School cafeterias, vending machines trading sugar, fat for more healthful fare, By Lenny Bernstein, September 27, 2013, Washington Post: “Any parent who has fixed a nutritious school lunch only to find it untouched in a backpack the next morning will be heartened by new federal rules that will take effect in schools nationwide in the fall of 2014. That’s when laws will require school vending machines, stores and ‘a la carte’ lunch menus to provide only healthful foods. So if a child hits the cafeteria line for pizza, the cheese on that slice will be relatively low in fat and sodium and the crust probably will be made from whole grains. And snackers will find nuts, granola bars and water in vending machines instead of candy bars, potato chips and sugary sodas…”
Tag: Nutrition programs
Summer Food Programs
Summer food programs seeking new ways to assist children, By John McAuliff, July 1, 2012, USA Today: “Summer food programs aiming to keep U.S. children from going hungry have grown 25 percent in the last five years amid a nationwide push by local food banks to change the way they serve food to needy people. Summer food programs aiming to keep U.S. children from going hungry have grown 25 percent in the last five years amid a nationwide push by local food banks to change the way they serve food to needy people. Food banks say the rise in numbers is because of a push to find more creative ways to bring food to an estimated 19 million hungry U.S. children. . .”
Food Deserts – Washington, D.C.
Planting fresh produce in D.C.’s ‘food deserts’, By Tim Carman, June 19, 2012, Washington Post: “To reach Jimmy Singleton’s “corner store” at the Marbury Plaza Apartments in Ward 7, residents must take the elevator down to the basement and navigate a series of barren, unmarked hallways until they find a nondescript doorway that leads to Marbury Market. For the hundreds of residents here, this is their nearest grocery store. The co-owner learned the dangers of trying to survive on the market’s junk food-heavy stock — chips, sodas, candy bars, sticky buns and the like. Not long after he bought the store in 2005, Singleton turned it into his primary feeding trough. “In a year’s time, I had gained about 75 pounds,” he says. “I got so big, customers started talking about me.” He decided he needed to silence them; he made a New Year’s resolution to lose the pounds — by not eating at his market. . .”