Between my recent laptop crash and this mysterious “Lunch-Tray-third-anniversary-project” I keep alluding to on Facebook, I’m falling woefully behind on various promised posts. One such post is the answer to a question left on TLT’s Facebook page by a reader named Allison who is concerned with junk food in her child’s classroom. Since I’m pressed [...]
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With the closing of USDA’s period for public comment on the new proposed competitive food rules, we’ve had a lot of discussion here about the food and beverages offered to school kids via vending machines, school stores, and cafeteria snack bar or “a la carte” lines. But what about the many other ways in which [...]
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I wanted to remind TLT readers that midnight tomorrow, April 9th, marks the end of USDA’s public comment period on its proposed ”competitive” school food rules. For those needing a refresher, “competitive food” is food that competes with the federally subsidized breakfast and lunch programs. We’re talking about the snack foods and beverages offered on school [...]
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Yesterday’s letter from Paul, a former high school teacher who defended the use of junk food classroom rewards, received an overwhelming response. And, as you might expect given this self-selecting readership, most Lunch Tray readers didn’t take too kindly to Paul’s position. I thought it would be worthwhile to highlight just two or three of [...]
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Way back in November I received an email from a teacher named Paul in which he defended (to a degree) the use of junk food classroom rewards. I wanted to share his email with you right after Thanksgiving, but then I took my month-long mental health break from blogging and Paul’s email got lost in [...]
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Here on TLT I’ve written often – some would say ad nauseum! — on the topic of kids being offered junk food by people other than their parents and what, if anything, we should do about it. But today I want to ask TLT’ers a question: How do you personally handle this issue? Do [...]
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Chris Liebig of A Blog About School (and a very popular past TLT guest blogger) shared with me a post he wrote yesterday in which he describes how his school is handing out Dairy Queen coupons for perfect attendance. Chris points out how this scheme is misguided in about ten different ways – his post [...]
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I’m catching up on news items from last week and wanted to share an important new study from The Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity regarding how parents view food industry marketing practices targeted toward their children, a study which, according to the Rudd Center, is the first of its kind. Surveying 2,454 parents with children aged [...]
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In yesterday’s New York Times Sunday Magazine I spotted a short entry about the history of pickles which said they were once regarded by some as “indigestible green trash.” The piece also included this quote from a 1913 issue of McClure’s magazine: With the school children of the tenements pickles have almost become a morbid habit, like morphine [...]
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Copy it. Share It. Nail it to the schoolhouse door.
My Own Letter to USDA re: The Competitive School Food Rules
by Bettina Elias Siegel on April 9, 2013
Well, nothing like waiting until the last minute. As I’ve been telling you all repeatedly, USDA’s deadline for submitting comments on the proposed competitive school food rules is 11:59 tonight, but I only just finished writing my own letter this morning! I thought you all might be interested in reading my letter, the text of [...]
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