Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Pego Rice <firekeeper38@yahoo.com>]

Ya

I saw that Jamie Oliver special too and it certainly
underscored the problems with parents who have given
over to kid pressure.  The whole junk food, kids
clothes and toy industry adverts on the "baby nag"
principle.  They know that if they aim at the kids the
kids will aim at the parents and the parents will fold
without giving much consideration.

Jamie found that he had to educate the parents too and
show that the kids were doing better in school and
having far fewer trips to the nurse/head master and
subsequent calls for parents.  The kids were
healthier, the kids did better in school and the
budget for both school clinic and school discipline
went down while the absolute cost of food went up only
a little.

The sobering truth is that the competitive bidding
model, typical of government contracts, has resulted
in school foods heavy in popular junk food types of
food and very low nutritional value foods with cheap
fillers and sodas instead of healthier alternatives. 
All of this has added up to serious obesity, asthma
and shortened life-span for our kids.  Many of the
attention problems that kids are suffering that has
caused the huge onset of prescription drugs for kids
are actually attributable to food.  Food programs that
have lost the sugar/carb/grease overload and
transitioned to a veggie and nutrition pyramid
oriented diet have had significant drops in  

http://www.ctpta.org/legislative/nutrition.htm

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/CompetitiveFoods/report_congress.htm

"Trends in Children’s Eating Behaviors
A recent USDA analysis 1,2 of the 1994-96 Continuing
Survey of Food Intakes for Individuals (CSFII) noted
these alarming trends in children’s eating patterns:

Only 2 percent of school-aged children meet the Food
Guide Pyramid serving recommendations for all five
major food groups. 
Girls, ages 14 to 18, have especially low intakes of
fruits and dairy products. 
Overall, the percentages of children meeting the
recommended number of food group servings are 14
percent for fruit, 17 percent for meat, 20 percent for
vegetables, 23 percent for grains, and 30 percent for
milk. 
More than two-thirds of females, ages 14 to 18, exceed
the recommendations for intake of total fat and
saturated fat, but even greater percentages of
children exceed these recommendations among the other
age/gender groups. 
Children’s diets are high in added sugars. For all
children, added sugars – including sugars used as
ingredients in processed foods or added to foods as
they are consumed—contribute an average of 20 percent
of total food energy. 
Non-Hispanic blacks are at increased risk of low or
inadequate intakes of calcium, phosphorous, and
vitamin A and are also more likely to exceed the
dietary recommendations for total fat, saturated fat,
and sodium intake. 
Children are heavy consumers of regular or diet soda.
Overall, 56 to 85 percent of children (depending on
age and gender) consume soda on any given day. Teenage
males are especially heavy consumers of soda, with
over a third consuming more than three servings a day.

All of the age/gender groups experienced a shift from
milk products to soda and fruit drinks. The decrease
in milk consumption tended to be larger for females
than for males. 
Related Health Issues

These trends have contributed to some serious
diet-related health concerns:

The prevalence of overweight among youth ages 6-17
years in the U.S. has more than doubled in the past 30
years; most of the increase has occurred since the
late 1970s. Current evidence suggests that childhood
overweight and obesity continue into adulthood. 
One of the most serious aspects of overweight and
obesity in children is Type II diabetes. Type II
diabetes accounted for 2 to 4 percent of all childhood
diabetes before 1992, but skyrocketed to 16 percent by
1994. Overweight adolescents are much more likely to
become overweight adults, with increased risk for
developing heart disease and stroke, gallbladder
disease, arthritis, and endometrial, breast, prostate
and colon cancers. 3 
Failure to meet calcium requirements in childhood can
hinder the achievement of maximal skeletal growth and
bone mineralization. Getting enough calcium in the
diet during childhood, adolescence, and young
adulthood, to reduce the risk for osteoporosis later
in life is particularly important for females. "


There is a growing trend to move veggies direct from
the farm to the schools to get better quality even
organic foods into the schools at a price that works
well.

http://www.farmtoschool.org/

http://healthymeals.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=14&tax_level=3&tax_subject=265&topic_id=1373&level3_id=5175

Additionally schools are begining to open up their own
gardens both for food and to educate the kids

http://research.cals.cornell.edu/entity?home=6&id=16732

http://journeytoforever.org/edu_garden.html
http://www.urbanharvest.org/school/index.html

http://www.cityfarmer.org/schgard15.html#School


 
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