Whoever said school lunches had to be boring? Schools in Mountain Lake, Minn. want to make sure students not only enjoy healthier school lunches but also hope to let kids experience different cultural foods and flavors from around the world. The new flavors come from Taher Regional Chefs who have visited other parts of the world and then visit the schools to recreate the flavors within school lunches. Students are intrigued by the flavors, as the Chefs have brought back inspirations from France, Turkey, India, Vietnam, Singapore and Jakarta to the schools lunches. Fresh fruits that have been a popular hit among students are jamaica and mango. Having culturally diverse lunches could be a fun and innovative way for kids to try new fruits and vegetables to their diets, ...
Schools across eight Kentucky counties now get to enjoy fresh food from local farmers in their school lunches. The counties involved are Grayson, Boyle, Clark, Oldham, Harlan, Martin, Morgan and Pike. All are now part of the new initiative for healthier and tastier school lunches. Chefs worked with local food service staff in March to launch the "Chefs in Schools Collaborative", where six schools were trained with local Chefs to come up with their own way of spicing up traditional fairs like tacos and meatballs. Kristy Hodges, the school district food service director has worked with Chef Chris Byrd to create lunches that include produce from local farms and are lower in sodium, less processed and use more natural seasonings. According to Hodges, as stated in a ...
Southern California schools are about to get help and funding from an unexpected source, a local grocery store. According to a recent article, the ALDI grocery store has recently partnered with Action for Healthy Kids (AFHK) to invest in 15 Southern California area schools to improve overall wellness environments through grants and technical assistance for the 2015 to 2016 school year. The investment from ALDI of $175,000 will go towards helping the schools expand and implement school wellness programs like AFHK's Game On program, and engage community members, parents and ALDI employees to promote wellness at school and home environments. In 2011, the company helped schools through partnering with AFHK in Chicago and hopes to continue to expand and benefit the more than 11,000 ...
A new study from researchers from the University of Adelaide studied over four hundred South Australian children ages 9 to 10 in various socioeconomic status and found that 91 % of students were missing daily recommended amounts of vegetables. The study also found that intake of sodium, sugar and saturated fat was excessive, which can lead to diet-related health risks like high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity. The researchers suggested that parents swap out nutrient-poor foods that are high in fat, sugar or salt for healthier fresh foods like high-fiber fruits and or vegetables, noting that these small changes are important as daily eating habits can be taken into adulthood. To learn more about this study, click here. Copy & Share on Twitter: What future habits might ...
Las papas son un ingrediente importante en muchos platos latinos populares, tales como papas con carne, caldos y papas horneadas. Una nueva investigación sugiere que el comer esta verdura más de cuatro veces a la semana puede aumentar el riesgo de presión arterial elevada, una condición que afecta a millones de latinos en Estados Unidos, informa HealthyDay De acuerdo con investigadores que analizaron datos de más de 180, 000 personas que participaron en tres estudios diferentes en los EE.UU., encontraron que las papas al horno, hervidas o puré de papa está vinculada con un aumento del riesgo del 11%; comer papas fritas está ligada a un riesgo del 17%. "Las patatas tienen lo que se llama un alto índice glucémico en comparación con otras verduras", dijo el investigador ...
A new proposed ordinance for all food establishments to offer water and milk as default beverages on kids menus is being discussed among the Chula Vista City Council. The new ordinance is a joint effort between city staff members, the San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative, Community Health Improvement Partners and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy in hopes to decrease childhood obesity. A districtwide survey of student's height and weight in 2010 had found that 39.8 percent of students in the survey were overweight or obese. However, recent efforts to decrease childhood obesity by increasing physical activity in schools , revamping wellness policies, making healthy fundraising changes, ending unhealthy school snacks and removing chocolate milk from the lunch ...
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has officially helped move the FDA to publish sodium-reduction targets for 150 categories of packaged and restaurant foods. The CSPI group explained in a recent article that the average American consumes almost twice as much as the recommended federal dietary guidelines of sodium daily. CSPI hopes that these new reductions of excess sodium in foods will help prevent billions in health care costs and save lives from preventable heart attacks and strokes. To learn more about this healthy change in foods, click here to read the full CSPI report. Copy & Share on Twitter: Good News! @US_FDA issues voluntary sodium reduction targets! Thanks @CSPI #BetterFoods! ...
Working together, local government and non-profits in Santa Barbara, Calif. (43.74% Latino) are redesigning the food environment to focus on health and sustainability. According to a local article, over half of county residents are overweight or obese, and face difficulties in access to healthy foods, affordable housing, health care and more. A Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) report on health behavior shows that over 70% of adults or 214,354 adults over the age of eighteen within the county have inadequate fruit and vegetable consumption- consuming less than five servings of fruit and vegetables each day. "Population growth in the county is expected to increase by 100,000 people", Sigrid Wright of the Community Environmental Council told the Pacific Coast Business Times, ...
College friends Tori Ostenso and Emily Pence met through volunteer opportunities while in school. They soon learned there was plenty of fresh produce in their neighborhoods, but immigrant families lacked access to these healthy options in Rice County, Minn. (8% Latino population). The two students wanted to help. They eventually started a mobile market and eventually began a weekly program to help Latino and other families have greater access to an affordable bag full of fresh local organic vegetables.
Abundant Fresh Produce, But Inequitable Access
Victoria (Tori) Ostenso became keenly aware of the bounty of healthy fresh produce grown in Northfield, Minn (8.4% Latino) while working at Carleton College’s two-acre organic vegetable farm in summer 2012 after her freshman year ...
