DIY Food Adventure Menu: Lunch and Snack

Entering the Third Trimester


So now I am in my 29th week of pregnancy, just starting the third trimester.  I can understand how the second was the best (and third is the one with the hairy chest?  No, thankfully, no!) and now it starts to get a little more challenging to move around and do the things I am used to doing--like tying my shoes and sleeping :)  I am also a bit more tired and breathing hard easily, which often makes me laugh at the gym when 10 reps of even something light makes me pant.

But the little one is moving around like crazy and the movement is so much more interesting just in the last week.  I can see huge softball-sized pushes stretching out my belly and moving across and he taps, or seems to rhythmically softly kick or tap his hands too slow to be a heartbeat and too fast to be hiccups.  At least I think so.  He is still flipping around and squirming and loves to bop around in my belly whenever I am at rest and sometimes even when I am not, which feels really strange.  Imagine the entire contents of your belly flip-flopping while you walk.  There is nothing in the world quite like it...  He is quite the entertainment for me and my husband :)

I've been keeping active, although my gym workouts have been reduced to 3-4 days a week.  I love to take walks on West Cliff (pictured above) with my husband when he gets home from work and try to do something every day.  I definitely believe that diet and exercise are key to a healthy pregnancy.

I am still keeping up with the DIY Food Adventure through my gym: CrossFit Santa Cruz by making my own food for the majority of my meals and I don't plan on stopping.  It has been the best thing for me and my pregnancy.  My diet is the same, but I have been gaining weight pretty well after that initial slow period during the first to mid-second trimesters.  Now I have already gained 30lbs (!), but I am not eating significantly more and I have if anything tightened up my diet to include fewer weekend cheats on desserts.  I know they make me feel so crappy the next day that I have been trying to have some fruit instead, and the figs in season right now are my favorite.  I can't believe I waited so many years to have raw figs!  They are divine!

I've taken to having broth and a banana for breakfast, an egg scramble (with carnitas if I have some) or just eggs with grapes or apples for second breakfast/lunch, and then the lunches/snacks given below.  I make sure to get in some fresh veggies with at least one or more meals and to eat 3-4 meals a day.


Lunch 

One of my go-to lunches is basically pizza without the crust.  I broil heirloom tomato slices topped with cheese (whole milk mozzarella was a favorite, until my store switched over to part-skim :(--now I like the Farmer's cheese) and pepperoni (such as Applegate brand--a lesser of evils in the processed meat world) and then savor that ooey-gooey deliciousness.  I usually serve it alongside sliced bell peppers (I've found that the smaller they are, the sweeter, and the yellow seem to be sweeter than the red) and cucumbers (the smaller the better on these too).

I have also been known to indulge in Grain-free Biscuits from Food Renegade as sandwiches or open-faced sandwiches with Farmers cheese or an omelet.  I have it alongside loads of raw veg. and/or grapes or cinnamon apples cooked or microwaved with grassfed butter.  

As it gets chillier and cooler, wetter weather descends on Santa Cruz, I'll definitely be adding Heirloom Tomato Soup to my lunch repertoire.  

Snack

I often throw together something quick and take it on the road.  A roasted chicken leg and thigh, some home-roasted and salted cashews, and an apple is an easy meal-on-the-go.  This replaces that handy, delicious Perfect Foods bar I so often fell back on in the past.  Sometimes I'll switch this out with a couple hard-boiled eggs or leftover grassfed beef burger and sub carrots for the carb. 

Keeping hydrated is also something to think about, not just while pregnant.  Pregnancy dulled my love of teas, so I am down to water and this time of year, it can be tricky to guzzle enough cold water on cold days.

I used to like a can/bottle of coconut water post-workout as a great thirst-quencher addition to water with the added electrolytes, but I'll get over it.  I am not relying on even those probably minimally-processed, one-ingredient foods anymore.  Instead, I try to drink some lemon water with salty food or add a pinch of salt to lemon water to get electrolytes back.  I absolutely LOVE lemon water, but it does tend to make me thirsty for more--which is a good thing if I am dehydrated and just can't suck down enough plain, cold water.

Oh and while lemon seems acidic, it is actually a base to your body, so it can counteract some of the high acid load of meats and fruit as a base like veggies.  Founder of the Paleo Diet, Dr. Loren Cordain, has a wealth of information about the integral acid-base balance and how that super-acid diet is a recipe for metabolic disorder.  

For more on making your own sports drink for electrolyte replenishment, check out this post by Primal Girl in a Modern World: Easy Sports Drink Recipe (and skip the stevia--you don't need it). 

And a drink-snack:

When out and about on weekends or as a nice relaxing wind-down to the weekday, we make a trip to the local coffee shop Verve, which has become a destination for my husband and I.  Despite my love of their atmosphere, throughout my pregnancy I have had an aversion to coffee (which is fine since I shouldn't have caffeine anyway) and even my old favorite teas.  Instead of being lame and just sipping water there, I recently found a new love: the steamer--steamed organic milk with their homemade whip cream and a splash of sweetener (if any).  This is a fun indulgence for me at the coffee shop, and if you are in the Santa Cruz area and want the best coffee around, you HAVE to stop at Verve Coffee Roasters.  You won't be disappointed :)

Finally, check out your local meat market for some great ideas when you are stuck in a meat rut.  We have El Salchichero that specializes in grass-fed and pasture raised meats.  I absolutely love their chicherones (pork rinds) and have been known to indulge in their creative sausages as a change in the lunch/snack routine.  While not quite homemade, they are still local and use quality ingredients and I always cook the sausages, usually having them with eggs.  Quality meat definitely makes a difference!

What To Drink Part 4: The Flavored Milk Fiasco

Credit to:

Niklas Bildhauer/Wikimedia Commons

So back to What To Drink.  We started with juice:
What's Wrong With Juice?


Then, we covered milk, the good:
What's Right With Milk?  Part A
What's Right With Milk?  Part B


and the bad:
What's Wrong With Milk?  Part A
What's Wrong With Milk?  Part B


Today, let's take another look at milk as it relates to kids and schools.  


School Milk


Unfortunately, schools aren't likely to adopt raw milk in the near future.  There is just too much hype and fear about it.  Okay, that is a battle for another day, but what about the milk that is offered and is promoted.  What can we do about it?  


For one, we can make it organic and try to find the best sources for it as possible, i.e. healthy cows fed grass.  On Eat Wild there is a list of 100-Percent Grass-fed Dairies by state.  It would also do a world of good to support these smaller dairies and local sources!


Second, perhaps we can get the stuffing out of our government and policy maker's ears about fat.  Guess what?  Low-fat milk isn't saving kids from obesity.  In fact, the added sugar is making the problem worse.  Kids need fat and saturated fat is healthy.  Scared of increasing triglycerides that correlate with heart disease?  Stop eating all that carbohydrate because that's what's contributing to high triglycerides, NOT the saturated fat.  Not convinced?  Read the whole story at Mark's Daily Apple's Definitive Guide to Saturated Fat.  So let the kids drink WHOLE MILK.  


Third, we can offer kids real, unprocessed vegetables as part of their school meals so that kids will actually get the calcium, vitamins, and other minerals they need from their food.  Ideally, we can also downgrade their intake of grains so that they can actually absorb these vitamins and minerals from their food.  Kids can start to value real, whole foods instead of thinking food just comes from a package, carton, or can.  Here is a disturbing clip from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on how little kids know about vegetables.  Watch and cringe:





Fourth, we can fight the flavored milk campaigners who think that kids won't drink milk unless it is "flavored," otherwise known as "sugared." Yes, believe it or not, there is a campaign to keep chocolate milk in school.  This dairy industry-funded campaign, Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk, includes advertisements, petitions, and activism to raise public support.  The campaign could cost them between $500,000 to $1 million, according to their marketing group.  Unfortunately, the funds they are using come from commodity producers through a USDA-administered program.  


Will kids still drink milk if it's plain?  Yes!  Despite the doomsday studies sponsored by the dairy industry, kids will still drink milk.  It will take them some time to adjust, and sales will drop, but perhaps that is a good thing.  Kids might actually start drinking more water and have more appetite for healthy meals if we supplied them in schools.  Imagine that!  

The Flavor of Milk

Why are they pushing so hard for flavored milk?  If they were trying to get kids healthier, wouldn't they try to promote the unflavored milk?  

Here is where Big Corn comes in with the money, power, and surplus.  Guess what sweetener is most common in chocolate milk?  High fructose corn syrup?  Bingo!  Unless you live in a cave, you've probably heard how HFCS is looking worse and worse, held responsible for metabolic syndrome nasties like increasing obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, to just name a few. 

Did you know that flavored milk has the same sugar as a soda?  Read this post from Consume This First and another from Chef Ann, the Renegade Lunch Lady, who is making strides revolutionizing school lunches (see more below).  Doesn't it seem a little contradictory to decry soda, when flavored milk and juice both have the same amount (if not more) of sugar?  Do they really think the vitamins and minerals can overbalance the destruction (and addiction) caused by the sugar?  The funny thing is that you can get your vitamins and minerals from real food without the sugar.  And real food trumps that which is engineered and processed any day.  

Still think the sugar isn't a big deal?  According to USDA guidelines (which are horrendous, but standards nonetheless),  only 10% or less of total calories should come from added sugars.  Just taking the added 4 teaspoons of sugar in one 8oz container of flavored milk, that's nearly half the sugar allowed in a day for children up to 9 years old.  Just think of all the other sources of added sugar in a child's day: cereal, snacks, other flavored drinks, juice, processed foods, etc.  Even on a supposedly junk food- and soda-free diet, most kids are getting WAY too much sugar!  It is no wonder that on average we are consuming twice our allotment of sugar a day!  


Think I am crazy?  Try taking an inventory of sugar in a child's foods for one day.  If you aren't reading labels, you should be!    

Who Is Making A Difference?

Jamie Oliver's revolutionary TED speech

Chef, author, and nutritional advocate Jamie Oliver is attacking the flavored milk in our schools with his campaign for school lunch reform.  His passion and astounding presentation will make you emotional.  Seriously.  

There is another TED speaker: Renegade Lunch Lady, Chef Ann Cooper.  

Chef Ann has been a vocal proponent for school lunch reform, including the removal of flavored milk from her school districts.  She has dubbed flavored milk "soda in drag."  Her TED speech sounds remarkably similar to Jamie Oliver's.  Really makes you disgusted with school lunches and ready to take action, doesn't it?  

The Good News

With the help of prominent supporters like Oliver and Cooper pushing school lunch reform, some schools are saying enough is enough.  Think kids won't drink milk unless it is flavored?  Think again.  

• Berkley, California, and Boulder, Colorado, took flavored milk off the menu in their school districts under the leadership of Chef Ann Cooper.  
• Washington DC has banned the sale of flavored milk in their public schools and others may soon follow.  
• The Florida School Board is contemplating the change too.  
• Others school districts like those in Connecticut have put restrictions on the amount of sugar allowed in flavored milk.  While this is a step in the right direction, the allowed sugar is still too high.  From that link, just look at TruMoo 1% chocolate milk from Garelick Farms, which has 31g of sugar in 8oz of milk.  That's the same as Rockstar Energy Drink or Mountain Dew!  
• Other school districts like those of Barrington, Illinois restrict the days flavored milk can be served by having "Flavored milk Fridays."  

For another summary on the recent debate, check out this recent (Sept. 2010) New York Times article: A School Fight Over Chocolate Milk.

Bottom line: If you are going to let kids drink milk, go full-fat, organic, grass-fed, and raw if at all possible.  Sugar does NOT need to be added to everything a child eats and drinks!  

Keep reading for more debunking of other popular drinks!  Next time let's talk chocolate milk and sports recovery.  


Next segment: What To Drink Part 5: Chocolate Milk for Recovery?

Adventures with Grass-Fed Beef Part I

Happy cows come from California (and Hawaii for those in this pic)!

As I make my way through the last of my second half a cow of grass-fed beef *sniff* *sniff*, I have found the need to catalog what I can do with the different cuts.  So this series will serve as a resource for us to find great ways to cook grass-fed beef.

Through trial and error, I've wandered the relatively uncharted territories of cooking different cuts of grass-fed beef (a very different meat than conventional beef).  One difference between grass-fed and conventional grain-fed beef (ubiquitous in the US) is that grass-fed is healthier.  It's packed with healthy omega-3 fatty acids, CLA, vitamins, and minerals instead of chemicals, pesticides, antibiotics, omega-6 fatty acids, and remnants of their dietary grain (they are what they eat).  Grass-fed is also leaner, which fatphobes jump on as reason enough to partake, but to the less naive, fat is not really the issue since fat is good for us, especially saturated fat.  However, bad fat like that which is high in omega-6 isn't good for us, another tic against grain-fed beef.  The fat of grain-fed cattle is also toxic since fat is the storage site of many of those chemicals pumped into grain-fed cattle to get them to survive their deadly diet and abhorrent feedlot conditions.  For more about why we should eat meat and why it should be grass-fed, pastured, or wild-caught read my Starter Series: 1. Eat meat and if you are still confused about fat, read my Starter Series: 3. Eat fat.  UPDATE 4/15/2010: Fitness Spotlight just posted a great reference for why grass-fed trumps grain-fed: Advantages of Grass Fed Beef and Dairy.

Think it is okay to keep eating grain-fed beef because grass-fed is SO expensive?  Not sure it really matters all that much anyway?  Read this: "'Growing Concern' over marketing tainted beef" recently from USA Today.  Choice bits:

Beef containing harmful pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals is being sold to the public because federal agencies have failed to set limits for the contaminants or adequately test for them, a federal audit finds.

Sound yummy?

Some contamination is inadvertent, such as pesticide residues in cows that drink water fouled by crop runoff. Other contaminants, such as antibiotics, often are linked to the use of those chemicals in farming. For example, the audit says, veal calves often have higher levels of antibiotic residue because ranchers feed them milk from cows treated with the drugs. Overuse of the antibiotics help create antibiotic-resistant strains of diseases.

This story is not alone.  Look into it and you'll be nauseated.  Read The Omnivore's Dilemma and you'll be in tears.  Now are you convinced grass-fed beef is worth every penny?  If not for the sake of the animals, then for the sake of your health.  I think it pays to know your meat and follow your common sense: eat food that nourishes, not harms.

It also saves to buy in bulk and invest in a large freezer.  For roughly the price per pound of grass-fed ground beef (just over $6), I get roasts, ribeyes, NYs, ribs, filets, flat irons, and all the less expensive cuts (stew meat, ground beef, skirt steak, tenderized round, etc.) and 160lbs of it if I buy half a cow.  I buy from a local source: Morris Grassfed located in North-Central California.   The cattle graze on coastal grasslands like those in the picture above.  They are slaughtered humanely--check out the FAQ (definitely one of my considerations).  They are never fed grain or given hormones or sub-therapeudic antibiotics.  Morris Grassfed also has a cute video series about how their food production is helping to recreate grasslands as a holistic management system.  Here is the first part:



You can find your own sources for grass-fed beef at Eat Wild, a great resource for finding local, sustainable, pastured meat.

So here are past recipes with my grass-fed beef:

The Easiest Meat Preparation Known To Man: Seared Steak
--usable with nearly any steak cut from jewel of the cow ribeye to filet to skirt steak and even that dreaded tenderized round (still haven't figured out the optimal preparation for that yet)

Not Your Mama's Pot Roast
--great with chuck roasts and briskets

Basic Meat Sauce
--one of the myriad of uses for grass-fed ground beef

(updated 1/11/11) And newer recipes:

Noodle Nosh
--an easy, Asian-inspired kelp noodle stir fry

Slow Cooker Coconut Curry Pot Roast
--saves you time with an easy prep and unattended cooking time and creates a DELICIOUS meal to feed  the whole family with leftovers

Today's recipe is for that lunch meat staple: roast beef.  It is useful to have enough meat in the house to get you through the week without running into emergency situations where limited options might jeopardize your paleo-style eating.  Of course, I have a grocery store meal ideas post and a dining out post, but the more meat we can stock the fridge with, the better our chances of success.

I came upon this recipe through trial and error with the lean sirloin roast.  When I tried using it for my pot roast, it came out so dry I couldn't eat it.  Even soaking it and serving it in broth couldn't save it.  Dry as dust.  Okay, the lack of intramuscular fat did me in.  Nothing to melt into the meat to give it a buttery deliciousness.  Second try: dry roasting using this recipe from allrecipes.com.  Success!  While I overcooked the meat, it was still tender and juicy and the seasonings gave great flavor.  I put a little too much cayenne in the mix and set my mouth on fire eating it, but it was good...so good.  So trying again, I mixed up the seasonings to something I like even better than the first attempt and pulled the meat out while on the rare side.  Damn near perfection, and reached it once I served it with raw, grass-fed butter on top :)

So in addition to the Roasted Turkey Breast recipe of yesteryear giving you lunchmeat for a week, try this easy-prep, couple-of-hour-no-fussing roasting of grass-fed sirloin roast.

Roast Beast: Dry-roasted Grass-fed Sirloin
Easy, homemade deli-style roast beef that is just as good for dinner as leftovers and lunch meat for the week.  
Cooking Time: 1-2hrs depending on size of roast and desired doneness

Ingredients:
1 sirloin tip roast, tied with twine, 2-4lbs (more of less, just adjust cooking time as needed)
1T kosher salt (or 1/2T would be fine if your roast is on the smaller side)
1T garlic powder
1T dried oregano
1T dried thyme
1/4t cayenne pepper
1t or about 25 grinds of black pepper
3T extra virgin olive oil (or enough to make a thick paste)
optional: dried basil and onion powder or anything else you like--feel free to experiment!

Method:
Allow your roast to come to room temperature (I'll leave it out while I prepare breakfast and it's ready to go after).  While waiting, prepare a sheet pan with foil or parchment on its surface (easy cleanup!).  Place roast in the middle of the sheet pan.  Mix the spices with the olive oil in a small bowl.  Rub them on the roast (all over and under the twine) and let sit as long as the oven takes to preheat to 350 degrees (make sure you have a rack set in the middle of the oven).

After preheating, whack 'er in and let 'er roast for about 45min-1hr before checking with the meat thermometer.  You are looking for 120-125 degrees for rare, but I would take it out at 115 to 120 to allow for carry-over of 5-10 degrees during resting.  The first time I made the roast, I let it go until 145 degrees, and that was overdone and dry.  You be the judge and remember, you can always whack slices in the microwave or heat in a skillet (say, with some butter?) if you feel it is underdone.  Better to err on the side of underdone rather than overdone, since only a thick sauce can really hide overdone meat.  The taste of meat is exceptional and something most of us have lost; so be wild and try it rarer than you normally would to get the most flavor and juiciness.

Okay, after you find the temperature you want, take it out and let the roast sit for at least 15 minutes before slicing.

Serving Suggestions:
Dare I say it...with a pat of raw, grass-fed butter melted on top?  OMG, heaven!

You can also slice this up and wrap around avocado or mango or fill with guacamole for a delicious anti-sandwich.  Works well sliced into a salad too.  Experiment and let me know what you like best!

Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

I apologize in advance for being wordy lately.  You are forewarned.  Truth is, I am passionate about nutrition, so much so that I am often screaming on the inside with frustration at the world.  Today is no different, but I want to share my frustration and the sunshine of hope for change.  Some people are on the right track, we just need to enlist more!

Today I attended a luncheon to highlight author and sociology professor Jan Poppendieck and her new book, Free For All: Fixing School Food in America.  To be honest, I haven't read her book yet, but let me report on my experiences today.  If you are a parent or just a concerned citizen like me, please read this and help!

The Big Picture

First off, I totally agree that school lunch is a problem, a serious problem and it needs fixing.  There is a problem when tater tots and pizza are still on the menu even at "progressive" school districts like those in Santa Cruz.  Looking at the menu for elementary school lunches shows only 3 days out of 18 without cheese.  Pasta and bread are present every day.  Further digging into the website shows fat-phobia (low-fat everything is promoted) and misinformed juice and smoothie recommendations.  We won't even go into the "healthy" whole grains.  For instance, as a snack idea, Katie Jeffrey-Lunn, MS, RD, CDN, LDN recommends combining at least two of the five food groups into a healthy snack.  Try to imagine the effects of cereal and fruit, both high glycemic, without any satiating fat or protein to balance that sugar intake.  Talk about sugar high, binge eating, and inevitable crash.  Bet that is satisfying.

Okay, no argument that there is a problem with school lunches.  Jan Poppendieck recommends attacking the problem at a systemic level.  She wants universal school lunches available to every student--no more selling food to kids.  Among the benefits, she listed a relaxing, enjoyable, shared lunchtime experience similar to that she remembers from summer camp.  No one has to stress over food or money or the social stigma attached to kids who can and can't pay for their lunch.  I can relate to this as one of the "weird" kids who brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every. single. day.  I never had the money to supplement my lunch with snack foods until high school and then the cookie and snack cake options were a daily regularity for me. The fact that ubiquitous junk food in schools has not improved and has only gotten worse is disturbing to say the least.  Is that how we want to be fueling the minds of our youth?

Next, Jan went over her ABCs of the school food crisis.  "A" is for a la carte food items that undermine the nutritional integrity of the lunch program.  She asked how schools can offer a healthy menu while still offering junk food on the side.  School lunch should be an extension of the nutritional education, not in direct contradiction with it.   "B" is for business and bottom-line.  Kids are unable to make informed, responsible decisions because they have been bombarded with multi-billion dollar ad campaigns targeting them as junk food consumers.  She advocated for school leaders to say NO to the junk food vendors; that money from junk food is not worth the health (I would add "or moral") price.  "C" is for the chilling culture of compliance.  The current three-tier system of free, reduced-price, and full price is an administrative nightmare.  A universal school lunch program would be more efficient and save money in the long run, although its start-up would be very costly.  She asked for school leaders to see the educational potential in making school lunch part of the curriculum, practicing what we preach.  To fund this bold plan, she introduced the plan to tax soda and use the revenue to fund school lunch programs.

So here are the issues I want to tackle.  Doubtless there are hundreds more, but let's just start somewhere.

Sugar Here, Sugar There, Sugar Everywhere

Problem #1:  The public (this includes educators and those making policy) does not see the sugar in grains or grasp the full extent of sugar infiltration into our food products.  

Grains are a hidden sugar.  Heck the the American Diabetes Association doesn't see the sugar in grains.  They list whole grains among their Superfoods and of course fat-free milk and yogurt, without a distinction of source, so you can get a nice, healthy dose of grains from those grain-fed cows.  ALL carbohydrate breaks down into sugar, and sugar spikes blood sugar.  Fiber and fat mitigate the situation, but processing grains makes them high glycemic and no amount of fiber is going to fix that.  And don't tell me about all the vitamins and minerals we are missing out on by not consuming bread, pasta, and rice.  It's called vegetables, people.  Go to the source.

We all know that sugar is bad for us, so we don't eat candy.  Problem solved, right?  Wrong.  What the public doesn't understand is that sugar is in nearly everything.  And I'm not talking about the hidden sugar of grains (which I might add are in everything too!); it's real sugar and its guises as high fructose corn syrup, honey, agave, maltodextrin, splenda, xylitol, glucose, fructose, etc.  Sugar is in your condiments and tomato sauce, your dried fruit and frozen meals, and especially in your ranch dressing on top of your healthy salad.  It's in your chips and dips, sauces and spices, and baby foods.  It's in your sandwich bread and processed meats.  It's in your bottled beverages, even sports drinks and vitamin-enriched water.  Need I go on?

When Oprah Talks, The World Listens

Oprah recently had a show devoted to diabetes.  Through showing actual diabetics and voicing their stories as well as the science behind the disease, the message is clear: Diabetes is preventable.  You just have to want to change and make the effort.  Fortunately, the show also highlighted hidden sugar in common foods like ketchup and ranch dressing.  Hopefully the public will get a bit more label-savvy and think more about their food choices.  There is a startling figure circulated at the show:

Women who drink one can of soda a day, increase their risk of type 2 diabetes by 83%.

Now this really gets scary when you couple that with a statistic from a 2009 study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy: 

41% of children (ages 2-11 years) and 62% of adolescents (ages 12-17 years) in California drink at least one soda or other sugar-sweetened beverage every day

OMG!  Isn't that a wake up call?  How can we allow schools to sell such poison in the cafeteria or vending machines or to allow kids to bring it from home?  What are we doing to our kids?

Problem #2: A revolution in school lunches requires funding, lots of funding.  

One way proposed by Jan was a soda tax.  The revenue from taxing soda could fund an overhaul to the school lunch program.  But my god, we couldn't even agree on a soda tax!  Most people were for it, but the naysayers were scared of overregulation and losing funding if soda consumption actually decreased.  Isn't it worth the risk?  What makes soda any different from tobacco?  Does it have any redeeming qualities?

Do As I Say AND As I Do

Problem #3: If educators and educational planners cannot serve themselves healthy food, how can they expect to serve students healthy food?

Our menu at the luncheon consisted of mixed green salad with a choice of soybean-red wine vinegar herb dressing or miso dressing, beets with red onions, cooked herbed carrots, cooked broccoli, whole grain rolls, corn crumb-breaded chicken, and some sort of cheesy pasta.  Okay, you know by now what I would say about the whole grain rolls, miso dressing (it's soybean based and likely sweetened), pasta, and corn-crusted likely factory farmed battery cage chicken.  But soybean oil--are you serious?!?  Vegetable oils including soybean oil and canola oil are highly processed, often partially hydrogenated (yummy trans fat!), and too high in omega-6 fatty acids (remember, we want to decrease the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, since omega-6 are associated with health problems and omega-3s are much more beneficial).  I had the veggies sans dressing and felt like an alien.

In addition to the lunch buffet table was a table (a whole table!!!) devoted to cookies.  Here we are trying to fix school lunches and we can't even go a meal without a freakin' cookie!  Are you serious?!?  How can we expect to feed kids the right way when we can't even feed ourselves healthy foods?

The biggest problem: NO ONE (except my paleo friend and I) took issue with this meal.  It was praised by all.  Can you hear my inner voice screaming with frustration?

What Is Healthy Anyway?

Problem #4:  If educators don't have the information on what is healthy, how can they teach nutrition to students?

There is no consensus about what is actually healthy food.  I have my take and I believe it is backed by solid scientific studies, but I know that Nestle and Kraft and General Mills are all funding research to back their products, to find data to support their "high fructose corn syrup is okay in moderation" ideology.  Want to be sick?  Check out the Corn Refiners Association's Sweet Surprise website showing how "natural" high fructose corn syrup is because it comes from corn, a natural grain.  We'll leave out the discussion of GMOs and how corn production is anything but natural, requiring fifty gallons of oil for pesticides and fertilizers to produce an acre of corn on land totally unsuited to large-scale agriculture (read The Vegetarian Myth for more brain-food).  

But really, what is healthy?  Will my knowledge be turned on its head a few years down the line?  My suggestion is that we stick to what makes the most sense and is the simplest solution, Occam's Razor.  It makes sense to eat what we have eaten for millions of years: meat and veggies, nuts and seeds, some fruit, and little starch.  Our digestive tract is built for this and our bodies thrive on this.  We can force dairy, grains, sugar, beans, and processed foods into our lives, but are we better off when we do?  The archeological record shows healthier people before agriculture, not after.  Our medical prowess is keeping us alive longer and saving more infants and children from a premature death, but civilization also brought the modern Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and stroke.  While perhaps not the simplest solution for the changes it requires, it is the simplest nutrition and makes the most sense.  At least to me.  N=1 

Why Bother?

Problem #5: Why me?  Why should I care?  Who am I to do anything about this?

Why can't we just keep feeding our kids the same old crap and have some other generation clean up the mess?  Why should it be us?  Why doesn't the government care about us and eliminate the poisons in our food?  Why do we actually have to be adults and do something about it?  Why, why, why--who does this sound like?

Here's why: The benefits of a universal school lunch program overwhelmingly defeat the costs.  Jan lists the camaraderie of the children who get a stress-free, healthy lunch.  Kids wouldn't have to spend money on food or drink, stigmatize themselves for their ability or lack of ability to purchase items, or rely upon their skewed sense of what is healthy from years of advertisement bombardment and relatively little nutritional teaching.  School food can illustrate health lessons by introducing kids to unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, improve their eating habits, and help them integrate their learning with practical applications. Changes taken now might be costly, but they'll pay for themselves in reduced healthcare costs down the line.  It'll be cheaper in the long run to eliminate the administrative burden of the three-tier system.  It'll reduce the cost and waste of preparing meals that go uneaten now since student participation is voluntary.  It'll create healthy bodies and fuel young minds.  

In Santa Cruz, we are in a unique location to support our schools through our rich agricultural and meat production resources.  There are local organic farms, grass fed cattle, and free range poultry all at our doorstep.  Why don't we take this opportunity to support local business and supply local, healthy foods to our schools?  Remove the junk!

Am I just spouting insanity or do you want to help make this happen? As Willy Elliott-McCrea from Second Harvest Food Bank said today, "It isn't a matter of can we do this, but will we."  

For more information about Jan Poppendieck, here is an interview with Jan at salon.com.  Her book is purchasable through Amazon.  

For more information on Fixing School Lunches check out the Go For Health! initiative at the United Way, UCSC Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust, Santa Cruz County Office of Education, and Santa Cruz Education Foundation.  

Representative Sam Farr is sponsoring the Children's Fruit and Vegetable Act to provide more funding for school food.  

Ask Speaker Nancy Pelosi to support the Child Nutrition Reauthorization 2010 to invest in child nutrition programs through this Second Harvest Food Bank form.