SF School Food Coalition Press Release

Contact: Lena Brook, Founder, SF School Food Coalition

415-601-0504 | sfschoolfood@gmail.com

STUDENTS ASK PELOSI FOR BETTER SCHOOL FOOD

SAN FRANSICO – More than 2,000 paper plates created by SFUSD students from over 25 elementary schools and adorned with requests to improve public school food were presented today to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

Students at Jose Ortega Elementary School in the city’s Ingleside district gave the plates to the Speaker’s staff at the school during an assembly about health and nutrition.

The plates are part of campaign to increase federal funding and improve nutrition standards for public school meal programs. Known as the “Paper Plates for Pelosi” campaign, the drive was launched last fall by the San Francisco School Food Coalition (SFSFC), a group of volunteers working to improve the food in the city’s public school system. The SF School Food Coalition (sfschoolfood.org) is a coalition of parents and advocates committed to creating a school food program that connects student health, academic achievement and positive behavior to eating fresh, high quality and good tasting food from sustainable resources.

“The fiscal and structural limitations of our National School Lunch Program has left food service directors with little choice but to serve low-cost, processed food.” Lena Brook, founder of the SFSFC and parent of a 1^st grader at Grattan Elementary School said. “We are asking for Speaker Pelosi’s leadership in ensuring that the upcoming reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act results in at least $1 in additional funding per child as well as revised nutrition standards based on recent recommendations presented by the Institute of Medicine.”

More than 25 schools within the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) participated in the campaign. Students decorated the plates with original art and messages, in three languages, about their desire for better tasting food. Some included artwork of fresh fruit and vegetable while others wrote poems about what kinds of food they’d like to have at lunch. Photos of the top 15 entries are available on the SF School Food Coalition’s website.

Currently, the Federal Government reimburses the district up to $2.70 per meal for those who qualify for free or reduced lunch—roughly more than half of all students in the SFUSD qualify. Unfortunately, only $1.75 of that money is actually spent on food. The remainder is used to fund operational expenses.

The funding for school meals programs is allocated through the Child Nutrition Act, which was originally authorized in 1966. The bill is up for reauthorization this spring.

“In addition to increasing resources for school meals, the 2010 Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act should also improve access to school meals for more children by increasing reimbursement rates and expanding eligibility for high-cost areas like San Francisco,” Brook said. “Congress has a golden opportunity before them to support health prevention by bringing healthier food to the children who need it most. San Francisco students are counting on their leadership.”

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SAN FRANCISCO STUDENTS MAKE CHILD NUTRITION REAUTHORIZATION A PRIORITY TO SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI’S DISTRICT STAFF

WHAT: NEWS CONFERENCE AND PRESENTATION OF THOUSANDS OF STUDENT-DESIGNED PAPER PLATES IN SUPPORT OF IMPROVED SCHOOL FOOD TO SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI’S DISTRICT STAFF WITH THE SAN FRANCISCO FOOD BANK AND THE SAN FRANCISCO FOOD COALITION

WHEN: 8:30-9AM, TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2010

WHERE: JOSE ORTEGA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, 400 SARGENT STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132 (Map )

The San Francisco Food Bank, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending hunger in San Francisco and the SF School Food Coalition, a coalition of parents and advocates committed to creating a school food program that connects student health, academic achievement and positive behavior to eating fresh, high quality and good tasting food from sustainable resources are pleased to inform you about a media opportunity that will take place tomorrow at Jose Ortega Elementary School at 8:30 AM. An assembly will be held to raise awareness of an issue that is mobilizing communities here in San Francisco and across the nation: the improvement of school food programs.

This spring, Congress is expected to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act, which funds the National School Lunch Program. Thousands of SFUSD students decorated paper plates for Speaker Pelosi, asking for her leadership in securing more resources for better school food. This includes a more streamlined application process, additional funding for reimbursable meals, the expansion of cost-of-living adjustments, the passage of new food guidelines, and raising the eligibility income ceiling in high-cost areas like San Francisco. All of these improvements would expand access to the school meal program and bring in millions of dollars of much-needed government funds for healthy, higher quality food. SFUSD serves about 28,000 daily meals that qualify under Child Nutrition Act programs.

On Tuesday, the San Francisco School Food Coalition convenes at Jose Ortega Elementary to present the paper plates, while two staff members from the San Francisco Food Bank deliver samples to Nancy Pelosi’s office in the Capitol.
We would like to invite you to attend the paper plate presentation at Jose Ortega Elementary School. Additionally, your affiliate station in Washington D.C. may also find this to be a relevant topic as this issue is one of both local and national significance. It may make for an interesting segment to connect affiliate stations that cover both the San Francisco as well as the DC events.

For more information regarding the San Francisco event, contact:
Lena Brook, Founder, SF School Food Coalition/Grattan Elementary School parent,  sfschoolfood@gmail.com

For more information regarding the Washington, DC event, contact:
Stacy Newman, Media Manager, San Francisco Food Bank, 415-282-1907 x270 or snewman@sffb.org

Photos of the top 15 entries are included below. All are available as high-resolution JPEGs.

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It’s lunchtime: Do you know where your student’s lunch money is?

Now you will. SFUSD school cafeterias are launching a prepayment program called MealpayPlus that will increase convenience for families and speed up lunch lines. Student Nutrition Services is encouraging families to prepay for students’ school meals by the month, by the week or on their own schedule.

MealpayPlus allows families to register at www.mealpayplus.com and prepay by credit card, debit card or electronic check online or by phone. Families may also pay by check or cash at school, or may choose to send checks by mail. MealpayPlus will also allow families, including those who qualify for National School Lunch Program free or reduced-price meals, to view their students’ history of purchases in the cafeterias, so parents can see what their child is eating.

Other benefits of MealpayPlus include eliminating the need for children to carry cash to school, reducing cash losses, and helping the district meet all requirements set by the National School Lunch Program. The technology is now up and running at all SFUSD middle and high schools, and is going online at several elementary schools a week. It will be completed in all San Francisco public schools by the end of the school year. For families with children in more than one school, you will be notified by the school when the program is online. Schools will also send out forms for cash and check prepayments.

“The cartons of chocolate milk served in San Francisco Unified School District cafeterias will no longer contain the highly debated sweetener high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). A product containing sucrose will be offered to students beginning the first week in February.

Berkeley Farms, the dairy that supplies milk to SFUSD, decided to reformulate the chocolate milk due to multiple requests from the district’s Student Nutrition Director Ed Wilkins.

“Indeed there is a great deal of controversy regarding HFCS and its potential contributions to Type 2 Diabetes and childhood obesity,” Wilkins says. “The parents in this district have had major concerns about the additive for several years. I began working with our primary food and beverage suppliers a couple of years ago to eliminate or at least substantially limit HFCS in any products used in the SFUSD school meal program. I am grateful to Berkeley Farms for their proactive response to this important issue.”

Both plain and chocolate milk are available to kids who get lunch in the cafeteria in San Francisco public schools. As part of the National School Lunch Program, the district is required to provide two milk options, according to Wilkins. The district’s Student Nutrition & Physical Activity Committee has said that chocolate milk could be one of the two options, and the district made the choice to offer it.

While Student Nutrition Committee member Dana Woldow has concerns about the chocolate milk with sucrose still having too much added sweetener, she was happy to learn the news. “At least the concerns related specifically to HFCS have been eliminated,” Woldow says. “Just this week a study was released linking Monsanto’s genetically modified corn with organ damage in small mammals. Since most high fructose corn syrup is made from genetically modified corn, this is just another example of why parents are so opposed to this substance being added to their children’s food.”

HFCS is cheaper than sucrose, and so it has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods, from breads and cereals to yogurts and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average, according to USA Today.

HFCS is highly controversial. Some people view it as a nutritional villain along the lines of trans-fat. Others argue that it’s no better or worse than sugar.

The actual research on high fructose corn syrup is fuzzy and insufficient, and a huge chunk of the money spent on researching HFCS has come from companies who make products with the ingredient. “But there’s more science coming out to say it’s an unhealthy ingredient,” says David Wallinga, a director at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. “The American Society of Nephrology recently came out with a study indicating that HFCS consumption increases the risk of developing hypertension.”

But while there’s a trickle of studies indicating that HFCS could be harmful, some experts are saying that the sweetener is no different from sucrose. They argue that HFCS is not poison and that it’s simply sugar in a liquid form. The body metabolizes HFCS and sucrose in the same way, some experts say.

While the debate over HFCS is sorted out and new studies get underway, the American Medical Association has decided that “because the composition of HFCS and sucrose are so similar, particularly on absorption by the body, it appears unlikely that HFCS contributes more to obesity or other conditions than sucrose. Nevertheless, few studies have evaluated the potentially differential effect of various sweeteners, particularly as they relate to health conditions as obesity…”

No matter, many San Francisco parents are happy about the removal of HFCS from their children’s milk. “I do see it as a slight victory,” says Maren Nymo, who sends her child to a public school in San Francisco. “I think its a great chance to reinforce the belief that foods ‘closest to the source, or earth’ are a better option than those that are made in labs. Its definitely a step in the right direction.”

While the HFCS-free milk is a step in the right direction, some would like to see an even bigger step taken and chocolate milk removed all together. “The quick response to SFUSD’s request from Berkeley Farms indicates that our District has significant leverage in the marketplace in terms of buying power, which can hopefully continue to be used to our advantage,” says Lena Brook, founder of the SF Food Coalition. “I commend Ed Wilkins for his responsiveness on this issue and his dedication to creating a healthy food program for SFUSD students. But I continue to have concerns about SFUSD students having daily access to beverages with added sugar. There is a significant body of research demonstrating the negative impact of various forms of sugar on health.”

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, encourages San Francisco parents to continue to fight for better food in their children’s schools. “It’s great that the public schools want to do something about the healthfulness of the school lunches and I know that many people believe that high fructose corn syrup is the worst thing ever,” says Nestle, “but it’s really just sugar and the switch to sucrose is about marketing, not health. If parents really want the lunches to be healthier, they need to work on cutting down on all kinds of sugars and start serving kids real food.”

Because SFUSD is required to serve two milk choices, you might think the district could simply offer 1-percent white milk and skim or 2-percent white milk. But getting rid of chocolate milk isn’t that easy. In fact, it’s rather complicated.

SFUSD is restricted by countless regulations that dictate what goes into public school children’s mouths. USDA sets minimum calorie levels for school meals, and limits on the amounts of fat and saturated fat. Because SFUSD has focused on reducing fat and empty calories in cafeteria items, the meals are now very close to the USDA minimums, and are based on a meal which includes either 1-percent white milk or skim chocolate milk. “Replacing skim chocolate milk with skim white milk would cause the calorie count of the meal to drop below the USDA-mandated minimum,” says Woldow, “while offering 2-percent white milk as the required second choice would exceed the fat content limits.” Again, it’s complicated.”

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=55267#ixzz0ciyLifd7

This item will be heard between 5:30-5:45pm.

For those of you who will not be able to attend the 12/15 meeting in person, please consider adding your name to this sign-on letter. My goal is to gather as many signatories as possible by 12pm Tuesday, so please circulate this to your school communities as well. I will send this to the entire School Board and to Superintendent Carlos Garcia on Tuesday afternoon.

SEND YOUR NAME AND SCHOOL AFFILIATION TO SFSCHOOLFOOD@GMAIL.COM!!!

Download of copy of the letter HERE.

The message and the task are simple.

This year (or early next), Congress will decide how much money to allocate to the National School Lunch Program. More money means better food for kids, plain and simple. Our goal is to remind Speaker Nancy Pelosi how much her leadership on this issue count. We know that children deserve improved school food in order to be healthy and to be better students. What better messengers than the kids themselves?

Parents! Circulate the attached flyer to teachers at your school and request that they do a classroom art activity decorating a paper plate with two simple messages to Speaker Pelosi. Any teacher who submits entries from 15 or more students will be entered into a drawing to win a $75 VISA gift card.

Teachers! Make this paper plate art and letter-writing project a classroom activity. Ask all of your students to let Speaker Pelosi know how important healthier food is to their education.

All plates need to be returned to the school coordinator by November 6, 2009.

The top 13 entries – our Baker’s Dozen – will be turned into a poster and sent to California’s Congressional delegation, First Lady Michelle Obama, and President Obama! All paper plates will be hand-delivered to Speaker Pelosi’s Distirct Office in San Francisco.

Thanks to those who have already volunteered:

Naomi Fiss, Buena Vista; Heidi Kooy, Monroe; Meesha Halm, Rooftop; Monica Bhagwan, Flynn; Teri Olle, Grattan; Darrow VW, Sunset, RL Stevenson, Ulloa, FS Key; Joyce Baranowska, Commodore Sloat; Bradee Evans, Fairmount; Wona Miniati, Jefferson; Katharine Yousefi/Sheila Cahill, Sunnyside; Ellen Hintz-Shimabukuro, Creative Arts Charter; Meryl Bennan/Catherine Dauer, Miraloma; Stelly Kuo, Clarendon.

Contact Lena Brook at sfschoolfood@gmail.com for more information, to volunteer and receive paper plates for your school!