Section:SUCCESS STORY MAKING A COMMITMENT TO WORK OUT WITH HIS AILING FATHER HELPED NICK MASTRELLA BECOME THE MAN HE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE
Despite weighing in at 245 pounds, Nick Mastrella was not your typical fat teen. Instead, he felt size equaled success. "The bigger and heavier you are, the better your chances of doing well," he told himself. "Although I was overweight, I still thought I was active," he says.
Growing up in Rochester, N.Y., Mastrella fit in through sports, succeeding in both football and power lifting. But with high school being, well, high school, life wasn't all fun. "There were always jokes going around," Mastrella recalls. He regularly turned to junkfood for comfort, and predictably his physique worsened. "When I was playing football, my dad would make a couple of steaks for us to eat and a lot of white bread," he says. "We didn't really know too much about good nutrition."
Mastrella's plan to use his size to achieve success wasn't exactly working either. After high school, he became a carpet installer, and his weight-training days were soon a distant memory. He felt empty inside — as if he weren't reaching his full potential. Additionally, his father, Paul, began battling heart disease due to weight problems of his own. Mastrella finally saw the direction his life was heading, and he decided to put on the brakes. "This was my opportunity to not only help myself but help my father as well," he says.
Mastrella and his dad began working out together regularly, hitting the gym six days a week. They set small, achievable goals and used each other as motivation. "We started doing heavy weight and then mixing it in with low weight," he says. "And then we'd go to the football field and strap a parachute around my waist and run 100-yard dashes."
In the kitchen, Mastrella also made some changes, trading steak, sugar, and snacks for grilled chicken, broccoli, and sweet potatoes. "I knew I had to completely change my lifestyle — my eating habits, my workout routine, everything — if I wanted to see dramatic results." Luckily, it wasn't long before the combination of regular exercise and healthier eating began paying off. "I watched my body morph from an over-weight 245 pounds to an in-shape 185 pounds," he says. "It was amazing to see how I physically became someone else. I didn't recognize myself."
Today, at 26, Mastrella is the man he always hoped he'd become, and feels he's finally living up to his potential. He's moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he works as a certified personal trainer. He uses his story to motivate others and is proud to have helped his father live a fitter and healthier life as well. "I'm living proof that you can accomplish anything you want if you put your mind to it," he says. "The important things are to be positive, stay focused, feel good about yourself no matter what your weight is — and never, ever give up." GOT SUCCESS?
Do you have a tale that qualifies you as a Success Story? E-mail it to us at successstories@mensfitness.com or write to Men's Fitness Success Stories, One Park Avenue, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10016. Include your name, address, telephone number, and any pictures that document your transformation. Nick's Key to Success:
"Try to work out with a partner who has similar goals. Your gym buddy will push you harder and provide the kind of motivation you need to get you what you want." TALE OF THE TAPE PHOTO (COLOR) - ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009- ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009
By Dean Stattmann
Eckenrode, Dawn. "Lose Fat and Weight! Stop Eating Junk Food in Five Minutes a Day for 21 Days/RAW®: The Living Food Diet/Vegan Gal.com: Change Your Food, Change Your Life." Library Journal 131.17 (15 Oct. 2006): 91-91.MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Elco High School], [Myerstown], [PA]. 5 Mar. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=22908123&site=ehost-live>.
Lose Fat and Weight! Stop EatingJunkFood in Five Minutes a Day for 21 Days/RAW®: The Living Food Diet/Vegan Gal.com: Change Your Food, Change Your Life.
Clearly stating that she is neither a doctor nor a dietician, Vegan Gal Ovnik has produced an engaging and practical DVD for those interested in transitioning to a vegan diet. In the informative Change Your Food, Change Your Life, Ovnik provides a layperson's perspective on the health benefits of veganism, tips for grocery shopping and eating out, and a demonstration of how to prepare some of her favorite recipes, including orange pudding, chick pea smash (an egg or tuna salad substitute), and a nacho bake casserole. Ovnik also demonstrates the variety of ways in which nonvegetarian restaurants are able and willing toaccommodate the dietary needs of vegan diners. This program is refreshing in its ability to avoid a preachy or heavy-handed tone. Ovnik's down-to-earth and witty personality is inspiring, as she realistically encourages viewers to strive for progress rather than perfection in their eating habits. With supplementary materials such as recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists provided on the web site (www.vegangal.com), this DVD is highly recommended for all library collections.
Lose Fat and Weight! introduces viewers to the Food Feelings program, which claims it will help people eliminate certain foods from their diet and lose weight. The program relies on principles of hypnotherapy, operating on the premise that it is possible to send positive subliminal messages to your unconscious mind and that over time these messages will become conscious thoughts incorporated into daily behaviors. The program takes five minutes a day for 21 days and consists of identifying the "feelings" of the food you like but want to eliminate (junkfood) and using visualization techniques to move the feelings from the location of the food you dislike to the location of the food you like. While hypnotherapy is a widely accepted form of alternative treatment for many conditions, this self-help DVD puts it in a bad light through its short-sighted and overly simplistic premise that eliminating or reducing one type of junkfood from your diet will result in weight loss. In its attempt to prey on desperate consumers looking for a quick fix, the DVD feels like a cheesy 4 a.m. infomercial. For those seriously interested in losing weight, your five minutes will be better spent doing some sit-ups. Not recommended.
A raw diet consists of all fruits, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, grains, sea vegetables, and other organic/natural foods that have not been processed or heated above 116°F. According to "raw foodists," living and raw foods are more nutritious than cooked foods because the enzymes that assist in digestion andfood absorption are still intact. This DVD consists of a 45-minute documentary in which a variety of raw food enthusiasts give their perspectives on the benefits of adopting a raw foods diet, including the spiritual, communal, environmental, and health implications, and a 50-minute demonstration in which chefs prepare a variety of dishes, including a living pizza, tomato herb soup, and walnut apple cookies. The documentary attempts to lend scientific credibility to the lifestyle by including the testimony of Richard DeAndrea, a medical and naturopathic doctor best known for his work with actor Woody Harrelson in opening the first oxygen bar in West Hollywood, CA. However, any scientific credence this presentation may contain is undermined by DeAndrea's unkempt and stoner-like demeanor, along with certain "far out" statements. That being said, the DVD is successful at providing sociocultural insight into the raw foods life and its practitioners. Additionally, the food preparation segment offers some very healthy recipes (also in the accompanying booklet) and highly innovative cooking techniques. Recommended for general collections. - ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009- ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009
By Dawn Eckenrode, SUNY at Fredonia Lib
How the STARS get and stay SLIM Section:Healthy Weight Want to know what's really cookin' in celeb kitchens? Their chefs dish up the Roods
We'VE ALL SEEN CELEBRITIES show up on the red carpet two weeks after giving hirth, looking oh-so-svelte in their designer gowns. We've heard all about the stars' parties, where food and drink of every kind tempts them. And we know just how hard it would be on our waistlines if we lived the A-list life. So how do Julia and Jennifer and J. Lo manage to stay slim amid the luxe life? A key ingredient: their celebrity chefs.
Every star's got one — the woman or man responsible for keeping her ready for her close-ups and for policing her plate for dietary digressions, all while catering to her whims (reasonable and not-so). We cajoled some of Hollywood's top foodfolks into spilling it all: the superslimming secrets, the stars' biggest cravings, the outrageous demands, and more. What stars really eat
Stars pay to eat right. And they pay big. A full-time private celebrity chef earns an annual salary of up to $150,000 plus health benefits; the average rate for such chefs in Los Angeles not on salary is about $850 to $500 per day. And the grocery budget?
"There is no budget," says Suyai Steinhauer, a former contestant on Top Chef and now a natural-foods chef with celebrity clients in L.A. "The higher famous people are on the food chain, the more they spend on the in-gredients they eat."
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Gwyneth Paltrow favors a grain-and-vegetable-based macrobiotic diet.
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One celeb power couple hired a top chef to make them cereal three nights a week!
The interview for such a job is anything but typical. Consultations cover the basics: the celeb's favorite foods and dietary preferences (vegetarian, no red meat, no green M&M's), the chefs food philosophies, and beyond.
"One of my clients is a world-famous clothing designer who cares more about the looks of her chef than the taste of the food," says Christian Paier, CEO of Beverly Hills-headquartered Private Chefs Inc., whose 2,000 chefs have cooked for stars like Cameron Diaz, Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Brooke Shields, among others. "The designer has business meetings in her house, so it's very important to her that everyone in the home has a thin, model look to maintain her company's image. Before sending chefs over. I sent over head shots."
Celebrities' meal requests change as often as the latest diet books do. Right now, the biggest demands are for raw-foods chefs (like Jill Pettijohn, who has worked for stars like Drew Barrymore and Nicole Kidman). And chefs specializing in macrobiotics — the grain-and-vegetable-based diet that severely limits dairy, meat, sugars, preservatives, refined flours, and refined salt — are popular with stars like Gwyneth Paltrow.
"Macrobiotics is hot," Paier says. "I have a bunch of brothers who are all actors and have their own macrobiotic chef. There's also a female singer who hires a macrobiotic chef when she tours, because the diet gives her great energy."
A chef to the stars has to deal not only with the demands of his or her client, but with those of the celeb's friends and colleagues, too. Paier spent eight years cooking for an A-lister living in Bel-Air. whose dinner parties required some serious reconnaissance.
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Nicole Kidman is one of many stars who goes for a raw-foodsdiet.
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Watermelon and cantaloupe are among celeb chef Bethenny Frankel's favorites for keeping stars slim on a low-sodium diet.
"Any time you work in a high-profile home, there's a book containing the allergies and food likes and dislikes of all their friends." Paier explains. "When I'd cook a dinner party for 15 A-listers, the book would say 12 of them had allergies I had to work the menu around." But. he adds, "they were rarely real allergies. They were usually just things people didn't want to eat. Like, cucumbers and beef."
In addition, Paier often had to contact the personal chef of each guest to find out if there were other dietary restrictions. "If the guest was on, say, a macrobiotic diet," Paier says, "his or her personal chef would come and drop off spices or macrobiotic salts I didn't already have." How stars stop snacking
Other stars' tastes are more basic. Bethenny Frankel, a finalist on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in 2005, is a personal chef who once worked as an assistant to the Hilton family (her first gig was taking Paris and Nicky to school). She has since cooked for Donna Karan, Michael J. Fox, and Susan Sarandon, and is currently cooking for Denis Leary — in his trailer — on the set of FX's Rescue Me. "When I first met Denis, his assistant told me, 'He likes to eat chicken Parmesan, and he's really not into vegetables.' But I wasn't about to take a job cooking chicken Parmesan every day, so I changed his diet."
Now Leary, the star and producer of the show about a post-9/11 New York City fireman, has a more diverse palate, eating everything from lamb chops to turkey burgers and grilled vegetables. Frankel has also turned the actor on to fish baked in aluminum foil, a favorite technique of hers.
Frankel has learned to work with stars' quirks. "Denis is always starving, so I have to make a preamble to every meal," she says. "I'll bring some olive dip on whole-grain bread for him to shove in his mouth when I get there. Otherwise, he'll be leaning over me at the stove, asking what I'm making."
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Celeb chef Bethenny Frankel has cooked for stars like Donna Karan, Michael J. Fox, and Mariska Hargitay.
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Gina Gershon got an energy boost from a Frankel recipe featuring zucchini.
While on set, Frankel also met Gina Gershon, who plays Leary's new girlfriend. Valerie, in Rescue Me. "She said she felt run down and needed to eat something healthy. So I made her a dish of zucchini, tomato, and corn, and she asked for the recipe." (Get the same recipe at Health .com/celebchef.)
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Burger trick: Paris Hilton is a "taste everything, eat nothing" type, having a bite or two of burger and half the fries, Frankel says.
For actresses like Gershon who need to keep up their energy throughout the day, Frankel avoids energy-sapping white pasta and rolls and sticks with hearty vegetable combinations, like acorn squash stuffed with feta cheese and herbs. Something else she suggests for superfast energy: snackiner on whole foods to keep your metabolism working: all day. Frankel recommends Greek yogurt (such as Page Total, www.fageusa.com) or a handful of almonds with either dried cranberries or sour dried cherries. "The protein will satisfy your appetite, and the natural sugars will give you a small spike in your energy," she says. When a star cheats
Healthy snacks are usually available on set — if a celeb asks. But so are decadent treats like doughnuts, brownies, pizza, etc. How do chefs like Frankel help celebrities deal with temptation?
"Everyone's different when it comes to food." Frankel says. "Some personalities, particularly the yo-yo dieters, need volume. When I have a client like this. I tell her, 'Your diet is a bank account. You can eat a doughnut or pizza now, but You should have a salad later."' That way, they can eat a large amount of food with few calories. "It's checks and balances," she says.
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Susan Sarandon was a client of Frankel's. Check out page 112 for some of the chef's best diet secrets.
Frankel also passes on a diet trick from an unlikely source. "It's ironic that Paris Hilton could be discussed in a healthy conversation, but I consider her the 'taste everything, eat nothing' person," Frankel says. "She has a little bit of a cheeseburger, half the French fries. That's something a lot of Europeans do. I do that myself now."
When losing weight can make or break a shot at a role for a client, Frankel steers the star toward a healthy diet rather than a quick-fix fast. "I usually get him or her on a low-sodium diet full of foods like cantaloupe, asparagus, cucumber, and watermelon. Then, I add whole grains and a lot of high-volume vegetables, like arugula, broccoli rabe, and kale." Plus, at the beginning of lunch and dinner, Frankel has the client fill up on low-fat soup. "I take a vegetable broth with sautéed onions, carrots, and celery, and add either broccoli or cauliflower to it, and puree it with a tiny bit of salt and Spike Seasoning. Then he or she can eat a low-calorie meal and feel full," Suyai Steinhauer once had a high-maintenance client who wanted to slim down for the Academy Awards. "Her doctor in Beverly Hills had 1 put her on a diet of three ounces of lean protein for lunch, three ounces for dinner, four Wasa crackers, and two applet? for two months leading up to the Oscars," Steinhauer says, "That was it. It was basically a starvation diet!"
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Mariska Hargitay is "extremely healthy, but not a maniac about what she eats," Frankel says.
Instead of such extreme measures, Steinhauer recommends small amounts of proteins and grains throughout the day. Her favorite snacks are rye crackers and cheese, or a Lärabar (www.larabar.com) made of raw foods and dried nuts.
If her clients insist on meal replacements instead of her soup-before-dinner strategy, Bethenny Frankel suggests Greens+ bars (available at Whole Foodsstores nationwide and at www.greensplus.com). "I'd rather have my clients eat a shake or snack bar than not eat anything at all," Frankel says. "I like that you can pronounce the ingredients in the Greens+ bars, and that all are less than 300 calories." How stars (miraculously!) slim down after baby
Dropping baby weight requires a whole different strategy, Frankel says, "New moms are used to eating large amounts of comfort food, so I stick with very healthy foods like brown rice, beans, and pureed vegetables, because blended foods like vegetable soups and smoothies make people feel like they're eatingfat," In particular, she recommends a breakfast of brown rice mixed with soy milk, cinnamon, raisins, almonds, and maple syrup.
Frankel has cooked for Mariska Hargitay (who plays detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit). She lost her baby weight the healthy way after giving birth to her son last June. "Mariska is the perfect client because she's extremely healthy, but she's not a maniac about what she eats," Frankel says. "When she did a TV Guide shoot at her house with her son, I made her some vegetable frittatas she loved. She also loved it when I made Brussels sprouts; I roasted them until the leaves were falling off and crispy like potato chips."
Celebrities already have one thing going for them when it comes to making their diets better and healthier: "Just having a chef do the cooking makes things seem better tasting than they are," Frankel says. "At home, I don't steam greens and make brown rice plates. It wouldn't taste as good if I made it myself."
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Secret weapons: Frankel gives celebs high-volume veggies like broccoli rabe and kale.
"Everyone's different when it comes to food: some personalities, particularly the yo-yo dieters, need volume."
— Bethenny Frankel More secrets of celebrity diet chef Bethenny Frankel
Mix pureed spinach into ground beef for burgers. It cuts down on the amount of meat you use.
Use banana instead of yogurt or fruit juice in smoothies to save calories; sweeten with zero-calorie stevia, a natural sweetener. Chop leftover fruit before it goes bad, and toss it in the freezer to use for smoothies.
When fresh herbs Start to wilt, chop them in a mini-food processor, then put them into squeeze bottles with olive oil to make flavored oils that you can drizzle onto fish or a chicken breast.
Stars pay to eat right. And they pay big. Full-time private chefs earn up to $150,000 a year. - ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009- ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009
By Amy Spencer
Edited by Shaun Chavis
Busting Obesity Myths Section:Out of the Box Insights into what consumers are thinking, how they're acting and why
HERE'S a welcome bit of news: Kids really do enjoy healthy foods. But an abundance of product misinformation has left them--and their parents--confused about what they should or shouldn't eat.
The issue of childhood obesity has touched such a raw nerve among both the public health and corporate sectors that virtually no one in the marketing community can remain indifferent to it. It's a complex issue with far-reaching tentacles and it demands that we become better informed.
While tracking numerous articles, TV news reports and pronouncements on the subject, The Geppetto Group, a New York-based kid and teen advertising agency and marketing consultancy, realized that no one has examined the issue of childhood obesity from a kid's point of view.
In November, Geppetto launched a nationwide, quantitative online study among 675 consumers aged 8- to 10-years-old to learn firsthand what they thought about food and the health dilemma. What we found has been both surprising and instructive. For instance, 25% of the kids surveyed didn't even know whatfoods would be considered healthy. And we discovered that many of the prevailing myths that are driving both public opinion and government funding were not based on the reality of kids' daily lives. These myths could well lead to serious, unintended negative consequences that would be hard to erase among today's generation of children.
Some of the prevailing myths that are leading marketers and legislators astray include: MYTH: Obesity is a health epidemic endangering the majority, if not all, of America's children. REALITY: Approximately 14% of the kids in our sample were overweight, closely mirroring the percentage reported by the CDC (15%.) The remaining nine out of 10 kids in our sample thought their weight was "just right" or they didn't think much about their weight at all. They ate when they were hungry (89%) rather than when they were upset or sad. They knew what made a food good for you (76%) and they liked to eat healthy foods (73%). What's more, they exercised every day (73%) and they cited bike riding, playing outside, and participating in neighborhood or team sports as a regular part of their lives. For the majority of kids, it appeared that food had an appropriate--and even a healthy--place in their lives.
Unlike adults, the majority of American kids have not yet started the negative cycle of diet/deprivation and indulgence/weight gain that is detrimental to overall good health. Consequently, preaching a diet message to the majority of kids who don't have a problem with their weight could have far-reaching, unanticipated negative results. MYTH: Making healthy foods for kids is a marketing/manufacturing dead end, since kids don't care about the subject. REALITY: Healthy foods are not at all the turn-off we once believed. In fact, healthy foods and beverages represent a major opportunity for today's kid marketers. Knowing a food is healthy made 31% of kids want to eat it more often or made no difference at all to the food's appeal (58%); only a small minority of kids (11%) found healthy foods less desirable. About two-thirds (65%) thought there weren't enough healthy foods that they could make themselves, that were fun (59%), or that tasted good (57%). Nearly half of kids (48%) were looking for more portable healthy foods. MYTH: Marketers are forcing bad food choices on children and are undermining parents' authority to decide what's best for their kids. REALITY: When given the freedom to choose, kids often pick healthy foods and parents still maintain a lot of control over what their kids eat. Youngsters were far more likely to prefer mom's home-cooked meals (46%) to either fast food (29%) or a sit-down restaurant (25%). Only 13% of kids were allowed to regularly buy their own snacks or treats or to eat them in the house whenever they wanted (17%). The majority (87%) had to ask before they could have a snack--and these kids didn't argue with their parents over what snacks they could eat (80%). They accepted the house rules made by their parents.
For households with an overweight child, the dynamics are quite different, and parents are grappling with how best to tackle dietary issues. Emotions related to "blame and shame" are high: Parents were twice as likely to argue about snacks with their overweight child (35% vs. 17%). Additionally, moms were trying to get their children to eat less (45%) and wouldn't let their kids eat what they wanted (61%). MYTH: This is a struggle for our children's health and well being, with no foreseeable downside. REALITY: Kids' greatest concern about eating "junkfood" was getting fat. They believed overweight kids were less likely to get picked for teams (77%); be liked by the opposite sex (76%); be popular (74%); get invited to things (68%), and were much more likely to get their feelings hurt (82%). The victimization of overweight children is already well established. Making weight the center of a kid's health debate is bound to further stigmatize an already wounded part of our kid population, increasing detrimental self-image perceptions among overweight and non-overweight kids alike. Instead, we should emphasize the need to educate our children about healthy eating and encourage them to become physically fit. Honesty 101: Rules For Reaching Kids
For marketers trying to reach kids with healthy messages, Geller notes, the rules are clear: DON'T PRETEND: If you're listing product ingredients, don't confuse them with ambiguous language. THINK ABOUT NEEDS: Don't just develop a new product to soak up excess manufacturing capacity, think about options that can meet actual consumer needs. LEARN TO COMMUNICATE BENEFITS: Product promises are often hard to understand. "Most are conceptual ('healthy'), while kids are more concrete," says Geller. "They speak to long-term issues, while kids think in the short term." Marketers must bridge those gaps to deliver a sharper perspective.
PHOTO (COLOR) - ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009- ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009
By Rachel Geller
Edited by Becky Ebenkamp
Section:CURRENTS Teaching Good Nutrition and Sound Farming in the School Cafeteria
For many students, the cafeteria bell produces visions of long lines, hair nets and perfectly molded, ice cream scoop servings of starchy, lackluster food. But as the nation renews a focus on nutrition, several inspired school districts are dismissing this grade school nightmare with higher ideals for the standard school lunch.
In its quest to nurture both young minds and bodies, the Berkeley Unified School District passed in 1999 a food program policy designed to provide a healthy meal to each of its 10,000 students--a meal in which the nutritional content far outweighs the chemical. Integral to this 12-point plan is the phase-out of bovine growth hormones and genetically engineered ingredients, and the incorporation of locally grown, organic foods.
A San Francisco Bay area grower delivers organic apple juice weekly, and a distributor provides organic processed foods like tortilla chips, peanut butter and graham crackers. Organic gardens, including one at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School spearheaded by renowned chef Alice Waters, help introduce students to the principles of organic farming, and give them a hands-on role in bringing some of the food to the table. More than a dozen local farmers provide the rest of the vegetables and 40 cases of fruits the schools go through each week for breakfasts, lunches and after-school snacks.
After all, "an explicit goal of the program is to not only benefit children, but organic and local farmers," says Eric Weaver, chair of Berkeley's Child Nutrition Advisory Committee. The district has spent about $90,000 on organic foods in the last year. Weekly visits to farmers markets, for instance, fill up the salad bars, which are opening at each of the 15 Berkeley schools.
"There is a certain responsibility in an educational environment to provide students with a healthy lunch--choices based largely on the food pyramid, with whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables," says Laurel Lyle, the manager of the cafeteria at the Peabody Charter School in Santa Barbara, California, which began incorporating an ethic similar to Berkeley's several years earlier. "There's also a responsibility for kids to see that cooking fresh food is not a revolutionary or miraculous event," she adds. "It's really very easy."
Lyle incorporates such organic ingredients as flour for freshly baked breads and beans for stew to carrot sticks in each meal at Peabody. As a result, kids and teachers alike who were once brown bagging it are now setting down trays at the lunch table. Food waste is vastly reduced as well, says Lyle. "Because most of the things I make are fresh and separate, anything not eaten is used the next day in something else. Other schools may throw out 100 servings of food a day. Talk about an environmental nightmare."
The real nightmare, according to Susan Campbell of nonprofit Spirit in Action, lies in the vending machines that still provide powerful temptation. "Kids already know that they're supposed to eat more fruits and vegetables," says Campbell. "But if they're still guzzling Coca-Cola and eating Snickers, it's defeating the purpose. The chemicals they're eating are the real culprits."
Kids eat too much junkfood, says Campbell, and most schools sell it inside their walls. As turning back this tide of sugar-laden candy and soda is not likely, Spirit in Action has invited manufacturers of natural and organic snack foods to go head-to-head with conventional a-la-carte items. A pilot project with high schools in California and Colorado will be launched this spring, offering kids looking for foods on the run a healthier alternative. Full-service kiosks will follow in the fall of 2001.
"Good nutrition impacts thinking skills," says Sandy Neumann, program officer for education at the Center for Ecoliteracy, a public foundation that works with the Berkeley School District. "We talk about accountability, but kids are trying to be accountable when they don't have the physical resources to call upon within their own bodies."
Although the solution--offering fresh, local, unadulterated foods--seems logical, the barriers to reach it are many. For one, "kids are very finicky" says Elsie Szeto, director of child nutrition services at Berkeley, and a registered dietician. "They need to be familiar with a food, or they won't touch it. It needs a shape or form they know" Secondly, "the food service is self-supporting," says Szeto, "and we only have so much money to work with."
Nine of the Berkeley schools were recently given funding to provide after-school snacks, for example. But of the 54 cents designated per student, 14 goes to overhead, leaving only 30 cents to cover the costs of food, which must be selected from two of three food groups. Although last year the snacks were entirely organic, this year conventional cheese was the only affordable choice.
Covering the cost of tree and reduced meals poses other challenge. If passed, a bill now in the California State Senate would provide increased meal reimbursement for any school in the state that purchases fresh food. Related legislation has popped up elsewhere. A recent resolution passed by the city of Minneapolis urges the Minneapolis School District to consider organic foods for its lunch program; a resolution now pending in the city of San Francisco originally included such sentiment, but was eventually watered down.
"As consciousness continues to rise about globalization and lost autonomy in our lives, we'll see more resolutions in which people say they can't depend on our government to protect the food supply" says Simon Harris of San Francisco's Organic Consumer Alliance. "And that our school districts and local governments should."
Berkeley's program sets an important precedent, believes Harris. "School boards are looking for replicable models," he says, "a specific list of actions, something substantive that can be taken to other school districts. Once they can say, 'Look, this works,' it will be replicated on a larger scale."
This ripple effect is already occurring within Berkeley itself. Seed money from a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant has cascaded into two successful bond measures and nearly $1.5 million in additional grants. The bonds earmark money to install and staff kitchens at each of the schools, enabling on-site preparation of meals now restricted to mainly frozen, prepackaged ordeals. The grants will support nutrition education for faculty and school officials, provide garden coordinators and cooking program specialists, fund field trips to local farms and develop a business plan to ensure the program's fiscal success. CONTACT: Center for Ecoliteracy, (510)845-4595, www.ecoliteracy.org; Spirit in Action, www.spiritinaction.org.
PHOTO (COLOR): Students at Berkeley's Malcolm X Elementary School enjoy locally grown food from the salad bar. - ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009- ec12astruckmann Mar 5, 2009
By Jennifer Bogo y
Section: SUCCESS STORY
MAKING A COMMITMENT TO WORK OUT WITH HIS AILING FATHER HELPED NICK MASTRELLA BECOME THE MAN HE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE
Despite weighing in at 245 pounds, Nick Mastrella was not your typical fat teen. Instead, he felt size equaled success. "The bigger and heavier you are, the better your chances of doing well," he told himself. "Although I was overweight, I still thought I was active," he says.
Growing up in Rochester, N.Y., Mastrella fit in through sports, succeeding in both football and power lifting. But with high school being, well, high school, life wasn't all fun. "There were always jokes going around," Mastrella recalls. He regularly turned to junk food for comfort, and predictably his physique worsened. "When I was playing football, my dad would make a couple of steaks for us to eat and a lot of white bread," he says. "We didn't really know too much about good nutrition."
Mastrella's plan to use his size to achieve success wasn't exactly working either. After high school, he became a carpet installer, and his weight-training days were soon a distant memory. He felt empty inside — as if he weren't reaching his full potential. Additionally, his father, Paul, began battling heart disease due to weight problems of his own. Mastrella finally saw the direction his life was heading, and he decided to put on the brakes. "This was my opportunity to not only help myself but help my father as well," he says.
Mastrella and his dad began working out together regularly, hitting the gym six days a week. They set small, achievable goals and used each other as motivation. "We started doing heavy weight and then mixing it in with low weight," he says. "And then we'd go to the football field and strap a parachute around my waist and run 100-yard dashes."
In the kitchen, Mastrella also made some changes, trading steak, sugar, and snacks for grilled chicken, broccoli, and sweet potatoes. "I knew I had to completely change my lifestyle — my eating habits, my workout routine, everything — if I wanted to see dramatic results." Luckily, it wasn't long before the combination of regular exercise and healthier eating began paying off. "I watched my body morph from an over-weight 245 pounds to an in-shape 185 pounds," he says. "It was amazing to see how I physically became someone else. I didn't recognize myself."
Today, at 26, Mastrella is the man he always hoped he'd become, and feels he's finally living up to his potential. He's moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he works as a certified personal trainer. He uses his story to motivate others and is proud to have helped his father live a fitter and healthier life as well. "I'm living proof that you can accomplish anything you want if you put your mind to it," he says. "The important things are to be positive, stay focused, feel good about yourself no matter what your weight is — and never, ever give up."
GOT SUCCESS?
Do you have a tale that qualifies you as a Success Story? E-mail it to us at successstories@mensfitness.com or write to Men's Fitness Success Stories, One Park Avenue, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10016. Include your name, address, telephone number, and any pictures that document your transformation.
Nick's Key to Success:
"Try to work out with a partner who has similar goals. Your gym buddy will push you harder and provide the kind of motivation you need to get you what you want."
TALE OF THE TAPE
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By Dean Stattmann
Eckenrode, Dawn. "Lose Fat and Weight! Stop Eating Junk Food in Five Minutes a Day for 21 Days/RAW®: The Living Food Diet/Vegan Gal.com: Change Your Food, Change Your Life." Library Journal 131.17 (15 Oct. 2006): 91-91.MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Elco High School], [Myerstown], [PA]. 5 Mar. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=22908123&site=ehost-live>.
Lose Fat and Weight! Stop Eating Junk Food in Five Minutes a Day for 21 Days/RAW®: The Living Food Diet/Vegan Gal.com: Change Your Food, Change Your Life.
Clearly stating that she is neither a doctor nor a dietician, Vegan Gal Ovnik has produced an engaging and practical DVD for those interested in transitioning to a vegan diet. In the informative Change Your Food, Change Your Life, Ovnik provides a layperson's perspective on the health benefits of veganism, tips for grocery shopping and eating out, and a demonstration of how to prepare some of her favorite recipes, including orange pudding, chick pea smash (an egg or tuna salad substitute), and a nacho bake casserole. Ovnik also demonstrates the variety of ways in which nonvegetarian restaurants are able and willing toaccommodate the dietary needs of vegan diners. This program is refreshing in its ability to avoid a preachy or heavy-handed tone. Ovnik's down-to-earth and witty personality is inspiring, as she realistically encourages viewers to strive for progress rather than perfection in their eating habits. With supplementary materials such as recipes, meal plans, and shopping lists provided on the web site (www.vegangal.com), this DVD is highly recommended for all library collections.
Lose Fat and Weight! introduces viewers to the Food Feelings program, which claims it will help people eliminate certain foods from their diet and lose weight. The program relies on principles of hypnotherapy, operating on the premise that it is possible to send positive subliminal messages to your unconscious mind and that over time these messages will become conscious thoughts incorporated into daily behaviors. The program takes five minutes a day for 21 days and consists of identifying the "feelings" of the food you like but want to eliminate (junk food) and using visualization techniques to move the feelings from the location of the food you dislike to the location of the food you like. While hypnotherapy is a widely accepted form of alternative treatment for many conditions, this self-help DVD puts it in a bad light through its short-sighted and overly simplistic premise that eliminating or reducing one type of junk food from your diet will result in weight loss. In its attempt to prey on desperate consumers looking for a quick fix, the DVD feels like a cheesy 4 a.m. infomercial. For those seriously interested in losing weight, your five minutes will be better spent doing some sit-ups. Not recommended.
A raw diet consists of all fruits, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, grains, sea vegetables, and other organic/natural foods that have not been processed or heated above 116°F. According to "raw foodists," living and raw foods are more nutritious than cooked foods because the enzymes that assist in digestion andfood absorption are still intact. This DVD consists of a 45-minute documentary in which a variety of raw food enthusiasts give their perspectives on the benefits of adopting a raw foods diet, including the spiritual, communal, environmental, and health implications, and a 50-minute demonstration in which chefs prepare a variety of dishes, including a living pizza, tomato herb soup, and walnut apple cookies. The documentary attempts to lend scientific credibility to the lifestyle by including the testimony of Richard DeAndrea, a medical and naturopathic doctor best known for his work with actor Woody Harrelson in opening the first oxygen bar in West Hollywood, CA. However, any scientific credence this presentation may contain is undermined by DeAndrea's unkempt and stoner-like demeanor, along with certain "far out" statements. That being said, the DVD is successful at providing sociocultural insight into the raw foods life and its practitioners. Additionally, the food preparation segment offers some very healthy recipes (also in the accompanying booklet) and highly innovative cooking techniques. Recommended for general collections.
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By Dawn Eckenrode, SUNY at Fredonia Lib
Spencer, Amy. "How the STARS get and stay SLIM. (cover story)." Health 21.8 (Oct. 2007): 108-112. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Elco High School), [Myerstown], [Pa]. 5 Mar. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=26929900&site=ehost-live>.
How the STARS get and stay SLIM
Section: Healthy Weight
Want to know what's really cookin' in celeb kitchens? Their chefs dish up the Roods
We'VE ALL SEEN CELEBRITIES show up on the red carpet two weeks after giving hirth, looking oh-so-svelte in their designer gowns. We've heard all about the stars' parties, where food and drink of every kind tempts them. And we know just how hard it would be on our waistlines if we lived the A-list life. So how do Julia and Jennifer and J. Lo manage to stay slim amid the luxe life? A key ingredient: their celebrity chefs.
Every star's got one — the woman or man responsible for keeping her ready for her close-ups and for policing her plate for dietary digressions, all while catering to her whims (reasonable and not-so). We cajoled some of Hollywood's top foodfolks into spilling it all: the superslimming secrets, the stars' biggest cravings, the outrageous demands, and more.
What stars really eat
Stars pay to eat right. And they pay big. A full-time private celebrity chef earns an annual salary of up to $150,000 plus health benefits; the average rate for such chefs in Los Angeles not on salary is about $850 to $500 per day. And the grocery budget?
"There is no budget," says Suyai Steinhauer, a former contestant on Top Chef and now a natural-foods chef with celebrity clients in L.A. "The higher famous people are on the food chain, the more they spend on the in-gredients they eat."
The interview for such a job is anything but typical. Consultations cover the basics: the celeb's favorite foods and dietary preferences (vegetarian, no red meat, no green M&M's), the chefs food philosophies, and beyond.
"One of my clients is a world-famous clothing designer who cares more about the looks of her chef than the taste of the food," says Christian Paier, CEO of Beverly Hills-headquartered Private Chefs Inc., whose 2,000 chefs have cooked for stars like Cameron Diaz, Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Brooke Shields, among others. "The designer has business meetings in her house, so it's very important to her that everyone in the home has a thin, model look to maintain her company's image. Before sending chefs over. I sent over head shots."
Celebrities' meal requests change as often as the latest diet books do. Right now, the biggest demands are for raw-foods chefs (like Jill Pettijohn, who has worked for stars like Drew Barrymore and Nicole Kidman). And chefs specializing in macrobiotics — the grain-and-vegetable-based diet that severely limits dairy, meat, sugars, preservatives, refined flours, and refined salt — are popular with stars like Gwyneth Paltrow.
"Macrobiotics is hot," Paier says. "I have a bunch of brothers who are all actors and have their own macrobiotic chef. There's also a female singer who hires a macrobiotic chef when she tours, because the diet gives her great energy."
A chef to the stars has to deal not only with the demands of his or her client, but with those of the celeb's friends and colleagues, too. Paier spent eight years cooking for an A-lister living in Bel-Air. whose dinner parties required some serious reconnaissance.
"Any time you work in a high-profile home, there's a book containing the allergies and food likes and dislikes of all their friends." Paier explains. "When I'd cook a dinner party for 15 A-listers, the book would say 12 of them had allergies I had to work the menu around." But. he adds, "they were rarely real allergies. They were usually just things people didn't want to eat. Like, cucumbers and beef."
In addition, Paier often had to contact the personal chef of each guest to find out if there were other dietary restrictions. "If the guest was on, say, a macrobiotic diet," Paier says, "his or her personal chef would come and drop off spices or macrobiotic salts I didn't already have."
How stars stop snacking
Other stars' tastes are more basic. Bethenny Frankel, a finalist on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in 2005, is a personal chef who once worked as an assistant to the Hilton family (her first gig was taking Paris and Nicky to school). She has since cooked for Donna Karan, Michael J. Fox, and Susan Sarandon, and is currently cooking for Denis Leary — in his trailer — on the set of FX's Rescue Me. "When I first met Denis, his assistant told me, 'He likes to eat chicken Parmesan, and he's really not into vegetables.' But I wasn't about to take a job cooking chicken Parmesan every day, so I changed his diet."
Now Leary, the star and producer of the show about a post-9/11 New York City fireman, has a more diverse palate, eating everything from lamb chops to turkey burgers and grilled vegetables. Frankel has also turned the actor on to fish baked in aluminum foil, a favorite technique of hers.
Frankel has learned to work with stars' quirks. "Denis is always starving, so I have to make a preamble to every meal," she says. "I'll bring some olive dip on whole-grain bread for him to shove in his mouth when I get there. Otherwise, he'll be leaning over me at the stove, asking what I'm making."
While on set, Frankel also met Gina Gershon, who plays Leary's new girlfriend. Valerie, in Rescue Me. "She said she felt run down and needed to eat something healthy. So I made her a dish of zucchini, tomato, and corn, and she asked for the recipe." (Get the same recipe at Health .com/celebchef.)
For actresses like Gershon who need to keep up their energy throughout the day, Frankel avoids energy-sapping white pasta and rolls and sticks with hearty vegetable combinations, like acorn squash stuffed with feta cheese and herbs. Something else she suggests for superfast energy: snackiner on whole foods to keep your metabolism working: all day. Frankel recommends Greek yogurt (such as Page Total, www.fageusa.com) or a handful of almonds with either dried cranberries or sour dried cherries. "The protein will satisfy your appetite, and the natural sugars will give you a small spike in your energy," she says.
When a star cheats
Healthy snacks are usually available on set — if a celeb asks. But so are decadent treats like doughnuts, brownies, pizza, etc. How do chefs like Frankel help celebrities deal with temptation?
"Everyone's different when it comes to food." Frankel says. "Some personalities, particularly the yo-yo dieters, need volume. When I have a client like this. I tell her, 'Your diet is a bank account. You can eat a doughnut or pizza now, but You should have a salad later."' That way, they can eat a large amount of food with few calories. "It's checks and balances," she says.
Frankel also passes on a diet trick from an unlikely source. "It's ironic that Paris Hilton could be discussed in a healthy conversation, but I consider her the 'taste everything, eat nothing' person," Frankel says. "She has a little bit of a cheeseburger, half the French fries. That's something a lot of Europeans do. I do that myself now."
When losing weight can make or break a shot at a role for a client, Frankel steers the star toward a healthy diet rather than a quick-fix fast. "I usually get him or her on a low-sodium diet full of foods like cantaloupe, asparagus, cucumber, and watermelon. Then, I add whole grains and a lot of high-volume vegetables, like arugula, broccoli rabe, and kale." Plus, at the beginning of lunch and dinner, Frankel has the client fill up on low-fat soup. "I take a vegetable broth with sautéed onions, carrots, and celery, and add either broccoli or cauliflower to it, and puree it with a tiny bit of salt and Spike Seasoning. Then he or she can eat a low-calorie meal and feel full," Suyai Steinhauer once had a high-maintenance client who wanted to slim down for the Academy Awards. "Her doctor in Beverly Hills had 1 put her on a diet of three ounces of lean protein for lunch, three ounces for dinner, four Wasa crackers, and two applet? for two months leading up to the Oscars," Steinhauer says, "That was it. It was basically a starvation diet!"
Instead of such extreme measures, Steinhauer recommends small amounts of proteins and grains throughout the day. Her favorite snacks are rye crackers and cheese, or a Lärabar (www.larabar.com) made of raw foods and dried nuts.
If her clients insist on meal replacements instead of her soup-before-dinner strategy, Bethenny Frankel suggests Greens+ bars (available at Whole
Foodsstores nationwide and at www.greensplus.com). "I'd rather have my clients eat a shake or snack bar than not eat anything at all," Frankel says. "I like that you can pronounce the ingredients in the Greens+ bars, and that all are less than 300 calories."
How stars (miraculously!) slim down after baby
Dropping baby weight requires a whole different strategy, Frankel says, "New moms are used to eating large amounts of comfort food, so I stick with very healthy foods like brown rice, beans, and pureed vegetables, because blended foods like vegetable soups and smoothies make people feel like they're eatingfat," In particular, she recommends a breakfast of brown rice mixed with soy milk, cinnamon, raisins, almonds, and maple syrup.
Frankel has cooked for Mariska Hargitay (who plays detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit). She lost her baby weight the healthy way after giving birth to her son last June. "Mariska is the perfect client because she's extremely healthy, but she's not a maniac about what she eats," Frankel says. "When she did a TV Guide shoot at her house with her son, I made her some vegetable frittatas she loved. She also loved it when I made Brussels sprouts; I roasted them until the leaves were falling off and crispy like potato chips."
Celebrities already have one thing going for them when it comes to making their diets better and healthier: "Just having a chef do the cooking makes things seem better tasting than they are," Frankel says. "At home, I don't steam greens and make brown rice plates. It wouldn't taste as good if I made it myself."
"Everyone's different when it comes to food: some personalities, particularly the yo-yo dieters, need volume."
— Bethenny Frankel
More secrets of celebrity diet chef Bethenny Frankel
Mix pureed spinach into ground beef for burgers. It cuts down on the amount of meat you use.
Use banana instead of yogurt or fruit juice in smoothies to save calories; sweeten with zero-calorie stevia, a natural sweetener. Chop leftover fruit before it goes bad, and toss it in the freezer to use for smoothies.
When fresh herbs Start to wilt, chop them in a mini-food processor, then put them into squeeze bottles with olive oil to make flavored oils that you can drizzle onto fish or a chicken breast.
Stars pay to eat right. And they pay big. Full-time private chefs earn up to $150,000 a year.
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By Amy Spencer
Edited by Shaun Chavis
Geller, Rachel, and Becky Ebenkamp.. "Busting Obesity Myths." Brandweek 45.5 (02 Feb. 2004): 20-21. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Elco high Scool], [Myerstown], [Pa]. 5 Mar. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=12215887&site=ehost-live>.
Busting Obesity Myths
Section: Out of the Box
Insights into what consumers are thinking, how they're acting and why
HERE'S a welcome bit of news: Kids really do enjoy healthy foods. But an abundance of product misinformation has left them--and their parents--confused about what they should or shouldn't eat.
The issue of childhood obesity has touched such a raw nerve among both the public health and corporate sectors that virtually no one in the marketing community can remain indifferent to it. It's a complex issue with far-reaching tentacles and it demands that we become better informed.
While tracking numerous articles, TV news reports and pronouncements on the subject, The Geppetto Group, a New York-based kid and teen advertising agency and marketing consultancy, realized that no one has examined the issue of childhood obesity from a kid's point of view.
In November, Geppetto launched a nationwide, quantitative online study among 675 consumers aged 8- to 10-years-old to learn firsthand what they thought about food and the health dilemma. What we found has been both surprising and instructive. For instance, 25% of the kids surveyed didn't even know whatfoods would be considered healthy. And we discovered that many of the prevailing myths that are driving both public opinion and government funding were not based on the reality of kids' daily lives. These myths could well lead to serious, unintended negative consequences that would be hard to erase among today's generation of children.
Some of the prevailing myths that are leading marketers and legislators astray include:
MYTH: Obesity is a health epidemic endangering the majority, if not all, of America's children.
REALITY: Approximately 14% of the kids in our sample were overweight, closely mirroring the percentage reported by the CDC (15%.) The remaining nine out of 10 kids in our sample thought their weight was "just right" or they didn't think much about their weight at all. They ate when they were hungry (89%) rather than when they were upset or sad. They knew what made a food good for you (76%) and they liked to eat healthy foods (73%). What's more, they exercised every day (73%) and they cited bike riding, playing outside, and participating in neighborhood or team sports as a regular part of their lives. For the majority of kids, it appeared that food had an appropriate--and even a healthy--place in their lives.
Unlike adults, the majority of American kids have not yet started the negative cycle of diet/deprivation and indulgence/weight gain that is detrimental to overall good health. Consequently, preaching a diet message to the majority of kids who don't have a problem with their weight could have far-reaching, unanticipated negative results.
MYTH: Making healthy foods for kids is a marketing/manufacturing dead end, since kids don't care about the subject.
REALITY: Healthy foods are not at all the turn-off we once believed. In fact, healthy foods and beverages represent a major opportunity for today's kid marketers. Knowing a food is healthy made 31% of kids want to eat it more often or made no difference at all to the food's appeal (58%); only a small minority of kids (11%) found healthy foods less desirable. About two-thirds (65%) thought there weren't enough healthy foods that they could make themselves, that were fun (59%), or that tasted good (57%). Nearly half of kids (48%) were looking for more portable healthy foods.
MYTH: Marketers are forcing bad food choices on children and are undermining parents' authority to decide what's best for their kids.
REALITY: When given the freedom to choose, kids often pick healthy foods and parents still maintain a lot of control over what their kids eat. Youngsters were far more likely to prefer mom's home-cooked meals (46%) to either fast food (29%) or a sit-down restaurant (25%). Only 13% of kids were allowed to regularly buy their own snacks or treats or to eat them in the house whenever they wanted (17%). The majority (87%) had to ask before they could have a snack--and these kids didn't argue with their parents over what snacks they could eat (80%). They accepted the house rules made by their parents.
For households with an overweight child, the dynamics are quite different, and parents are grappling with how best to tackle dietary issues. Emotions related to "blame and shame" are high: Parents were twice as likely to argue about snacks with their overweight child (35% vs. 17%). Additionally, moms were trying to get their children to eat less (45%) and wouldn't let their kids eat what they wanted (61%).
MYTH: This is a struggle for our children's health and well being, with no foreseeable downside.
REALITY: Kids' greatest concern about eating "junk food" was getting fat. They believed overweight kids were less likely to get picked for teams (77%); be liked by the opposite sex (76%); be popular (74%); get invited to things (68%), and were much more likely to get their feelings hurt (82%). The victimization of overweight children is already well established. Making weight the center of a kid's health debate is bound to further stigmatize an already wounded part of our kid population, increasing detrimental self-image perceptions among overweight and non-overweight kids alike. Instead, we should emphasize the need to educate our children about healthy eating and encourage them to become physically fit.
Honesty 101: Rules For Reaching Kids
For marketers trying to reach kids with healthy messages, Geller notes, the rules are clear:
DON'T PRETEND: If you're listing product ingredients, don't confuse them with ambiguous language.
THINK ABOUT NEEDS: Don't just develop a new product to soak up excess manufacturing capacity, think about options that can meet actual consumer needs.
LEARN TO COMMUNICATE BENEFITS: Product promises are often hard to understand. "Most are conceptual ('healthy'), while kids are more concrete," says Geller. "They speak to long-term issues, while kids think in the short term." Marketers must bridge those gaps to deliver a sharper perspective.
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By Rachel Geller
Edited by Becky Ebenkamp
Bogo, Jennifer. "Lunch Line." E - The Environmental Magazine 12.2 (Mar. 2001): 19. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Elco High School], [Myerstown], [Pa]. 5 Mar. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=4121514&site=ehost-live>.
LUNCH LINE
Section: CURRENTSTeaching Good Nutrition and Sound Farming in the School Cafeteria
For many students, the cafeteria bell produces visions of long lines, hair nets and perfectly molded, ice cream scoop servings of starchy, lackluster food. But as the nation renews a focus on nutrition, several inspired school districts are dismissing this grade school nightmare with higher ideals for the standard school lunch.
In its quest to nurture both young minds and bodies, the Berkeley Unified School District passed in 1999 a food program policy designed to provide a healthy meal to each of its 10,000 students--a meal in which the nutritional content far outweighs the chemical. Integral to this 12-point plan is the phase-out of bovine growth hormones and genetically engineered ingredients, and the incorporation of locally grown, organic foods.
A San Francisco Bay area grower delivers organic apple juice weekly, and a distributor provides organic processed foods like tortilla chips, peanut butter and graham crackers. Organic gardens, including one at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School spearheaded by renowned chef Alice Waters, help introduce students to the principles of organic farming, and give them a hands-on role in bringing some of the food to the table. More than a dozen local farmers provide the rest of the vegetables and 40 cases of fruits the schools go through each week for breakfasts, lunches and after-school snacks.
After all, "an explicit goal of the program is to not only benefit children, but organic and local farmers," says Eric Weaver, chair of Berkeley's Child Nutrition Advisory Committee. The district has spent about $90,000 on organic foods in the last year. Weekly visits to farmers markets, for instance, fill up the salad bars, which are opening at each of the 15 Berkeley schools.
"There is a certain responsibility in an educational environment to provide students with a healthy lunch--choices based largely on the food pyramid, with whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables," says Laurel Lyle, the manager of the cafeteria at the Peabody Charter School in Santa Barbara, California, which began incorporating an ethic similar to Berkeley's several years earlier. "There's also a responsibility for kids to see that cooking fresh food is not a revolutionary or miraculous event," she adds. "It's really very easy."
Lyle incorporates such organic ingredients as flour for freshly baked breads and beans for stew to carrot sticks in each meal at Peabody. As a result, kids and teachers alike who were once brown bagging it are now setting down trays at the lunch table. Food waste is vastly reduced as well, says Lyle. "Because most of the things I make are fresh and separate, anything not eaten is used the next day in something else. Other schools may throw out 100 servings of food a day. Talk about an environmental nightmare."
The real nightmare, according to Susan Campbell of nonprofit Spirit in Action, lies in the vending machines that still provide powerful temptation. "Kids already know that they're supposed to eat more fruits and vegetables," says Campbell. "But if they're still guzzling Coca-Cola and eating Snickers, it's defeating the purpose. The chemicals they're eating are the real culprits."
Kids eat too much junk food, says Campbell, and most schools sell it inside their walls. As turning back this tide of sugar-laden candy and soda is not likely, Spirit in Action has invited manufacturers of natural and organic snack foods to go head-to-head with conventional a-la-carte items. A pilot project with high schools in California and Colorado will be launched this spring, offering kids looking for foods on the run a healthier alternative. Full-service kiosks will follow in the fall of 2001.
"Good nutrition impacts thinking skills," says Sandy Neumann, program officer for education at the Center for Ecoliteracy, a public foundation that works with the Berkeley School District. "We talk about accountability, but kids are trying to be accountable when they don't have the physical resources to call upon within their own bodies."
Although the solution--offering fresh, local, unadulterated foods--seems logical, the barriers to reach it are many. For one, "kids are very finicky" says Elsie Szeto, director of child nutrition services at Berkeley, and a registered dietician. "They need to be familiar with a food, or they won't touch it. It needs a shape or form they know" Secondly, "the food service is self-supporting," says Szeto, "and we only have so much money to work with."
Nine of the Berkeley schools were recently given funding to provide after-school snacks, for example. But of the 54 cents designated per student, 14 goes to overhead, leaving only 30 cents to cover the costs of food, which must be selected from two of three food groups. Although last year the snacks were entirely organic, this year conventional cheese was the only affordable choice.
Covering the cost of tree and reduced meals poses other challenge. If passed, a bill now in the California State Senate would provide increased meal reimbursement for any school in the state that purchases fresh food. Related legislation has popped up elsewhere. A recent resolution passed by the city of Minneapolis urges the Minneapolis School District to consider organic foods for its lunch program; a resolution now pending in the city of San Francisco originally included such sentiment, but was eventually watered down.
"As consciousness continues to rise about globalization and lost autonomy in our lives, we'll see more resolutions in which people say they can't depend on our government to protect the food supply" says Simon Harris of San Francisco's Organic Consumer Alliance. "And that our school districts and local governments should."
Berkeley's program sets an important precedent, believes Harris. "School boards are looking for replicable models," he says, "a specific list of actions, something substantive that can be taken to other school districts. Once they can say, 'Look, this works,' it will be replicated on a larger scale."
This ripple effect is already occurring within Berkeley itself. Seed money from a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant has cascaded into two successful bond measures and nearly $1.5 million in additional grants. The bonds earmark money to install and staff kitchens at each of the schools, enabling on-site preparation of meals now restricted to mainly frozen, prepackaged ordeals. The grants will support nutrition education for faculty and school officials, provide garden coordinators and cooking program specialists, fund field trips to local farms and develop a business plan to ensure the program's fiscal success. CONTACT: Center for Ecoliteracy, (510)845-4595, www.ecoliteracy.org; Spirit in Action, www.spiritinaction.org.
PHOTO (COLOR): Students at Berkeley's Malcolm X Elementary School enjoy locally grown food from the salad bar.
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By Jennifer Bogo y