizen he promoted the idea that government should "provide by every possible means" for a society based on independent small landholders.
Another Founding Father had a different vision. Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury, believed it was the business of government to promote commerce. In The Federalist Papers, written around the same time as Jefferson's letters to Madison, Hamilton wrote:
"The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares."
Two-and-a-third centuries into US history, the supremacy of commerce over agriculture could hardly be greater. Commercial and industrial agriculture are promoted “by every possible means”: financial (price supports, loan guarantees and the tax code); regulatory (health and safety codes and organic standards); legal (constitutional rights for corporations, corporate political cash as “free speech”, patents on life); and technological (petroleum-based agrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, and GMOs).
Assault on farming
Accompanying the political and structural assault on farm communities is reduced social status for farmers and farm work. Part of the cultural mythology of the United States is the positive spin we give our loss of farm population. We trumpet the fact that only 1 out of every 100 persons is a farmer, as if this were an achievement to be proud of. We make fun of farmers and farm culture, rather than honor the people that tie us to the land and feed us. We measure lost population as lower labor cost for agribusiness rather than as lost jobs or lost culture. Industrial farms, commodity conglomerates and agrochemical corporations “externalize” (do not measure) their social and environmental costs.
The assault against human-scale farming is global. Foreign aid promotes US commodity conglomerates at the expense of domestic agriculture in countries we “help”. International Monetary Fund structural adjustment policies, World Bank development projects, and the World Trade Organization require countries to open their economies, including agriculture, to corporate penetration. Rather than invest in infrastructure and support for local farmers and regional markets, the Green Revolution invested in chemical- and machinery-intensive mono-cropping of industrial commodity crops for international markets, and now “The Next Green Revolution” invests billions in GMO crops that further marginalize farming communities and destroy regional markets.
********************
Appreciate this overview. The task right now, to save farming here, is stopping HR 2749.
But ketchup (catsup) IS a vegetable.
Tomatoes are a fruit, which makes you just as big a fool as Reagan.
from the article...
"farmers depend on the land; we depend on farmers"
we must all be farmers, and hunters and gatherers, depending on ourselves...
as long as most of us rely on, defer to, a relative few for our sustenance, and require money to pay for such, we are locked into the economic processes that are killing our world...
After twenty-seven years in the classroom, I grabbed early retirement in June. Absolutely couldn't stand the inhumanity any longer!
One glaring example was the lunchroom policies. Food was overprocessed and completely inedible. When served, fresh fruits were almost always unripe; cooked vegetables overcooked and mushy. Students were conditioned to throw these items out.
Additionally, time constraints prevented the healthy ingestion of anything - 20 minutes total face time with the cafeteria. When asked, almost half of my students said they were taking prescription medicine for acid reflux.
THE AMAZING PART IS THE PARENTS DIDN'T COMPLAIN. Have we all become a bunch of zombies??
Who cares about "fresh fruit?" Fructose is one of the worst things you can put in your body, and pushing it on kids is the equivalent of giving them a drug. I eat fruit about 3 or 4 times a YEAR, and ONLY in the form of berries, since they are the lowest carb fruit. And I serve them with whole cream.
The three main "foods" to avoid are grains, vegetable oils, and fructose. If you can cut out these 3 pernicious items, as well as any form of sugar, you could come close to preventing the serious diseases of civilization in the entire population.
There is no scientific evidence that fruits and veggies are required for health. There is no physiologic need to ingest carbs at all. Your body can manufacture all the glucose it needs ingesting just protein and saturated fat. I've not seen any evidence that a 10 or 20% carb diet is WORSE than a zero-carb diet, but if you don't want to eat any carbs, you will have excellent health and easily maintain a healthy weight. I wouldn't go higher than 10-20% of your diet in carbs,though. That's just asking for trouble.
I can't find one truthful statement concerning nutrition in your ridiculous post.
q
As with the high carb is great, fat is bad proponents, you are painting with a ridiculously broad brush. In your obsession with eliminating carbohydrates, you ignore everything else.
There is evidence that various substances in vegetables and fruits are beneficial to health. For example, scientific studies have indicated that indole 3 carbinol, a substance that is found in the brassica genus of vegetables, ie broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, mustard greens, has anti-cancer properties. There is scientific evidence of the anti-cancer properties of polyphenols found in various plants, for example berries. And beer, made from grains, especially dark beer.
As for the necessity of carbohydrate consumption, different people have different needs from food. There are times, when a quick burst of energy from fast digesting carbohydrates are useful, for example. Not to mention the larger point: not all carbohydrates are the same. At all.
Lastly, to claim that vegetables oils are one of the main foods to cut out is just plain wrong. Again you are lazily painting with a ridiculous broad brush. Flax oil, hemp oil, olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, peanut oil, corn oil, each all have different nutritional profiles. For example, flax and hemp both contain very very high amounts of alpha linolenic acid, which is a type of ESSENTIAL FATTY ACID. Yes, from eating oily fish such as sardines or salmon, you can get essential fatty acids too, EPA and DHA. But then, if you do so, you need to take into account issues such levels of mercury and other heavy metals in the fish.
Just as there are different types of carbohydrates, their are different types of fat, different types of vegetable oil.
Here's a hint: in diet, nuance and detail matter.
Zero-carb is just plain silly. Your body can store about 1500 calores of carb. You need carb to burn fat. Yes, Atkins goes below 20 grams of carb fo 2 weeks to put you into ketosis, but you can't stay in ketosis forever. You need carb to burn fat. Your body will devour itself to get it by deaminating protein. The process is known as dying of starvation. Processed carb is deadly as are most processed vegetable oils. We should get most of our (essential) omega 6 fats from raw nuts and seeds.
You are correct about fructose but 2-3 1/2c servings of fruit a day will not negatively affect most of us. And yes, berries are likely the best choice. If someone has any trouble with carb metabolism, tropical fruits are not good choices.
Biochemical individuality means there is a great deal of variation among us on what works best for our bodies. Hunter-gatherers also ate roots, leaves and berries. These were, of course, much higher in both fiber and nutrients and probably didn't taste as good as they do today. Many vegans are very healthy. People whose ancestors come from Northeren Europe do much better with dairy. Since a well fed human will have 2-5 years of B12 stored in the liver, it seems clear to me that, while we are meat eaters, we are designed to go relatively long periods of time without it.
For general good health, the most important piece is that you can properly digest your food. If not, that's the first thing to fix. That is why some people believe meat is bad for you--their digestion is so poor that eating meat makes them sick.
No evidence for fruits and vegetables? Please.
Combating Globesity
Finding Help From The Healthiest Diets In The World
© Amanda Drew
Apr 21, 2009
Now more than ever, pantries across the world are being filled with all the wrong things.
“Globesity,” the global epidemic of overweight and obesity, is rapidly becoming a major health problem in many parts of the world, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO estimates that there are more than 1 billion overweight adults in the world, 300 million of whom are clinically obese.
“Billions of people whose diet is being rapidly ‘westernized’ are at much greater risk,” said professor Philip James, chairman of the Obesity Task Force, at the annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Feb. 2008. “That is why it is vital that we move away from the relatively recent domination of foods high in fat, sugar and salt…and restore a healthy balance to our diets.”
Healthiest Diets in the World: Mediterranean and Asian
The West has much to learn from the traditional dietary practices of other regions of the world. Although Mediterranean and Asian countries have some of the lowest rates of chronic diseases, a growing trend toward diet westernization in these places has triggered alarming obesity rates. Countries like China and Italy are now practicing a more disciplined pursuit back to their traditional dietary roots, according to Oldways, a non-profit “food issues think tank.”
Based on the dietary patterns of Crete, Greece and Southern Italy, the traditional Mediterranean diet is high in vegetables and fruits and low in meat intake. Instead of butter or margarine, olive oil is used as the principle fat. Lean red meat is typically eaten only a few times per month. Protein is found in weekly consumption of moderate amounts of fish, poultry and nuts, and daily consumption of low-fat and non-fat cheese and yogurt.
The traditional Asian diet is high in fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, and low in saturated and total fat. The Asian food pyramid is based in the daily consumption of rice, noodles and whole grains, and wide varieties of vegetables and fruits. The diet is relatively low in meat and dairy intake. Fish and shellfish are consumed daily, a practice proven to greatly reduce the risk of heart disease. The diet is also high in calcium-rich soy products, nuts, seeds and green leafy vegetables.
Read more: http://nutrition.suite101.com/article.cfm/combating_globesity
Nutrition is like economics -- anybody can make any assertion they want to and claim to be speaking "scientific truth." I've watched so many foodstuffs go in and out of favor -- carbs are good, carbs are bad, protein is good, protein is bad, fresh fruits and vegetables are necessary, fresh fruit and vegetables will kill you, organic is the way to go, organic is a b.s. advertising term, calories count, calories don't count, butter is bad, butter is better for you than margarine, milk is nature's most perfect food, milk is a mucous producer and too much will kill you.
My policy with both nutrition and economics is to ignore everything anybody says until there is overwhelming evidence to support it, which has yet to happen in either so-called "discipline."
Yes, they go out of the way to confuse people so they will say exactly what you say. Much of the hype comes from media who see a poorly conducted research study or a small study with very little general application and tout it. Oat bran is a perfect example of the latter.
Butter--Research has been there since the 70's demonstrating that margarine is toxic. The American Heart Association and others who get funding from Mazola et al, denied it for years. By the early to mid nineties they couldn't ignore the evidence and backtracked just a little. Now they have Benechol to tout.
Here's what the overwhelming evidence regarding nutrition says: Eat a plant, based whole foods diet. Use white flour, white sugar or highly processed fats or anything made with them as little as possible. Get as much local, naturally raised food as you can afford. If money is a factor eat lots of dried beans, whole grains and leafy greens which are very cheap and use meat and dairy in small amounts. Everyone is different. It's called biochemical individuality and means one's man's meat is another man's poison. That's another reason a lot of research is equivocal.
For evidence, spend $49 and get a 1 year subscription to Nutrition and Healing. The research and references are all there as well as clinical experience. www.wrightnewsletter.com You will get access to 9 years of archives. As usual, ignore the ads and stick to the content.
Don't want to spend the money? Go to www.hsibaltimore.com and sign up for free e-alerts. You can also search archives there.
Search: Dr Mark Hyman, functional medicine, pyridoxamine, d'mannose, Bec5, war on holistic MDs
How many mill workers, farm workers, steel workers had the brains and heart to push through HR676?
If only they had had the educational opportunities, connections, wealth, there must have been thousands.
And who have we? Obama the charming. He smiles, plays golf, speaks the kind of English that Bush could only dream about, and what does he do?
Compromise, cajole, cozy up to amoral idiots. What's the plan here Obama? How does this help us get HR676? You said yourself (some time ago) it is the only option.
Something has changed.
It's even worse than that. HR 2749 will destroy our farmers. Period.
Alice Waters is terrific and cares about real food and gardening but she is out of touch with what is happening to our farmers.
The government, in bed with Monsanto who wrote the bill, just loves having people focused on this sort of school choice issue so they miss the massive take over of agriculture that is occurring here and worldwide. Just as bankers and healthcare corporations are making gargantuan grabs for billions and invasive control over our lives, the same is happening in farming. Multinationals are actually attempting to end normal farming altogether.
The regulations, fees, monitoring, surveillance, warrantless entry are nothing compared to Obama having appointed Monsanto VP and lawyer Michael Taylor (same guy who gave us rBGH and genetically engineered food and undid laws for stopping it) to oversee food safety at the FDA. More than likely he willl be the "Administrator" who punishes small farmers and producers with bankrupting penalties and even prison for bureaucratic errors impossible to avoid in a system that is intentionally nonsense based, and who harm no one. Unlimited penalties and unspecified crimes and no judicial review. Meanwhile companies like Cargill and ConAgra who kill people with their contaminated food will continue to be uninspected.
HR 2749 is set to turn our country side into a heavily regulated industry controlled by corporations in which any farmers who can stay in business MUST buy pesticides and GMO seeds and use drugs on their animals to meet the "modern scientific standards" for Good Agricultural Practices all set by the World Trade Organization - which is Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, ConAgra and the biotech corporations.
The farmers in this country need help even more than single payer does. With them, we might have health and survive without the health care we deserve.
By the way, the pharmaceutical industry screwing everyone with health care, is behind this bill which would destroy natural supplement companies, make it a crime to pass truthful nutritional information, mandate pesticides, GMOs, irradiation of food, etc. That is all part of Codex Alimentarius (learn all you can about it - http://www.ceri.com/ed-rath.htm) which was designed by literal Nazi pharmaceutical companies. Two of those companies are providing the swine flu vaccine, despite a war crime history of killing with vaccines.
Obama doesn't care about farmers, or he'd stop using the government to destroy them for his Big Ag and Big Pharma connections. Instead, he gives us the charade of Michelle's organic garden and the USDA pretending it cares about school lunch programs while it is aggressively doing all it can to wipe out the farmers who would provide for it.
HR 2749 must be stopped. If you like farmers markets, if you like having farms in this country and not concentration camps for torture animals, do what you can to let others know how serious this is and stop it.
FYI--HR 2749 has moved into the senate after passing the house 283 to 141. With that margin, things look grim. The vote was almost party line and has certainly given ammo to anti-big government folks and made them easier to turn regarding any form of public healthcare option.
This is another of those "bills from Hell".
I agree that it must be stopped. If anyone can look at this and still defend the Dems, I am at a loss to know what to say. This is far more important than single payer or public option or anything. If this passes we will not be able to heal ourselves even if we know how and want to do it.
Is there still a provision for jail time for anyone daring to make a health claim not approved by FDA? (Fraud and Death Administration)
The only good thing I could say about this bill is that it exposes the true nature of what's being done to us in the world of food, health and agriculture.
I'd call it the new slavery. Obama has already put a Monsanto employee/lobbyist and Clinton administration shill in charge of food safety. What else does anyone have to know?
You can also learn about Codex at www.healthfreedomusa.org
Cannabis seeds are the most nutritious food and its oil is the best of all essential oils. Pot can be grown anywhere and could end world hunger.
I hereby place the darkest cagadera curse on every pot prohibitionist.
What is a cagadera curse? I did a search and the first entry was your post.
Whatever it is, pot prohibitionists should certainly be cursed.
Cagadera, from the Spanish - "the shits". An intestinal problem with external consequences...
Thank you. Very appropriate. Related to Cascara sagrada perhaps?
Its actually related to Culo cagado.
I suspect that if the USA passes HR2479 there will be pressure put on Canada to do much the same under the perceived need to "harmonize regulations" so as to meet the commitments to Nafta.
Fortunately we have Quebec. Their farmers wont go for that at all.
Odd that the Seperatist party seems to be doing the most to stand up for Canadian Sovereignity.