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COVID Ushered in Enthusiasm for Universal School Meals. Will They Get Federal Support in the Childhood Nutrition Reauthorization?

FoodCorps — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 17:35:05 +0000

Lela Nargi for FoodPrint

If there’s one thing school nutrition directors are looking forward to this upcoming school year it’s returning to the normalcy of feeding kids back in the familiar setting of the cafeteria. “These professionals worked so hard to overcome so many different challenges when schools closed abruptly at the start of the pandemic, and they can’t wait to interact with students and families in a different way than loading food and groceries in the trunk of a car,” says Laura Hatch, co-vice president of impact for school food nonprofit FoodCorps. “They did heroic work, but they’re exhausted.”

Little wonder. In some cases in a matter of 24 hours, school nutrition directors pivoted everything about their operations in March 2020, moving from in-person meals to grab-and-go bags that could be picked up curbside, distributed to neighborhoods via school bus routes, or delivered directly to families. They did get a lot of legislative help: Thanks to the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, dozens of waivers were able to be issued by the USDA. These allowed schools to eschew things like handing meals over to children only (as opposed to parents and caregivers) and the usual congregate feeding mandates; states could also provide pandemic EBT cards to fill in grocery gaps beyond the reach of school-provided breakfasts and lunches.

But figuring out how best to respond to a need that only grew as weeks went on was hardly a simple task, and the difficulties were myriad and varied, says Hatch.

The post COVID Ushered in Enthusiasm for Universal School Meals. Will They Get Federal Support in the Childhood Nutrition Reauthorization? appeared first on FoodCorps.

Will the U.S. Finally Take a Holistic Approach to Ending Child Hunger?

FoodCorps — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 17:54:24 +0000

Lisa Held for Civil Eats

Over the last 18 months, an alarming rise in child hunger—over 17 million children did not have consistent access to enough food in 2020—caught the attention of many federal lawmakers, prompting them to call for an overdue evaluation of the country’s child nutrition programs.

In March, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry kicked off a process that involves updating a broad collection of child hunger and nutrition programs. Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) is supposed to occur every five years, but Congress hasn’t reviewed it since 2010, when President Obama’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act made historic changes to school meal nutrition standards.

Now six years late, lawmakers and advocates say the COVID-19 pandemic and a racial justice reckoning have created the political will to not only ensure that the country’s young people are fed, but that the programs also address systemic inequalities. The Biden administration is supporting decisive, progressive action.

“Among other things the pandemic revealed about our country was the fact that there is pervasive inequality, especially racial inequity, and then the crucial role that federal programs can play during a national crisis,” said Mamiko Vuillemin, senior manager of policy and advocacy at FoodCorps, an organization that works to improve school meals and food education. “We definitely see school food as a way to address racial injustices and inequalities that we have in this country.”

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Four Things President Biden Can Do for Students’ Wellbeing

FoodCorps — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 20:59:22 +0000

By Mamiko Vuillemin and Timothy Barchak for Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity

After a tumultuous election season, former Vice President Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States.

In the past, Biden has vowed to invest in schools, students, and local food systems. Furthermore, Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump, spent much of his four years in office undermining access to healthy food and making it harder for families to put food on the table. The first 100 days of Biden’s presidency are an opportune time for the president-elect to take steps toward ensuring all our nation’s kids have access to delicious, nutritious food at school.

Here’s what the new administration can do for kids and families.

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K’edilzeehí Yídágoł’aa Summer Camp 2016 – Growing Food Sovereignty

mayaharjo — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 14:00:52 +0000

“Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture system.” – La Vía Campesina

Food Sovereignty is a term that describes our inherent right as Native people to gather, grow, hunt, and harvest the healthy and traditional foods that our communities have always had but have been continuously stripped of. It is a framework that advocates for placing the power back into the hands of indigenous peoples and returning to us control over our own health, culture, community and environment. This also makes it a vital ingredient of Tribal Sovereignty and a really important concept for understanding food justice work in Indian Country.

That said, Food Sovereignty can sometimes use alienating terminology that puts it at risk of being lost to academic discussions and political theorizing. We must remember that the true power of Food Sovereignty comes not from the theories it supports but from the action it inspires, and so it is crucial that we ultimately define the movement with our actions more than our words; that we show others what Food Sovereignty looks like instead of describing what it is.

So, what does Food Sovereignty actually look like?

That is the question that Ndee Bikiyaa, The People’s Farm, set out to answer by holding their first annual K’edilzeehí Yídágoł’aa (Learning to Plant) Summer Camp on the White Mountain Apache Reservation this summer. The camp brought 35 middle school-aged Apache youth to the farm for a week-long celebration of Apache food traditions and an activity-filled introduction to the concept of Food Sovereignty. Though we did have a lesson in which we discussed the definition of Food Sovereignty, the ultimate goal was to provide the students with a deep-rooted understanding of what Food Sovereignty means by showing them what it looks like, what it tastes like, what it feels like.

We are very honored to have shared this experience with our youth, our Elders, and our community members, and we are very proud to share the following images with you.

This is what Food Sovereignty looks like:

Students spent lots of time in the garden, planting, weeding, harvesting, and eating the fresh, organically-grown produce.

Farmer Clayton Harvey guided the students through the farming activities, emphasizing the role that Apaches have always played as stewards of the natural world.

A new generation of Apaches learned about where their food comes from and the value of eating with the seasons. Here, students excitedly snack on fresh strawberries.

Throughout the week, students were led by our dedicated youth leaders, a group of young locals who are passionate about keeping Apache food traditions alive and thriving.

A big thank you to Native Seeds/SEARCH, a nonprofit based in Tucson, who came out to teach the kids about seed saving, heritage seed varieties, and the vital importance of seeds to tribes of the Southwest.

Cheryl Pailzote, the Director of the Tribe’s Water Resources Department, and I led a lesson on Food Sovereignty and Water Rights. Together, the students brainstormed and answered questions like “What are different ways that we can practice Food Sovereignty?” and “How can we use our water to preserve our tribal water rights?”

One of the kids’ answers to both of those questions: Farming! Historically, White Mountain Apaches were hunters, gatherers, and farmers, relying on both wild and cultivated foods each season. Fields like this one have been used by Apaches for hundreds of years and during camp, students continued this important farming tradition by re-planting this historic corn field under the guidance of Elders.

Community Elders, speaking only Apache, led the students in a blessing of the field and the planting of blue corn, beans, squash, and sugar cane.

Also essential to maintaining our Food Sovereignty: hunting and butchering our own game.

A cow butchering workshop, led by community members and Elders, helped the students to understand not only where our meat comes from but also the importance of animals in Apache stories, ceremonies, and traditional foodways.

Andrea, a local Elder, guided the women and girls through cleaning the internal organs, a job traditionally reserved for Apache women. She shared stories and explained the traditional use of each part of the cow as the girls helped to clean out the intestines.

Every part of the cow, including the hide, hooves, meat, and organs, were used or eaten. Students helped process the meat into sections, some of which was used immediately after the butchering for a lunch of beef burritos.

Twila Cassadore, an Elder from San Carlos, and Seth Pilsk, an ethnobotanist, work to revive the traditional Western Apache diet through the reclamation of wild foods. We are grateful for their generosity in sharing their knowledge with our group as they guided a wild foods gathering trip.

Students collected wild plants, like wild mustard seed and psyllium, and learned about the different uses for juniper berries. Many were amazed that the plants they usually walk by were actually food and they carefully worked to fill their bags up with seeds.

We also gathered beautiful yucca blossoms, also known as wild cabbage.

At the farm, the students worked together to process the wild foods that we brought back from our gathering trips and prep it for cooking.

After several days of experiencing farm work and related activities, the students listened to Teresa Honga from the Intertribal Agriculture Council as she spoke about the many different types of agricultural jobs that are available to them. Our goal was to not just introduce the students to agriculture but also to open their minds to the world of opportunity that exists in Native farming and beyond.

On our last day of camp, Nephi Craig, the celebrated White Mountain Apache chef, came to talk to the students about Western Apache Foodways and Ancestral Memory. He used the wild foods and produce that we had harvested throughout the week in his cooking lesson.

He also used the meat from the cow we had butchered the day before…

As well as a salmon, which was slow-roasted over cedar planks.

Using the foods that we had harvested, gathered, and butchered over the week, the students worked with Nephi and his team, the ‘Apaches in the Kitchen’ at Sunrise Park Resort, to prepare a meal for their families.
Pictured here is the beef, which was slow roasted in an adobe oven and tossed with yucca blossoms, acorn, and chili flakes. (Photo credit: Nephi Craig)

In our camp’s concluding practice of Food Sovereignty, the students shared the knowledge they had collected and the food they had gathered with their loved ones.

Our food has always been at the center of our culture and at the core of our community. Pictured here: Our students, youth leaders, and their family members.

To learn more about the amazing work that Ndee Bikiyaa, The People’s Farm, is doing, please visit their website and Facebook.

Maya Harjo is Quapaw/Muscogee and grew up in Los Angeles, CA. She is currently serving with the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation where she teaches nutrition & gardening lessons at a local elementary school and collaborates with Ndee Bikiyaa to bring farm-grown produce to cafeterias and farm-based education to students. After FoodCorps, she hopes to continue working in community-based food production and garden education for Native youth.

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Using Kahoot! as a tool to measure knowledge retention:

Stephanie Cumper, Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 20:38:19 +0000

Remember this blog? Remember when a teacher said this:

“I’ve been teaching here for a long time, and it’s incredible the difference we notice thanks to PE-NUT and FoodCorps together. Before, the kids didn’t even know what a fruit or a vegetable was. They would have gotten every single one of those questions wrong. And now they can identify all their food groups; they know about the food system and things like vermicomposting. It’s amazing, really!”

Well, we kept utilizing Kahoot because of how much the teachers liked it. And somewhere down the line we realized something: Kahoot saves data. All of the students’ replies, all of the questions: they were all catalogued within Kahoot’s beautiful infrastructure. Essentially, we had stumbled upon this great tool with which we could easily measure students’ progress. More importantly: they didn’t realize they were being tested and they had fun playing Kahoot.

This is what the collected data will look like:

What you see above is an overview of the quizzes’ results. Included? Name of student, number of correct and incorrect answers per student, overall score, answers for each question (color coded, of course), and overall performance (percentage of total correct/incorrect and average score).

The spreadsheet then proceeds to break down each question in different tabs. Above, for example, are the results for the question: “Which of the following foods belongs to the grain food group?” Included: name of student, answer given, time given to answer, and then the overall performance (average answer speed and percentage correct). So, 86.36% of this 1st/2nd grade class knew that bread belongs to the grain food group.

Now, this data is saved for each and every Kahoot! quiz that is taken (even the trial ones I did to test the quiz!).

The cool thing about this resource is that you can proceed to compare the progress of the students over time.

For example: one of our questions was “What type of vegetable is this?” and then a picture of a radish was displayed, as well as four potential answers: beet, lettuce, bell pepper, radish. The first time we took the quiz, 37.50% of this 2nd grade class could distinguish between a radish and a beet. The second time, 52.00% of the students knew the difference between the two. We purposefully added this trickier question so we could see if the students 1) had been retaining knowledge during our many tastings of radishes and experiments with beets and 2) learned more about each during the course of our teachings. The results may not be the cheeriest in the bunch, but they do show promise.

Or consider the grain group question: when they took Kahoot A, 56.00% of the 2nd graders knew that bread was a grain. When we asked the same question during Kahoot B, 72.00% of the 2nd graders knew bread was a grain.

And because each questions’ results are shared with the entire class immediately after they answer a question, the educator is given the opportunity to pause the game and discuss material that the students struggled with.

Continuing the integration of nutritionally- and agriculturally- enhanced lessons into curricula is vital to ensure the health of our youth. A skillfully utilized Kahoot! gives teachers the ability to easily mesh information, technology, and evaluation into their unit plans. I would even go so far as to say that it is one of the most beneficial educational tools I’ve used all school year.

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Our 1st Local Lunch Day

Lucy Lyman, New London, CT — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 17:37:24 +0000

Here in New London we are celebrating after holding our first Local Lunch Day at New London High School! On the menu was local beef burgers from Brush Hill Dairy (Bozrah, CT), local lettuce from Hunts Brook Farm (Quaker Hill, CT), local corn from Whittle’s Farm (Mystic, CT), and local milk from Guida’s Dairy (New Britain, CT). More students and teachers than ever ate the hot lunch from the cafeteria and days later are still raving about it. Safe to say this will be happening again!

Cafeteria Worker Jane, serving up an awesome meal!

Local Lunch Tray!

Beef burgers from Brush Hill Dairy!

Local Lunch Day!

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Recipe: Radish Salad

Regan O'Hanlon, Ottumwa, IA — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 16:38:59 +0000

Spring is the time for radishes in the school garden. At least, in Ottumwa this spring has been full of radishes. Together, students planted radishes, watched radishes grow, harvested and tasted some raw radishes, and saw some radishes bolt and go to seed in the sudden heat wave. One of the first vegetables ready to harvest in the springtime, radishes are brightly colored, beautiful and inviting. But they also have a distinctive peppery bite that intimidates some tasters. That spicy kick is the reason why lots of kids at Prime Time Youth Care gave me wary looks and even a couple cries of protest when, a couple weeks ago, I told them we would be preparing and tasting a radish salad.

To be fair, this salad contained not only radishes, which the students KNEW were spicy because we had tasted them raw the week before with mixed reactions, but other intimidating vegetables as well (I’m looking at you, kohlrabi). But to everyone’s surprise, including mine, this salad was a huge huge hit. The older kids who prepared the salad loved it. When there was a lot left over they offered it to the younger students, who also loved it. I offered some to parents who came to pick up their students. I sent home recipes. This week at our summer gardening program a girl told me her family made the radish salad at home. This salad changed hearts and minds. Here is the recipe:

Radish Salad

1 bunch (about 1.5 cups) radishes, chopped into small cubes
1 large bulb of kohlrabi, peeled and cubed
1 medium cucumber, cubed
1/2 red onion, diced
2 Tbsp cilantro, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Pinch of salt and black pepper to taste

Students can help chop up all the vegetables. Add everything into a large bowl. Squeeze lemon juice and sprinkle salt and pepper over the vegetables. Mix well, then serve and taste together. Have seconds, thirds, spread the news about this delicious radish salad through the whole school, share with families and send home recipes. Try other radish recipes. Enjoy the freshly harvested spring radish deliciousness for as long as you can, until the summer heat makes all your remaining radishes go to seed. Finally, bid a tearful farewell to radish season and embrace all the opportunities that summer vegetables have to offer.

Have a rad summer.

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Why Miss Stephanie Serves with FoodCorps

Stephanie Cumper, Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 20:56:20 +0000

Miss Stephanie I know why you have a job with FoodCorps — it’s because you love all foods so much, even raw asparagus spears!

— Interlochen Community School, 1st grader

The post Why Miss Stephanie Serves with FoodCorps appeared first on FoodCorps.

Thank you.

FoodCorps — Tue, 31 May 2016 19:37:19 +0000

You are so amazing, what you’re doing for our school is unbelievably priceless! Thank you for your time, love, and energy!

Samantha Keller, Third Grade

All I can muster is how grateful and speechless I am by the widespread outpour of support, enthusiasm, and warmth I have received while serving the community of Wrightsboro Elementary. I will forever cherish these conversations and moments in time from my first year of service with FoodCorps.

The post Thank you. appeared first on FoodCorps.

Vassal Lane Culinary Engineers Perfect Pairing with Sauce Off

Corey Carmichael, Cambridge, MA — Tue, 31 May 2016 21:24:34 +0000

What do a chef and an engineer have in common? Students in the CitySprouts elective at Vassal Lane Upper School could tell you. Over the past two months, the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders have become “culinary engineers” striving to develop the perfect sauce to be paired with the coconut crusted redfish served in Cambridge school cafeterias. Using the engineering design process as a guide, the students identified their problem (develop the perfect sauce), explored possible sauce ingredients, developed recipes, tested their recipes, and sought to make them better. Along the way, they learned about the science of spiciness, how to make an emulsion, and the importance of precision in recipe writing.

Chef Andrew’s visit (photo: Ro Li)

One of the highlights of the unit (for myself and the students), was a visit from Chef Andrew Wilkinson, the Seafood Specialist at North Coast Seafoods – the company that provides the locally-sourced redfish for the Cambridge schools. Dressed in his chef’s jacket, he engaged the students in lively conversations about the importance of sourcing food locally and fishing sustainably. Chef Andrew was even able to give the students expert advice on how to make a sauce to accompany the redfish. At the end of his presentation, Chef Andrew opened a small white box to reveal a whole redfish. In what turned into the ultimate show-and-tell, the students got a chance to hold, pat, poke, and observe the fish. Some of our most reserved students were front and center, taking in every opportunity to examine the fish’s gills and open its mouth. Early on in the sauce development project, the students were encouraged to see the connections between the work they were doing in class and the school cafeteria. In seeing and holding the fish, I hope they were getting an even deeper sense of how to their work was connected to the natural world and the local food system.

Sauce Development (photo: Ro Li)

After the visit from Chef Andrew, the students set to work in small groups developing their signature sauce recipes. They were tasked with creating a precise recipe that could be replicated by anyone. They mixed together different ingredients, searching for the combination that would create the perfect flavor and texture. After each group’s recipes
were developed and perfected, it was time to put them to the first real test. Each group made their sauce recipe, and everyone in the class tasted the sauces with the coconut crusted redfish. Using our sauce development rubric, the students rated each of the sauces based on flavor, texture, compatibility with the redfish, and visual appeal. With the ratings in, the rubrics were tallied and one sauce emerged as the favorite in each class. The classes then went back to work tweaking their winning class recipes to make them even better. By the last week in April, each grade had a sauce that would represent them in the school-wide Sauce Off.

FoodCorps Service Members Corey Carmichael and Rochelle Li with Mellissa Honeywood, Chef Andrew, and Chef Paul

On the day of the Sauce Off, we set up a table in the cafeteria complete with samples and ballots. With the help of Cambridge Food Service Director, Mellissa Honeywood, Chef Andrew, and VLUS/Tobin Kitchen Manager, Chef Paul, my co-teacher Ro and I prepared hundreds of samples of the signature sauces with the redfish. As the middle schoolers trickled into the cafeteria, they stopped by the table to try samples and vote for their favorites. The competing sauces included the Master Unicorn Sauce (6th), the Rosemary Tropical Dash Sauce (7th), and the Alezle Sauce (8th). During each grade’s lunch period, the Sauce Off table was abuzz with students trying samples and voting for their favorite sauces.

The Sauce Off

Students from our CitySprouts elective were thrilled to see their sauces on the “big stage” and kept bringing their friends and teachers over to vote. In the frenzy of sample-tasting and ballot-casting, it occurred to me that not a single student had complained about eating the fish. In fact, many students came back to
the table asking for more. Throughout the project, a number of people had warned me that pairing the sauce with fish was going to deter the students. I am happy to report that I did not experience that at all. Overall, we received almost 100 ballots, which amounts to almost 300 samples of fish and sauce eaten without a single complaint. While all of the sauces were well-received, the 7th grade Rosemary Tropical Dash Sauce earned the most votes! The Tropical Dash Sauce recipe was sent to Mellissa Honeywood and is listed on the May Cambridge school lunch menu.

Tropical Dash

On May 16th, the Rosemary Tropical Dash sauce was served with the local and sustainable redfish in cafeterias across Cambridge. The students in our elective were beaming with pride and kept telling all of their friends, “I made that!” Our students weren’t the only ones who loved the sauce. By the end of lunch, the other students were scraping the bottles to get out every last drop. I even overheard one student ask, “can I buy this in stores?”

At the end of it all, I hope the kids are taking away some new interest in science and engineering, a deeper understanding of recipe development, and – most of all – the belief that their opinions matter and have the power to help shape their school food environment.

Local, sustainable redfish served with the Tropical Dash sauce (photo: Mellissa Honeywood)

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