Will Kyle Eat The Chicken?

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by Paul Bass | May 18, 2010 9:01 am

(10) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Food, Health Care, Schools, West River

Paul Bass Photo Michelle Obama’s ambassador hit New Haven with a pitch for more healthful school lunches. She encountered a tough customer or two.

The ambassador—Audrey Rowe, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s administrator for special nutrition programs—showed up at Barnard School with New Haven U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro Monday just in time for lunch.

Rowe (pictured above singing the praises of baked chicken to Barnard fifth-grader Nicole Celone) is touring the country pushing First Lady Michelle Obama’s healthful-food campaign to tackle child obesity.

Monday’s New Haven stop was a return visit for Rowe. In the 1990s she served as social services chief for New Haven’s first black mayor, John Daniels. She then went on to a state commissionership and a top spot at the National Urban League before taking her current position with the country’s first black president.

Rowe and DeLauro used the Barnard photo-op to argue for a reauthorized federal Child Nutrition Act that adds more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and low-fat dairy products to school lunches; trains school food workers to make more healthful meals; steers more local farmers’ produce to school meals; and cuts the paperwork involved in adding poor children to free school-meal programs.

They chose the pre-K-8 Barnard Environmental Studies Interdistrict Magnet School because it and other New Haven schools already do what the Obama administration wants other schools to do: Serve lower-fat, lower-salt meals with more vegetables; and grow its own veggies in its own student-planted garden.

Rowe said that even when the more healthful food stares them in the face, the kids need encouragement to try it. Again and again. With some help, in the form of tasty recipes.

Rowe called elementary and middle schools “a good place to begin. [The students are] willing to try things.” The hope is that once exposed to broccoli and pears and baked rather than fried foods, the students will keep eating it, and convince their parents to also.

On a visit to a Michigan school the other day, Rowe said, she came across a schoolkid who has decided he likes eating the broccoli at school—as long as it has ranch dressing on it. In Rhode Island, she saw kids take to radishes. For real.

At Barnard Monday, the menu featured roasted chicken, salad, and Spanish rice and beans.

She urged fifth-grader Kyle Williams (pictured) to try the chicken.

Too dry, Kyle protested.

Put some of that lettuce on it, Rowe suggested. That’ll make it more moist.

He wasn’t budging. Finally he agreed to try it—but pronounced it still too-dry before he even put it in his mouth. (Later, when the grown-ups were elsewhere and not looking, Kyle tore into an apple.)

A table away, fifth-grader Nicole Celone had better news for Rowe. She gave the roasted chicken a thumbs-up. “It has a lot of taste to it,” she reported. And it was moist, she said. The beans and rice were a different story. “It’s kind of like, dry,” Nicole said. “They don’t put flavors in it. It tastes kinda blah.”

At the next table, the fifth-graders were more interested in grilling Rowe about the White House than in being grilled about chicken.

“You came all the way from Washington, D.C. to see this?” asked Mikahl Glass (at left in photo). “you work inside the Obama White House?”

Well, Rowe said, she works for Barack Obama, but in a different building.

“Will he travel here?”

“We’ll have to invite him,” Rowe responded.

“How do we do that?”

“You all get together and put together a letter about all the good food you have here,” she suggested. She was careful not to make any promises she couldn’t keep.

Outside the event, under a blue sky on a comfortable spring afternoon, Barnard’s two rows of bike racks stood empty, a reminder that it takes more than putting a program in place to get kids to adopt healthful routines.

As chair of the House of Representatives’ Agriculture Subcommittee, DeLauro (pictured at left with Rowe) will have a hand in crafting the Child Nutrition Act’s reauthorization and pushing for Obama/Rowe’s suggested changes.

Connecticut leaves $8.4 million worth of federally subsidized school meals a year unclaimed because eligible kids don’t get signed up. She and Rowe would like to see children already on government programs like Medicaid or TANF be automatically enrolled on subsidized breakfast and lunch rosters.

DeLauro said the proposed changes to the law have to do with fighting child hunger as well as obesity and other health problems. “If that isn’t a priority and a necessity,” she said, “I don’t know what our values are.”

Comments

posted by: Robert on May 18, 2010 9:23am

I’m glad that this is a focus and I appreciate the work of the congresswoman and ambassador on this issue.

I’m disappointed however that at least the breakfasts in the New Haven schools are focused on sugar. Most mornings offer either a sweetened cereal or a sweetened muffin. Of course my daughter is excited to see these since she doesn’t get them at home.

It is hard to teach my kidergartner to stay away from added sugar when the schools are training her to have sugar with her meals.

If they are serious about the obesity issue the schools should offer only unsweetened cereals.

posted by: Paul Braverman on May 18, 2010 10:47am

Why are there NO articles on the BOMBSHELL issue of the week, month and perhaps year in politics—the abject lies of Dick Blumenthal?

posted by: streever on May 18, 2010 10:47am

good point robert! http://www.amazon.com/Familia-Swiss-Muesli-Cereal-32-Ounce/dp/B0015Q94NM/ref=pd_bxgy_gro_img_b

this is what I eat—no added sugar, and I put in fresh bananas, a few raisins, and add some cinnamon. At 19 cents an ounce, you can’t beat the price.

posted by: Threefifths on May 18, 2010 3:39pm

streever on May 18, 2010 10:47am
good point robert! http://www.amazon.com/Familia-Swiss-Muesli-Cereal-32-Ounce/dp/B0015Q94NM/ref=pd_bxgy_gro_img_b

this is what I eat—no added sugar, and I put in fresh bananas, a few raisins, and add some cinnamon. At 19 cents an ounce, you can’t beat the price.

But how about the Cheese that you eat from the Cheese Truck DUDE!!

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/caseus_cheese_truck_rolls_out/

posted by: Josiah Brown on May 18, 2010 5:41pm

New Haven Public School teachers, as Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Fellows, in recent years have prepared curriculum units on insulin, metabolism, diabetes, cardiovascular health, fitness, and nutrition, among many other topics. Fellows developed these units in seminars that Yale faculty members W. Mark Saltzman of Biomedical Engineering and William B. Stewart of the School of Medicine have led.

Mark Saltzman’s New Haven and national seminars have addressed:
“Health and the Human Machine”
“Engineering in Modern Medicine”
“The Brain in Health and Disease”
“Nutrition, Metabolism, and Diabetes” http://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/index.php?url=http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/nationalcurriculum/units/2008/6/

Bill Stewart’s seminars have included:
“Depicting and Analyzing Data: Enriching Science and Math Curricula through Graphical Displays and Mapping”
“Anatomy and Art: How We See and Understand”
“How We Learn about the Brain”

A few examples of specific units are those by the following:

Marisa (Ferrarese) Asarisi of Betsy Ross http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/2007/5/07.05.07.x.html

(Marisa Asarisi was part of a team of four Betsy Ross teachers in the 2007 “Health and the Human Machine” seminar who developed four complementary curriculum units addressing health from various disciplines.)

Sheila Martin-Corbin of Co-op http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/2008/6/08.06.08.x.html
Nicholas Perrone of Barnard http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/2008/6/08.06.09.x.html
Chris Willems of Wilbur Cross http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/2006/5/06.05.09.x.html
. . .

Though health was not as explicitly a focus of the 2009 Institute seminar that engineering professor Eric Dufresne led on “Science and Engineering in the Kitchen,” several units from that volume may be of interest:
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2009/3/

For example, here are units by two Fellows who are elementary-grades teachers:

Carol Boynton of Edgewood on “Cooking Up the Scientific Method” http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/2009/3/09.03.02.x.html

Waltrina Kirkland-Mullins of Davis on chemistry and geography, an interdisciplinary unit in line with her school’s international theme http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/guides/2009/3/09.03.03.x.html

These and other teacher-developed Institute curricular resources—across the sciences, math, arts, and humanities—are available for non-commercial, educational purposes.

posted by: John H on May 19, 2010 9:17am

The kids are very smart:

“You came all the way from Washington,D.C. to see this?”

It’s called a pure opportunist photo opp, kid.

posted by: Bill on May 19, 2010 10:34am

Social engineering that began in the 1960’s contributed to the dismantling of the family unit where cooking and eating healthy foods was handed done from generation to generation. Now the same social engineers are trying to repair the damage they have done by creating a nanny state, legislating food ingredients and menus.
When I went to school, I ate breakfast at home and brown bagged lunch, not being able to afford to buy school lunches. But then again buses to school weren’t free either.

posted by: Grimace on May 19, 2010 6:29pm

Bill, unhealthy food isn’t a socialist plot. It’s mass-produced and is appealing to consumers because it’s cheap and offers instant gratification in the form of sugar and/or fat. That’s about as capitalist as you can get - viva la free market!

posted by: Threefifths on May 20, 2010 9:06am

Show the kids this.

http://www.foodincmovie.com/

posted by: Teacher Gal on May 22, 2010 10:52am

Why not offer kids a bowl of cherrios, unsweetened corn flakes, or oatmeal for breakfast. What’s with all this sugared junk?
IMHO its all about money not what’s good for kids. We should be feeding kids food that is healthy and can give them a good start to the day. And if they don’t eat it, well, i guess they’re not really hungry!

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