NYC Green Schools

When retired military officers are advocating for food reform in our schools, you know there’s a serious problem.  Last Tuesday Mission: Readiness, a group of retired Generals, Admirals and other senior leaders of the United States Armed Forces, unveiled its new report, “Too Fat To Fight: Retired Military Leaders Want Junk Food Out of America’s Schools.” Here are a couple of the alarming statistics you can find in their report:

“Within a ten-year period ending in 2008, the number of states reporting that 40 percent or more of their young adults were overweight or obese went from just one state, Kentucky, to 39 states.”

“The journal Health Affairs reports that 80 percent of children who were overweight at ages 10-15 were obese at age 25.”

Junk Food in Vending Machines

These retired military leaders have identified the junk food and sugary drinks that are sold in school vending machines and stores as the primary culprits.  As their report points out, “Over the past two decades, Americans have increased their daily calorie intake by 250 to 300 calories.”  As we stated here a few weeks ago, it’s not the occasional sweet at a school bake sale that is causing childhood obesity, it’s the food our children are consuming every day.  When we went to middle school and high-school, there were bake sales, but there were no vending machines making Doritos, Linden’s cookies, and Pop-Tarts available to us every day (read ingredients here).  And despite the Department of Education’s attempts to improve the “nutritional value” of these processed foods so that no single serving contains more than 200 calories or 10 percent saturated fat, make no mistake that it is still junk food filled with empty calories that our children don’t need.

So why, in the midst of this health crisis which many are calling an epidemic, hasn’t Mayor Bloomberg, who eliminated trans fats from city restaurants, removed the junk food from our schools?  One possible explanation is the $28 million New York City schools are projected to make over the next five years from the vending machines.  The sad truth is that the Department of Education and the food companies providing the junk food are making a lot of money by making our children fat.  But the report from Mission: Readiness has an answer for this as well: “research shows that reducing high-calorie, low-nutrition foods and beverages…does not hurt a school’s bottom line.  The sales of school lunches increase when junk food and sugary beverages are limited.”

Whether the Department of Education would make up the loss revenue with increased sales of school lunches is irrelevant.  Schools should not be making money at the expense of our children’s health.  And yet the junk food continues to be sold out of greed, apathy, or some combination of both.  If the distressing statistics regarding the state of our children’s health aren’t enough to persuade Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein to remove the junk food from our schools, maybe this quote from Mission: Readiness’ report will: “The United States military stands ready to protect the American people, but if our nation does not help ensure that future generations grow up to be healthy and fit, that will become increasingly difficult.  The health of our children and our national security are at risk.  America must act decisively.”  Let’s hope that now our elected officials will do just that.

Right now a resolution asking for an amendment to Chancellor Regulation A-812 that would repeal the ban on the sale of home-cooked foods in our schools is with the City Council’s Committee on Education under Council Member Robert Jackson. Please copy these letters to CM Jackson and Speaker Christine Quinn requesting a public hearing on the resolution, sign and email to the addresses below.

This letter campaign is the most important political action we can take right now to get the ban on the sale of home-cooked foods in our schools repealed.  It’s our opportunity for the DOE and our elected officials to finally hear from parents and citizens directly about our children’s health and nutrition.   Help restore the democratic process to our schools.

You can email CM Jackson at rjackson@council.nyc.gov

For Speaker Quinn, go to http://council.nyc.gov/d3/html/members/home.shtml.  You must fill in the fields and then copy the attached letter in the message box.

Thanks!

In our quest to bring Meatless Mondays to more school cafeterias, we recently interviewed one of the people who’s helping to make that happen, Chris Elam.  Elam is the program director of Meatless Monday, an organization dedicated to getting the word out about the health and environmental effects of reducing meat consumption.

Here’s what Elam had to say about the benefits of going meatless, how schools are making the change, and why it would be a big deal if New York City schools signed on.

When did Meatless Monday start, and what is its mission?

In our quest to bring Meatless Mondays to more school cafeterias, we recently interviewed one of the people who’s helping to make that happen, Chris Elam.  Elam is the program director of Meatless Monday, an organization dedicated to getting the word out about the health and environmental effects of reducing meat consumption.

Here’s what Elam had to say about the benefits of going meatless, how schools are making the change, and why it would be a big deal if New York City schools signed on.

Meatless Monday, an initiative of the The Monday Campaigns, launched in 2003 in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Our mission is simple: to reduce saturated fat intake worldwide by encouraging people to cut meat one day a week. As a nonprofit public health initiative, we are dedicated to bringing Meatless Monday to homes, schools, campuses, offices and communities at large.

Why meatless?

A broad range of studies suggests that excessive meat consumption may result in higher risks of the four primary chronic preventable diseases killing Americans today: heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke.

Why Monday?

It’s the start of the week. Research shows that Monday is the very best time for people to start and sustain behavior change. Indeed, if this Monday passes you by, there’s always another one around the corner – allowing you to wipe the slate clean, and recommit to healthy behaviors. Plus, “Meatless Monday” just sounds right.

Tell us about the Baltimore City Public School System and how Meatless Monday got started there?

85,000 school kids in Baltimore now start each week with healthy, fresh, plant-based lunches – for some of these kids, sadly, it’s one of the few nutritious meals they receive all week. The Meatless Monday campaign works closely with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, located in Baltimore, and they were instrumental in outlining the health and environmental benefits – nudging the Baltimore school system to embrace Meatless Monday in September, 2009. In addition, Baltimore has a very forward-thinking food services director, Tony Geraci, who spearheaded the implementation, along with a push for more local produce in school cafeterias and more school gardens. It’s been a rousing success so far!

Are you working with other public school systems in the U.S?

Currently there are 4 schools in the East Village (of Manhattan) that have proudly implemented Meatless Monday. We are also working on a pilot program in Chatham, New Jersey. There are 8 schools in Covington County, Kentucky that go meatless on Monday. And with the recent announcement that the city of San Francisco has adopted Meatless Monday, we are targeting other west coast cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle and Portland, reaching out to their city officials and school boards and encouraging them to join the movement.

What are your plans for the New York City public system? Are you speaking with anyone at the DOE Office of School Food about implementing Meatless Monday in our city’s schools?

Now with the active support of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, we are speaking with Stephen O’Brien, Director of School Food, this week. Our plan is to show how easy, fun and healthy it is to bring Meatless Monday to all schools in New York City. Indeed, we are working with the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food to market school lunch recipes that they’ve developed – recipes that are plant-based while utilizing the federal government food allotment – to the city and to the rest of the country.

What would be the impact of the New York City Public School System going meatless on Monday?

The impact would be profound. For one, it would show the rest of the country that New York City can take a leadership role in kids health. Secondly, it would get kids thinking, it would get teachers developing new curricula, and most importantly, it would get parents reflecting on and hopefully improving the quality of the food their children eat. In the short term, it would provide nutritious and tasty lunches to our city’s youth at a time when the spector of childhood obesity looms ever larger.

Who’s joined Meatless Monday so far?

The coalition of civic leaders, food celebrities and taste makers is broad. Al Gore, Michael Pollan, Sir Paul McCartney, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Mollie Katzen, Katie Lee, Gwenyth Paltrow and Simon Cowell – these names touch on our range of support. Internationally, Meatless Monday programs have popped up in Britain, Brazil, Taiwan, Austalia, Canada, Holland and Finland. Here in this country, about 30 college campuses go meatless on Monday. Nearly 100 blogs do weekly Meatless Monday features, including the biggest one of all: Huffington Post. And Compass Group, the world’s largest food services company, says go meatless once a week in 8,500 U.S. corporate and academic cafeterias. The Meatless Monday movement continues to grow – and we hope to enlist New York City to further spark the engine.

Finally, what do you hope to achieve with Meatless Monday?

It’s all about raising consciousness. Helping inspire positive change, one small step at a time. My colleague, Tami O’Neill, wrote this recently, and I think it’s apt:

Is there anything more American than the chicken nugget? Quick, cheap, portable and deep fried, these golden morsels have become more synonymous with our culture than apple pie. More than a telling indication of our nation’s priorities, processed meats like hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken nuggets have become a way of life for many of us. Americans consume, on average, over 200 pounds of meat each year – fully 45% more than the USDA recommends.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We have an option. We can gradually improve the quality of the food we eat, the fuel we put in our tank. Our hope is that we can achieve this together, by making more space on the plate for vegetables, one Monday at a time!

On Saturday NYC Green Schools took part in The Green Schools Alliance 2010 “Visioning the Future” Conference held at Martin Luther King High School.  Schools, non-profits, and businesses all came out to demonstrate their wares and share what they were doing to make our schools more green from vertical gardens to trayless Tuesdays to reducing electronic waste and more.  We were there to promote our Meatless Monday campaign, because, as we state below, animal production for food consumption contributes more to global warming than all forms of transportation combined.  Here’s a glimpse at what other people are doing to make our schools more sustainable.

The Green Gremlins are spreading the word about reducing energy waste.

“Seeds in the Middle” inspires parents and students to green their environment and take control of their health.

Teachers College of Columbia University has developed a science and nutrition program for grades 4-8.

Green Living Technologies is bringing gardens into the classrooms with vertical agriculture.

SOSnyc.org is dedicated to eliminating Styrofoam trays from our schools.

When we joined the New York Public School system back in September and first took a look at our schools’ lunch menu, these were some of the meals we saw:  Chicken Nuggets, Sweet and Sour Pork, Hamburger, Mozzarella Sticks, Pizza.  We were struck that every meal on the menu was either meat or cheese based.  Animal protein, in the form of meat or cheese, is the main source of saturated fats, which raise the level of cholesterol in your blood thereby increasing your risk of heart disease.   We also knew that animal production for food consumption contributes more to global warming than all forms of transportation combined.  With 50% of children between the ages of 2-15 already having fatty streaks in their arteries (according to a study by The New England Journal of Medicine), what we saw was a menu that was making our children and planet sick.

Fortunately, our schools (The Children’s Workshop School, The East Village Community School and PS 94), which share the same cafeteria, already had a Wellness Committee, and so we joined.  When the parents on our committee voiced our concern about the preponderance of meat and cheese dishes to Shawn Chambers, our SchoolFood manager, and asked if we could have Meatless Mondays that would feature more plant-based meals, to our delight, he said yes.  We then received permission from the principals of our schools and, starting in October 2009, our schools were the first in New York City to have Meatless Mondays.

Since October, we’ve tried to expand the meals offered on Meatless Mondays and even had a taste test with our students to find out which plant-based meals they prefer.  This month our Meatless Mondays feature vegetarian chili with rice, black-bean burritos, African gumbo and veggie burgers with a side of beans.  All these meals are cooked with fresh ingredients in our school kitchen.  We are tremendously thankful to Shawn Chambers, our SchoolFood Manager, Marianny Abreu, our kitchen supervisor, and the dedicated cooks in our kitchen, without whom Meatless Mondays would not have been possible.

The Baltimore City Public School system, which serves 80,000 students a day, already participates in Meatless Mondays, joining an international movement of individuals, organizations and cities making the commitment to lower meat consumption and enjoy a plant-based diet on Monday.  Our desire is to see New York City become the next public school system to join this campaign, so that all the city’s children can enjoy the health benefits of eating plant-based meals.

We will soon be providing information for parents about how to get Meatless Mondays started at their schools.  In the meantime, if you’re a parent and would like to form a Wellness Committee at your school, click under “How to Improve Your School’s Food” to find out how to do so.  Our next post will feature an interview with Chris Elam of Meatless Mondays, whose organization is working in association with the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to bring this health initiative to people throughout the world.

Mayor Bloomberg made the landmark decision to ban trans fats from city restaurants to protect the public’s health.  With 40% of New York City school children either overweight or obese and a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association predicting that a child born in 2000 has a one in three chance of developing diabetes, he should take the same bold step of banning corn syrup from foods in our schools that don’t need to be sweetened.

If a student chooses a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich with chocolate milk for lunch (an option that is offered every day in our schools), they are essentially eating corn syrup that is disguised as a meal.  Take a look at the ingredients here and you will notice that the wheat bread and buns served in our schools contain high-fructose corn syrup; the #2 ingredient in the peanut butter is dextrose (another form of corn syrup); the first ingredient in the jelly is corn syrup, as opposed to what you might expect, fruit; and the second ingredient in the chocolate milk is high-fructose corn syrup.

By some estimates, corn syrup makes up as much as 20 percent of children’s daily calories, and its consumption contributes to childhood obesity and diabetes rates. Plus, the production of corn syrup is devastating to the environment.  This is all especially tragic, since bread, peanut butter and milk do not need to be sweetened.  These hidden sugars in foods that don’t need them are silent contributors to the health crisis we see.  It’s time for Mayor Bloomberg to take the lead again on public health issues and replace these foods containing corn syrup in our schools with healthier options that do not.