Real food and Minneapolis Public Schools

Farmer Fair participants at Minneapolis Public Schools.

Perhaps you were thinking that in this crazy world we live in things never change for the better? Well, if you are a student or a parent in the Minneapolis Public School (MPS) district, you have something to look forward to.

Thirty-five years ago, the Minneapolis Schools set up a large, central commissary to provide food to schools throughout the district. It was designed as a “pre-pack” operation where purchased, pre-processed foods were packaged and shipped to schools for re-heating and serving to students. The “pre-pack” approach meant that the district didn’t cook its own meals and nearly all the food came to kids wrapped individually in plastic.

That’s about to change.  Just a few months ago, MPS began to dream about a food revolution of its own.  MPS’ new Director of Nutrition and Culinary Services, Bertrand Weber, and his staff have set bold new goals to improve the quality of food being served and to support local farmers and the local economy through an expanded Farm to School program. That means big improvements ahead for the 3.7 million lunches and 2.1 million breakfasts served annually by MPS.

Initial changes are already afoot. For instance, MPS held its first-ever “Farmer Fair” earlier this week. The event brought together local growers, allied businesses, MPS Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson, Mayor R.T. Rybak and other stakeholders. Over 20 locally grown foods are being integrated into menus that will be served at all MPS schools starting this fall. That means more fresh fruits and vegetables, along with high quality, sustainably raised beef and turkey from Thousand Hills Cattle Company and Ferndale Market.

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Exporting obesity: The role of trade

Used under creative commons license from sierralx.

The U.S. is, by far, the largest exporter of snack foods to Mexico.

The effects of trade liberalization (so-called free trade agreements like NAFTA) on the economy, jobs, the environment and even food security have all been studied closely, but as more and more governments start to confront the large and growing costs of poor diets on human health, new questions are emerging about the relationship between free trade agreements and the growing global obesity epidemic. When countries agree to liberalize the exchange of goods and capital among themselves, are they unwittingly also agreeing to share chronic diseases?

In a new article in the latest issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, IATP takes a hard look at how the deregulation of trade and investment undermines human health. The article is co-authored by three IATP staff, Dr. David Wallinga, Karen Hansen-Kuhn and Sophia Murphy, together with Sarah Clarke, a graduate student at Tufts University and Corinna Hawkes, an environmental geographer with an extensive background on the links between health, food and global trade and finance.

The article looks at how NAFTA contributed to what nutritional experts call an “obesogenic environment” in Mexico. An explosion in the availability of low-quality, calorie-dense foods in Mexico in the wake of NAFTA coincided with Mexico going to second place worldwide for the highest percentage of overweight and obese people in its population (the USA takes first place).

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Review: Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works

Many of us can remember that moment while eating fresh broccoli, sweet corn or kale and we were struck by how incredibly delicious vegetables taste. It is as if we were eating vegetables for the first time in our lives. In Atina Diffley’s new book, Turn Here Sweet Corn, we learn what it takes to produce that sort of vegetable—the hard work, the love of the land, the capacity for taking risk, and the joys and pains of a farm family.

Read from one perspective, the book is a chronicle of Atina Diffley’s life so far. She paints a portrait of a farm girl with a fierce independent streak, longing to get away, but also longing to farm. As an adventurous young woman, she leaves home, pursues music, marries unhappily, has a child, is introduced to the world of food co-ops, falls in love, and begins a very interesting and challenging life raising organic food with her husband Martin Diffley. Throughout, she draws on the strength of her roots, and nurturing those roots becomes a metaphor that sustains her story.

From another perspective, this is the story of Atina’s relationship with her husband Martin. From her descriptions of falling in love to their conversations decades later, Diffley gives the reader a picture of a true partnership. The Diffleys are fifth generation farmers whose lives and farms are an important piece of our region’s history, of its development from a frontier settlement to a metropolis. Everyone on the family farm had a job, of course; growing up, Martin was the “gardener,” the one who grew vegetables. To Martin, gardening means loving the land more than loving farming.

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Farmers markets and food support: An idea whose time has come

Some ideas just make sense. One such idea is enabling low-income members of our community to purchase fresh, locally grown foods at the farmers market.

Farm-fresh, healthy choices at farmers markets are now easier to buy for Minnesotans who receive food support or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Farmers markets across the state are investing in EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) debit card technology, allowing them to accept food support benefits. In 2011, sixteen markets across the state accepted EBT cards with over $67,000 in EBT sales.

IATP partnered with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County and participating markets to help catalyze the expansion of EBT at farmers markets in Minneapolis over the last two years, providing technical support and leading community outreach and promotional efforts. By last summer, six markets in Minneapolis were accepting food support benefits. The main Minneapolis Farmers Market alone registered $36,500 in EBT sales to low income shoppers in 2011, up 169 percent from 2010.

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