Act Now to Protect Nutrition in the Farm Bill!

The Senate is scheduled to have a debate on the Farm Bill on Monday, May 20th. Below is a message adopted from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics' Action Center; please send to your Senators now to help protect nutrition programs for all Americans!  If you don't know who your Congressional representatives are or their contact information, you can find it here. 

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Please protect nutrition programs (Title IV) and nutrition research (Title VII) in the Farm Bill. Your support of a Farm Bill, focused on strong nutrition programs and research, that supports healthy people as well as the health of the earth, will improve the health of Americans and stimulate local economies. 

As a constituent, I urge you to:

Protect funding for –

•             The SNAP-Nutrition Education (SNAP-Ed) Program. In order to make healthy food choices on a limited budget, people need to be empowered with knowledge. SNAP-Ed educates families and has proven to lead to healthier eating habits. SNAP-Ed is a necessary benefit of the larger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) package. SNAP-Ed is also in every state, including yours!

•             The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP provides eligible, low-income families monthly benefits to purchase much needed food.  SNAP also stimulates the economy by increasing participants’ purchasing power.  For every $5 in new SNAP benefits, as much as $9.20 is generated in local economic activity.

•             The Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) supplies low-income families, many of which are seniors, USDA commodity foods. The CSFP food package provides good sources of the nutrients typically lacking in the diet of this population.

•             The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) provides nutritious foods that supplement the diets of low-income needy persons. This program utilizes organizations like food banks to reach this population. 

•             A strong Research and Extension title. Evidenced-based food and agriculture research will ensure a safe and healthy food supply for years to come.  Investing in food, nutrition and agriculture research is vital to guide sound decisions. Much of this research is conducted at each state’s land grant university.

Protect the program integrity of -

•             The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) provides school children access to fresh fruits and vegetables. This program has been shown, in a robust 2013 evaluation, to increase children’s fruit and vegetable consumption by 15%, without increasing their overall calorie intake. This means children are eating fresh fruits and vegetables instead of other, potentially less healthy foods. FFVP also helps creates the foundation for healthy life-long habits.

•             The Seniors Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program benefits seniors and local farmers. This well established and well received program provides seniors access to seasonal produce while supporting local farmers and economies.

These important programs: 1.Contribute to healthy life-long habits; 2. Allow recipients to maintain their health and well-being during temporary times of economic hardship; and 3. May decrease the risk of developing costly and debilitating chronic diseases which strain our healthcare system.

Please protect these extremely valuable programs as the Farm Bill is debated on the Senate floor.

Do your part to Leave It Better...support the reGeneration!

Over the past year or so, I've become familiar with the organization Leave It Better and gotten to know a few of its incredible team members.  Leave It Better is an organization which empowers youth to heal the environment, primarily by teaching them gardening and composting skills, as well as filmmaking skills so they can document their experiences as they learn to grow food.  The LIB team then edits the film clips created by the children and shares them online, with the ultimate goal of creating a global youth gardening documentary which will be called "the reGeneration." 

Leave It Better is currently in the tail end of a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for their reGeneration documentary. They recently put together a campaign video where Dominique tells her story of how she developed her passion for gardening and health. Witnessing the suffering that her father went through as a consequence of his poor eating habits, she discovered gardening to be a healthy alternative, a way to take control of one's food choices and therefore one's health. She embodies what it means to take the challenges that life throws at us and create positive solutions which grow healthy, empowered citizens and heal us, our communities, and our environment.  But don't take my word for it - watch the video yourself :)   And consider supporting their efforts to make the reGeneration film a reality by becoming a backer of their Kickstarter campaign. 

A few years ago when working with students at MS 331 in the Bronx, the Leave It Better team members were approached by a teacher in the school with the suggestion that they should clean up the abandoned park across the street from the school and make it into a garden. They agreed, going through all of the steps necessary to register the garden with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation/ GreenThumb, get the community involved, and clean up the garden.  Dominique, who wears the hat of Garden Manager amongst many others, also took a class at the NY Botanical Garden to become a Master Composter.  Their work with this garden in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx - which they call the Leave It Better Kids' Garden - has inspired hope in the community and its youth.  The youth are assigned roles and each have their own garden tasks and responsibilities, creating a sense of purpose for them in the community while also providing residents with a tangible solution to the health problems plaguing many neighborhoods in the Bronx:  freshly grown food.  There are garden plots for the youth, the seniors, and even for King of Glory Tabernacle Church down the road.  The entire community, which previously was just like many others in the Bronx - a "food desert" filled with very few healthy food options - now has a direct source of fresh, local produce, as well as a method of empowering kids to create positive change in their neighborhood.  And they've partnered with BronxWorks, a social service organization, to bring a farmers market to the neighborhood too, bringing in yet more fresh produce and employment opportunities for residents who help run the market, which is on Thursdays this summer by University Ave & West 181st Street in the Bronx.  

Leave It Better team members Graham, Dominique and Roz are doing their part to "leave it better" by empowering youth in this Bronx community and in schools citywide to care for the environment, contribute to a sustainable food system, develop healthy eating habits, and be positive change agents in the world around them.  Now it's our turn to do our part.  The reGeneration Kickstarter campaign has raised over $10,000 so far but still needs to raise nearly $25,000 by July 14th in order for the campaign to be funded and any of the pledges to be counted.  But now it's up to us - we must be the change we wish to see in the world. Diet-related diseases cost billions of dollars a year in medical costs, ruining millions of people's quality of life and our national budget. But we have the answers, and they lie in empowering the younger generation to contribute to a sustainable food system and develop healthy eating habits.  We must become the answer to our prayers.  Now is our opportunity to support a worthwhile cause and have the story of youth gardening be captured in a documentary which can be shared worldwide for years to come.  Consider pledging a donation to the Kickstarter campaign and passing the word on to your friends, family and colleagues.  Together we can make a difference. 

Farm Bill Action Needed!

The House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture is at work on its version of the 2012 Food & Farm Bill right now. (The Senate Agriculture Committee passed its version out of committee just a few weeks back).  Now is the time to tell the House what we want to see in the Farm Bill!      

                      

The House Committee on Agriculture has set up a comment box for constituents to submit their feedback. It’s open to everyone, but comments must be in by this Sunday, May 20.

To be heard, send a message to Congress via the Comments Box at http://agriculture.house.gov/farmbill_feedback.html.  

Below you will find some background information about the Farm Bill as it pertains to health, as well as a sample letter with information about the Farm Bill's effect on nutrition, hunger, support for farmers, and the environment. Sending a message to Congress is important, and it will only take a minute! 

The Farm Bill and Our Health

What is the Farm Bill?

The Farm Bill originally was set up to help American farmers.   However, over time, most of the subsidy payments to farmers went to commodity crops instead, with hardly any money going to support the growing of a variety of fruits and vegetables. 

How can this affect our health?

The Farm Bill includes a number of different titles that influence our food system. Changes made to the Farm Bill over the past several decades have made healthy food more expensive and unhealthy food cheaper, pushing the price of fruits and vegetables up by nearly 40% over 15 years and pushing the price of soft drinks (made from processed corn) down by 23%.  In addition, there is not currently enough farmland in the US devoted to growing fruits and vegetables for everyone to meet the US Dietary Guidelines of at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.  

A Clean Bill of Health

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A growing number of policymakers and public health professionals understand the relationships among agricultural policy, our food system and the public’s health, and even succeeded in making some minor advancements in the 2008 Farm Bill that supported both the public’s health and farmers.  However, today’s budget challenges now threaten the funding levels and continuation of several of these achievements.  In particular, the 2008 Farm Bill included a Healthy Food Provisions Package which included policies and programs supporting public health.  Some of these programs, which successfully help improve access to healthy food for low-income communities, need to be expanded, not cut.  These include:

·         Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program - provides low-income seniors with coupons that can be exchanged for eligible foods (fruits, vegetables, honey, and fresh-cut herbs) at farmers’ markets, roadside stands, and community supported agriculture programs

·         Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program - makes fruit and vegetable snacks available at no cost to all children in participating elementary schools

·         Farmers’ Market Electronic Benefits Transfer Program – funds wireless EBT machines at farmers markets, which enables farmers markets to accept SNAP (food stamps)

·         Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development - provides grants to help the establishment of businesses that can increase access to healthy, affordable foods for underserved communities, while creating jobs

·         Community Food Projects - addresses food insecurity through developing community food projects that help promote the self-sufficiency of low-income communities. Examples include innovative approaches to nutrition education, and support for farm-to-school programs.

·         SNAP Nutrition Education Program (SNAP-Ed) – supports nutrition education for people eligible for SNAP, but was recently expanded to include individuals who reside in a community with a significant low-income population. Allowable nutrition education was recently expanded to include broader community and public health approaches to improve nutrition.

In addition, the WIC Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program – which provides women, infants and children enrolled in WIC with vouchers to use at farmer’s markets – has traditionally been funded through the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, but should be put under the Farm Bill to protect it from cuts in the future. 

And now, for a sample letter that you can send to Congress via the Comments Box at http://agriculture.house.gov/farmbill_feedback.html: 

As the Committee considers the 2012 Food and Farm Bill, I urge you to: 

Preserve and expand funding for the Healthy Food Provisions Package which includes policies and programs supporting public health.  These programs, which successfully help improve access to healthy food for low-income communities, include: 
•Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program 
•Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program 
•Farmers’ Market Electronic Benefits Transfer Program 
•Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development  
•Community Food Projects 
•SNAP Nutrition Education Program (SNAP-Ed)  

Place the WIC Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program under the Farm Bill instead of under Child Nutrition Reauthorization.  This program promotes the consumption of produce by women, infants, and children enrolled in the WIC program while successfully creating a base of customers at farmer’s markets in low-income neighborhoods; 

Support our fight against hunger by maintaining and strengthening critical nutrition programs in this time of unprecedented need. We must not solve our budget problems on the backs of those experiencing food insecurity, including our most vulnerable – our children, the elderly, and the disabled;

Provide an even "plowing" field by fully funding programs supporting beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, organic farming, regional farming and food economies, and rural development. We need more farmers and ranchers, more sustainable food production, and more economic opportunity in our food system;

End direct payments and counter-cyclical commodity programs, replacing them with loophole-free agriculture risk coverage and implement a cap on crop insurance premium subsidies. We must support farmers that really need the help, not the biggest farms that don’t.

Eliminate the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) livestock set-aside to limit funds granted to concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) for waste management infrastructure and protect the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) from disproportionate cuts and improve it by ranking applications solely on their conservation benefits. We must ensure that limited conservation funding maximizes lasting environmental benefits.

Thank you! 


Information compiled from the NYC Food and Farm Bill Working Group and the Center for a Livable Future's Growing Healthy Food & Farm Policy report in collaboration with NY Faith & Justice Farm Bill / food justice working groups

Food Movements Unite!

It was about the same time that I started reading “Diet for a Small Planet” by Frances Moore Lappé that I received some information about Food First in the mail.  With so many different organizations asking for support, it’s hard to decide which ones to pay attention to.  But as I read through the letter explaining the mission of Food First (which happened to be co-founded by Frances Moore Lappé), I knew that there was something special about this organization that stood it apart from a lot of the other foodie organizations.  Food First recognizes the centrality of democracy to the food justice movement.  As I read the letter I noticed one of the ways to lend support involved receiving a complimentary copy of the book “Food Movements Unite” – which sounded like an important book. How could I say no to this deal? 

Not too long after I received the book in the mail I heard about a launch event for the book with the author/editor, & current Executive Director of Food First, Eric Holt-Giménez.   And with 2 of the panelists being leaders from the Bronx on the front lines of food justice, I knew it would be a good event J

On the panel were Karen Washington from La Finca del Sur / NYC Community Gardening Coalition / Just Food / etc; Ray Figueroa from Friends of Brook Park; Daisy Cheung from Restaurant Opportunities Center – New York, Diana Robinson from the Food Chain Workers Alliance, Lupe from the Community Farmworker Alliance, Eric Holt-Giménez from Food First, and last but not least was moderated by our fearless food sovereignty champion, Christina Schiavoni from WhyHunger. 

Eric opened it up with the background behind the book.  He saw that everyone was too busy doing their own food justice work to look at the movement as a whole.  He wanted to create unity in the food movements by getting the stories from food justice movers and shakers across the globe, to hear not just about what they’re doing, but how they believe what they’re doing intersects with the larger picture of the food movement.  To find the areas of convergence and figure out what the barriers are that still need to be addressed.  I’m excited to read the book.

The panelists brought up some interesting points.  Yes, there have been food riots because despite there being enough food grown in this world to feed the population one and a half times over, there is still an extraordinarily high number of people suffering from food insecurity (about 50 million in the US) and hunger (1 billion worldwide).  But this is just a result of the capitalist global food system doing exactly what it is supposed to do – consolidating the food supply into the hands of a few, creating a monopoly over our food supply.  That’s what capitalism was built for – making money.  Which lends itself to disregarding the social externalities which would slow down the profit-making machine that is the world of corporations.  But our job has to be to connect the dots of people doing incredible work in our own backyards, and take back our food system. 

Ray Figueroa from Friends of Brook Park said that one thing we can do is connect with the other human rights movements.  Go off of the model of the Black Panther Party, which saw food justice as one part of a much larger story of liberation. Food is a human right, and the people who work on Housing as a Human Right will also be in solidarity with the food movement.  And not only that, but there will be areas in which to work together.  One thing the housing movement works on is land issues, and it just so happens that community gardening space is also a land issue. So one thing Ray & the NYC Community Gardening Coalition is working on is spreading the word and advocating for the NYC Garden Law, which would protect GreenThumb community gardens so that the Dept of Housing Preservation & Development cannot reclaim and raze the gardens. (If HPD can just take back GreenThumb land whenever it wants, what’s the point in registering the garden in the first place?  That was the question of the day for the Morning Glory community gardeners in the Bronx, whose garden was razed last fall.  But there are a number of other gardens legitimately registered with GreenThumb that still get reclaimed by the City on a regular basis.)  

Karen Washington mentioned that what’s missing is the grassroots element of food justice organizing and advocacy.  We can get funding for certain initiatives, but how do we make sure the money will fund the true grassroots work that needs to get done, and not necessarily just fulfill the “goals” of the grant?  And, how do we get young people engaged in community gardening?   Ray added to the point with the wisdom heard time and time again in social justice circles – top-down education won’t work, communities aren’t going to be educated out of oppression.  He offers the alternative from Gandhi, who was a “fierce humanist” – we must weave our own cloth.  Move to the communities experiencing oppression.  But don’t come if you’re just coming to “help.”  Come if you believe your destiny is tied up with my destiny.  Because then we can all live with dignity, and actually work together to get somewhere. [It’s quite inspiring, really, to have been part of the struggle against FreshDirect moving to the South Bronx from the very beginning of South Bronx Unite in February 2012, and to see the fierce dedication and in-house capacity and skills of the people who are part of this campaign for food, environmental, and economic justice.  Enough injustice in one community is enough.]

Karen Washington echoed something I heard Steve Ritz say at a Bronx Health REACH meeting recently – it’s important to talk to the grandparents.  This generation has a lot of wisdom, and many of them come from agricultural backgrounds and are a lot more respected than other authorities within a community.  We also need to see who is at the table at meetings we have – is there fair representation of communities of color?  Are the meetings held at night so that working class people can attend?  Is childcare and transportation made available?  Until these needs are met, it’s going to be very hard to get people to care about an issue, if their main concern is providing for their families and just having enough money to get by. 

The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) advocates for restaurant workers nationwide, who survive on poverty wages, little to no benefits, and discrimination.  These restaurant workers federally are salaried the tip minimum wage ($2.13), and are often treated more like machines than human beings.  70% of restaurant servers in the US are women.  And out of 20 million people working in the food industry in the US, most of them are immigrants and people of color.  So ROC works with racial justice organizations and women’s rights organizations to advocate for better conditions for restaurant workers, such as paid sick days, living wages, and dignity.  They’ve organized a national campaign against full service dining, against Darden, which owns 1900 restaurants in the US and made a $500 million profit last year, despite its workers suffering from wage theft and discrimination. [I’m a fan of ROC-NY’s incubator restaurant worker-owned cooperative, COLORS.  Juan Carlos even worked with me to host a screening of the movie FRESH in the restaurant as part of their “Building Bridges Not Walls” series, where Karen Washington/ BUGs, Eric Weltman / Food & Water Watch, and others came together to share their experiences with the food system.] 

Lupe from the NYC Community Farmworker Alliance discussed the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which came together to support the tomato farmers in Immokalee, Florida that grow 90% of America’s tomatoes.  These farmers get $0.45-$0.50 for every 32 pounds of tomatoes they harvest, which makes it hard to earn the minimum wage.  They’ve been successful in getting some new sign-ons to the Fair Food Agreement to prevent exploitation of tomato harvesters, and currently in NYC are campaigning to get Chipotle to sign on to this agreement, since they’ve now been successful with getting Trader Joe’s to sign the agreement.

Lupe talked about how the farm workers’ method of dealing with problems that arise is one of community organizing which everyone in the food movement could utilize – see the problem, analyze it, and take action.  Her other suggestions were to make sure youth have access to food justice information; start youth-run collectives; and bring in faith communities. 

According to Eric Holt-Giménez, there’s the dominant white narrative on food justice (described quite eloquently by Michael Pollan), and then there’s “this” narrative.  [Might I add, it’s not that Michael Pollan’s story is “bad,” it just isn’t the complete story.  Not everyone has adequate access to farmers markets and CSAs and organic food.]  As Eric said, “Voting with your fork doesn’t work when the only option is capitialist food.”  The answers need to come via grassroots, innovative solutions to the issues of food injustice, like entrepreneurial youth farming projects [the Green Bronx Machine being one of my favorite]. 

The event organizers put together a really good handout of next “action steps.”  I will share most of them with you here:

Events:

May 1 – All out for a general strike on May Day!  Stand with food and farm workers and all workers – particularly immigrant workers – everywhere!  See http://www.may1.info/ and http://maydaynyc.org/. 

May 12 – Come to the Brooklyn Food Conference!  Over 5,000 people are expected to attend this free, all day event filled with keynotes from notable food activists, workshops, panel discussions, food demos, family programming, art and much more. http://bkfoodconference.org/

June 1-3 – Occupy the Land ‘Unconference’ – the NYC Community Gardening Coalition is collaborating with the Occupy Wall Street movement, environmental and social justice groups, and a variety of artist collectives to hold an ‘unconference’ in community gardens across the city. The unconference will be a platform for dialogue between different groups and struggles, from the local to the global.  www.nyccgc.org

June 6 – Food Workers & Food Justice Conference – the Food Chain Workers Alliance is co-hosting this conference with UFCW Local 1500 and the Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN).  http://foodchainworkers.org/

June 20 – Global day of action in solidarity with La Via Campesina and the Peoples’ Alternative Summit to Rio +20 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  There’s a call for people to do actions in their own communities to expose how corporations are driving climate chaos and environmental destruction and to put forward real grassroots solutions. There’s also a call for actions leading up to Rio+20 the week of June 4^th.  More at www.viacampesina.org and http://tinyurl.com/772yf4m.

More ways to plug in:

http://www.picturethehomeless.org/

www.usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org

www.whyhunger.org/fslc

Jumpstart Life-long Healthy Eating Habits with your Child in the Bronx: Get Involved!

I recently wrote a newsletter on combating childhood obesity during a pediatric rotation of my dietetic internship at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. Here's the content...

Improving the school food environment through your child’s school’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and your Community

Outline:

Healthy Fundraisers

School Breakfast Program

Child Nutrition Reauthorization & the School Lunch Program

Farmers Markets

Kids and Gardening

Supermarkets & Bodegas

Bronx Health REACH

Strategic Alliance for Health

What’s On Your Plate? Film

Let’s Move

People’s Garden NYC

More Resources

Online Videos

Farmers Markets in the Bronx

Healthy Fundraisers

Many school PTAs sell unhealthy foods such as candy or potato chips as fundraisers for their school, to fund after-school activities. Parents and teachers want the best for their children, but these unhealthy foods actually make children believe that these foods are acceptable snacks and can be consumed on a regular basis. As an alternative, the District Public Health Office has developed a Fundraiser Guide to help PTAs choose healthy food (or non-food!) options for school fundraisers. The toolkit can be found at this link: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/dpho/dpho-fundraiser-guide.pdf

School Breakfast Program

Many children either do not eat breakfast in the morning or pick up an unhealthy option, such as a bacon, egg & cheese sandwich, for breakfast on their way to school. When children don’t start the day off right with a healthy breakfast, they’re more likely to have difficulty paying attention and focusing on classwork while at school. The Department of Education has approved all schools in New York City to have a school breakfast program, but many schools have not signed up yet or only offer the program to a few classes at the school. The school breakfast program means that every child in the classrooms to which it is provided will get the same, healthy breakfast – a great way to start off the day. If your child does not currently participate in the School Breakfast Program, speak with the principal at your school or your school’s PTA about the possibility of signing up or expanding the program to cover more students.

http://www.breakfasteveryday.org/

Child Nutrition Reauthorization and the School Lunch Program

The Department of Education’s Office of SchoolFood (OSF) works hard within its budget to make sure all children get a school lunch that meets certain nutritional standards while also tasting good to the children. However, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) only gives a certain amount of money to improve school food, and this amount of money is not enough for the OSF to make all the changes it would like to. There is currently a bill in Congress called Child Nutrition Reauthorization, which if passed will increase the amount of money spent on childhood nutrition programs – including school food – by $4.5 billion over 10 years. This would bring healthier foods into all schools, including vending machine items. However, the amount of money that is truly needed to improve school food is $4 billion per year. To find information on how to call your Congressman to ask for more money for child nutrition, see this link: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/basics/

Another thing you can do to improve the quality of school food is: together with your child’s principal and PTA, speak to Billy Doherty at the Office of School Food about connecting your child’s school to a local farmer to get fresh, local fruits and vegetables delivered to the school. Many farmers from local areas, such as Upstate New York and other nearby states, already sell their fruits and vegetables to people in NYC at farmers markets.

More on Farmers Markets…

There are many farmers markets located throughout the city, including some in the Bronx. These are hosted by Greenmarket and by Harvest Homes. Most farmers markets accept cash, WIC checks, EBT (food stamps), and Health Bucks ($2 coupons distributed by the NYC Department of Health). At farmers markets that accept food stamps, one Health Buck coupon is given to each customer for every $5 spent using food stamps. To find a farmers market in your neighborhood, see bottom of post.

Kids and Gardening

There are many success stories of children trying new fruits and vegetables if they are involved in growing the food themselves. As a matter of fact, First Lady Michelle Obama has planted a garden at the White House and has local schoolchildren harvest the vegetables to teach them the importance of gardening and eating healthy. Some children in NYC and the Bronx are involved in community gardens, oftentimes through the school curriculum. Every child should have this opportunity! Talk to others in your community and your child’s school to find out if there are any community gardens near you. Perhaps you could work with the school’s PTA, or your child’s principal and science teacher to see about involving students in vegetable gardening during the school day.

Supermarkets & Bodegas

In December 2009, the City Council approved bringing more supermarkets into low- and moderate-income areas of NYC, including sections of the Bronx, through the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) Initiative. The new FRESH supermarkets will offer a full line of grocery products, including fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh meats, dairy and other food and nonfood products, and will also be a source of new local jobs.

Until these new supermarkets are built, you can still change the food choices available in your neighborhood. Your local grocery or bodega owner generally sells what he thinks his customers want to buy. If you do not like the foods in your local store, ask to speak to the owner and let him know what options you would like to buy. If he is able to stock the healthier food items to sell to you, he will most likely do so because he knows people want it. Some ideas of things to ask for are low-fat milk and yogurt, apple chips, pita chips, pretzels, whole wheat bread, regular peanut butter, jelly, plain nuts such as almonds and walnuts, and fruits and vegetables that are either fresh, frozen, or canned in light syrup (note: many stores do not have the capacity to sell foods that need to be frozen or refrigerated).

There’s no need to ask for water, because you can get this for FREE from the sink or water fountain! NYC water is generally of very good quality and you can save a lot of money by buying a reusable BPA-free bottle and filling it with water on your own.

Bronx Health REACH

Bronx Health REACH, a part of the Institute for Family Health, is an organization that works on trying to improve the quality of food served in the Bronx. REACH also works to educate the community about how to live a healthy lifestyle through the food and exercise choices we make. One of the focuses of REACH is working with churches in the community to empower its members to lead a healthy lifestyle. REACH has developed a “God’s Health Squad” toolkit for church leaders to use with youth groups. More information can be found on the website, http://institute2000.org/bhr, the blog, http://bronxhealthreach.blogspot.com, or by contacting Kelly Moltzen (see bottom of post).

NYC Strategic Alliance for Health (SAfH)

The NYC Strategic Alliance for Health (SAfH) was founded in 2008 to combine the efforts of local organizations, Elected Officials, and other community based organizations in an effort to improve the environments, systems, and policies that affect physical activity, nutrition, and tobacco-use within schools and the broader community of the South Bronx and East & Central Harlem. The efforts that are found to work best will be shared with other NYC neighborhoods who are also working to decrease health inequities.

A brief overview SAfH’s Goals:

Physical Activity

· Require organizations that work in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) community centers to lead daily physical activity programs

· Improve the play street program in target areas by changing policy

Nutrition

· Include a new option in the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Adopt a Bodega initiative that will offer Bodega owners resources for renovations that will allow fruits and vegetables to be sold and maintained on site

School Wellness

· Establish a policy at the NYC Department of Education that will provide elementary schools with a Physical Activity and Nutrition Award

· Establish a policy requiring elementary after-school programs to include daily time for physical activity

For more information, contact: Geysil Arroyo, Community Coordinator

646-672-2385 or nycsafh@gmail.com

What’s On Your Plate? Film

Want to watch a movie about healthy and not-so-healthy food in NYC, narrated from a kids’ perspective? The film “What’s On Your Plate?” is just that. It follows two curious girls who are on a mission to understand where their food comes from, and what’s in it. The girls interview many influential people in NYC, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Chef Jorge Collazo from the NYC Department of Education’s Office of School Food, and Anna Lappé, author of the newly released book Diet for a Hot Planet, about the impact of our food system on climate change. You can find out more information about where and when “What’s On Your Plate?” is being screened in NYC at the website whatsonyourplateproject.org.

“Let’s Move!”

First Lady Michelle Obama is very involved in supporting a healthy lifestyle for children. She has started the “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity, which aims to give “parents the support they need, provide healthier food in schools, help our kids to be more physically active, and make healthy, affordable food available in every part of our country.” You can find out more here: http://letsmove.gov/

People’s Garden NYC Petition

There is currently a petition asking Mayor Bloomberg to plant a vegetable garden outside of City Hall as a symbol of the City’s dedication to healthy food. If this garden becomes reality, it would be managed by children and seniors from the nearby area, and the food grown would be donated to a local food pantry or soup kitchen. You can learn more about it and sign the petition here: http://peoplesgardennyc.org/

More Resources

NY Coalition for Healthy School Food

The New York Coalition for Healthy School Food is organization that works on improving food for all children in New York. Learn more here: http://www.healthyschoolfood.org/

Super Kids Nutrition

Find information on healthy eating for your kids from the experts! There are articles, activities, book suggestions and more at http://superkidsnutrition.com/

Dr. Dolgoff’s Weigh

Dr. Johanna Dolgoff is a pediatrician who focuses on weight management. She has many resources online that you can get for free at her website, http://drweigh.com/

SNAP-Ed Recipe Finder Database Search for low-cost recipes by ingredient, recipe name, cost, and more: http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/

Online Videos

Want to learn more about the food system by watching videos? Here are a few you can watch online:

· Urban Farming NYC http://tinyurl.com/urbanfarmingnyc

· The Meatrix http://www.themeatrix.com/

· The True Cost of Food http://www.sierraclub.org/truecostoffood/movie.asp

· The Story of Stuff http://www.storyofstuff.com/

This newsletter was written by Kelly Moltzen, a dietetic intern at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center, graduate student studying public health at New York University, and previous Nutrition Intern at Bronx Health REACH. She can be reached by email at kellym41122@yahoo.com. You can also follow her on twitter at twitter.com/kellymoltzen or visit her blog: food4thoughtandaction.blogspot.com/.

Thanks for reading!

Farmers Markets in the Bronx

Greenmarket Farmers Markets: EBT/Food Stamps and WIC & Senior FMNP Coupons Accepted. For every 5 EBT dollars spent, customers receive a $2 Health Buck coupon to purchase additional produce.

Bronx Borough Hall Greenmarket

Grand Concourse at 161 St, Bronx, 10451

Tuesdays, June 29 through November 23, 8am - 3pm

Lincoln Hospital Greenmarket
149th Street at Park Ave, Bronx, 10451
Tuesdays and Fridays, June 29 through November 23, 8am - 3pm

New York Botanical Garden Greenmarket
Dr Theodore Kazimiroff Blvd at Bronx Park Rd, New York, 10458
Wednesdays, June 16 through November 29, 9am - 6pm.

Poe Park Greenmarket
Grand Concourse at E 192 St, Bronx, 10468
Open Tuesdays, July 6 through November 23, 8am -3pm

Harvest Home Farmers Markets:

Jacobi Market
Jacobi Hospital
1400 Pelham Parkway
Tuesday, 8 am – 4 pm
June 16 - November 24

Forrest Ave. Market
Forrest Avenue Betw. 156th & Westchester
Wednesday, 8 am – 4 pm
July 8 - November 18

North Central Bronx
Mosholu Pkwy North & Jerome Ave
Wednesday, 8 am - 6 pm
July 8 - November 18

Mt. Eden Ave. Market
(Lebanon Hospital)
Thursday, 8 am - 4 pm
May 21 - November 19

Castle Hill Avenue
At Castle Hill & Hart St
Saturday, 8 am – 4 pm
July 11 - November 21

Coop City Market
Coop City Blvd.,Greenway #3
Saturday, 8 am - 6pm
July 11 - November 21

Morris Park Market
1734 Williamsbridge Road
Our Saviour Lutheran Church Parking Lot
Saturdays, 8 am - 4 pm
July 11 - Nov 21

Echo Park Market
On Tremont Avenue
Betw. Anthony &
Webster Ave.
Wednesday, 8 am – 6 pm
July - Nov 2

Sunday Market
165th Grand Concourse
Bronx Museum
Sunday, 8am - 4pm
July 12 - Nov 22

For more information:

Greenmarket http://cenyc.org/ourmarkets or call (212) 788-7476

Harvest Home Farmers Market http://www.harvesthomefm.org/Locations.html or (212) 828-3361