My guest post on Tanya's blog!

My good friend Tanya, who runs the blog Vegan Faith, asked me to write a post for her while she is out of town. I took the opportunity to talk about a few School Food events I went to a few weeks ago. I always knew that school food was generally not something I'd want to eat, but I didn't know the extent of it until taking part in these events (put on by the Wagner Food Policy Alliance, a group I'm involved with here at school and another blog I work with).

Read through my post below and those I've linked to above, explore What's on Your Plate? and take a look at the resources for making a difference!

"After a year of working with kids to learn about gardening and community food security in Tucson, Ariz., I enrolled in New York University’s Food Systems master’s program to learn about the governmental policies, international relations issues and economic drivers behind why so many Americans do not have access to fresh, healthy food.

"Last week I went to a few events about School Food and got really angry about how we are feeding kids in schools. I learned about a lot of resources for fighting against this dangerous problem and wanted to share the information with everyone.

"Let me start off by borrowing from School Food expert Kate Adamick’s frightening description of added sugars from her review of Jamie Oliver’s television show Food Revolution:

"“Generally speaking, there are 22 to 24 grams of sugar in a typical eight-ounce serving of flavored milk—10 to 12 more grams of added sugars than in a comparable serving of unflavored milk (of equal fat content). There are four grams of sugar per teaspoon, and approximately 115 teaspoons of sugar per pound. Thus, a child who drinks flavored milk every day for lunch consumes 1800 to 2160 more grams of sugar per 180-day school year than a child who drinks an equal amount of unflavored milk. That's 3.9 to 4.7 pounds of added sugars. And, of course, children who drink flavored milk for both breakfast and lunch consume twice that amount.”

"Kids in schools are fed sugar, fat and salt by the pounds every year, and food companies that take free commodities like unflavored milk and raw chicken and process them into chocolate milk and chicken nuggets get rich off of this. We are teaching kids that it is ok for them to think of food this way—that it should be consumed as entertainment, that the only way food can taste good is if it is overly processed, colorful, advertised by a cartoon, and high in sugar.

"This very blog, and my own experiences cooking and eating with my roommates in my little Brooklyn apartment, show us that there is a lot more to enjoy about food. We know chicken grilled with rosemary (I know we weren’t always vegans) is even better than a dinosaur-shaped nugget. None of us buy into the idea that adding sugar/salt/fat is the only way to make food tasty, and we need to show kids that this is true as well—or else there are going to be a lot of diet-related problems for our younger generations.

"I was lucky enough to buy school lunch only a handful of times growing up. Mostly I packed my own lunch every day, or my mom packed it when I was young. I would still buy soda or french fries to supplement what I brought by the time I was in high school, but I had a bagel and some fruit to fill me up. For students on free or reduced lunch, or any other low-income students, there is no nutritional safety net. Cakes and donuts are served for breakfast, chicken nuggets and pizza for lunch, and if there is a salad bar it usually has iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing. For one of the school food events I attended, we picked a number out of a hat that dictated what we could eat for breakfast. I got donuts and cocoa puffs. I ate donuts for the first time in years, and felt sick all day long because of that.

"Two New York public school students made a film about their relationship to food, and the accessibility of fresh, healthy food in their neighborhood and at their school. You can see a trailer for the film here, and if you have resources to purchase and show the film I encourage you to do so—it’s inspiring and really fun. How wonderful that students want to advocate for their own bellies and learn about what it takes to grow healthful food!

"Do you think it is necessary to revamp school food so that it can nourish young minds and bodies? I do not have kids, but I really like kids, and I like kids that are full of curiosity, joy and energy. I think all kids should have a right to live life this way, and I think eating habits are the most basic improvements that can be made to promote quality of life. So that’s why I care. But what if your kids were like me, and had yummy food put in a lunch box every day? The accessibility of junk food undermines kids’ practices or preferences of eating nutritious food. Even if they do not eat the donuts for sale in the lunch line, they might still be influenced by the kids that eat them and talk about how sweet they are. To me—and this is biased because it is currently my life’s work—the cafeteria is the most important educational facility in a school. How can we make it a healthy place to learn?

"School gardens, farm-to-school programs and cooking programs are just a few options, and these are great ways to get involved in your local community (and get access to yummy food to sweeten the deal!). Most successful school gardens I’ve seen resulted from PTA funding or involvement, and farm-to-school programs are beneficial to everyone in the community. Here are some wonderful resources to learn more:

http://www.farmtoschool.org/

http://www.scoolfood.org/

http://www.revfoods.com/

http://www.schoolgardenwizard.org/

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/

http://www.kidsgardening.org/

"(I have endless resources about school gardening, ask me if you want more help!)

"Thank you for listening to my tirade on what kids eat, and please let me know what your comments and questions are!"

I still find that my primary interest lies in working with schools and students to change perceptions about food and I'm hoping I can find meaningful work doing that. Is this something you care about as well? Please share some experiences you have had with school food (Brant, you shared some info about how it was for you when you were young... how about starting off that comment thread?)

Thanks to Tanya for encouraging me to write... it seems to be the thing that gets lost in the shuffle of everything I'm doing!

I have an internship at an urban farm in Brooklyn

...and you can read about it here!

Today I helped clear away twigs and tree branches that will be chipped for mulch. It was so nice getting my hands dirty again!

My first task is to help with coordinating communication about a fundraising/awareness event we are having Oct. 30. There's a soup cook-off, a bakesale, facepainting and more.

I am really looking forward to being involved with the development of a new urban farm. It will be a great way to learn about gardening here, and I will get the opportunity to feel really engaged in my new community!

Over the past few weeks as I began school I have been inspired to share what I'm learning, so check back again soon--I'm finally writing again!

In the meantime, be well!

I Got Accepted to Graduate School!!

Good news! I was accepted to New York University's Food Systems Master's program! Read about it here. What an amazing opportunity!

I will be spending the next 2 weeks discerning my next step. I feel very blessed to continue my work with Food Security no matter what I choose.

I want to read this book.

Read about it here:

Working in the Shadows

Some things to keep in mind about unskilled workers:
-Above and beyond U.S. unskilled workers, there is demand for more than 500,000 unskilled workers each year. This shows that there is demand for migrant labor in the U.S.
-5,000 Visas are available for unskilled workers each year. This is unreasonable based on the demand stated above.
-Only three of the Visas for unskilled workers are offered to Mexican workers.
-The backlog for legally obtaining these Visas goes back to 2001; so, workers that applied for the "other workers" Visa from Mexico in 2001 are just now being processed. Take a look at the Visa Bulletin for specifics about Visa processing times.

Against Policies that Create a Police State?

More than 800 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were involved in raids this weekend in South Tucson, a lively and mostly latin@ (latino/latina) neighborhood where I go to church and work with a lot of schools. Some were wearing ski masks. The mission was targeted at criminals involved in human smuggling, but many nearby people were taken up as "collateral damage" for not being able to produce documents. Arizona is taking on the trappings of a police state, and this will only continue with the recent passage of a law legitimizing racial profiling.

SB 1070 would give police officers the authority to determine migrant status based on "reasonable suspicion." Do you know how to determine someone's citizenship? Do you know the categories of citizenship and what documents support those categories? Could you correctly uphold such a directive?

Please, help me fight against the fear and hatred of this bill by telling Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to veto it. If you want to hear more details about why I am against it and what I think would be the results, let me know and I will be happy to share more about this.

Gardening Help

My friend Tanya had the wonderful suggestion that I provide some gardening tips. What a great idea!

The first thing to do is determine your regional planting guide. In Arizona, it is useless to read seed packages for planting seasons. Now, other climates aren't as severe, but it still helps to tailor your planting to the specific conditions in your area. The Old Farmer's Almanac lets you enter your town and state and it will build your planting guide for 2010 based on historical frost dates. Most planting problems stem (haha) from planting at an incorrect time.

The next thing is to really learn and build your soil. Knowing about your soil can tell you how to effectively water, and even poor soils like in Arizona can be amended. Run the Jar Test to see what kind of soil you are working with. Sandy soils don't retain water well, so you should water more frequently for shorter periods of time. Clay soils don't drain well, so you should water less frequently but for longer periods of time. Silt is somewhere in between these two. Compost, along with providing more organic matter for your soil, can improve the soil's ability to retain water in the case of sandy soil and can break up clay soil to increase drainage.

In our beds, we dig 2 feet down, break up the bottom of the bed, and fill it back in with half original soil, half compost. This gives the roots lots of space and organic matter, but it also allows the water to drain so that the roots aren't rotting in sitting water. For any subsequent crops, break up the soil with a digging fork, add 2 more inches of compost and turn that into the rest of the soil. And once your nice, airy soil is prepared, don't step in your bed or you will compact the soil again! You can purchase compost for this first use, but consider building your own compost bin for future use. Everything you need for good soil you already have--and you probably dispose of it--no need to keep buying it!

Okay, that's it for now. More tips to come!

Again--Pictures!

I spent the weekend in the desert and took really beautiful pictures. I think I change my computer background about every week because of all the pictures I take!

My new camera takes great sunset pictures!

Pretty sure this one is in Mexico.

Cerro Del Fresnal-- impressive.

There were about a million caves in those rocks.

The US-Mexico border.