Lisa Goddard
Advocacy and Online Marketing Director

Pop quiz:  According to current USDA regulations, what is a junk food?

a) Doughnuts

b) Snack cakes

c) Fruitades/Fruit Drinks (with little fruit – not 100% juice)

d) Seltzer water

Answer:  D

Confused?  You’re not alone.  USDA sets nutrition standards for foods sold at schools, but outside of school meals (such as vending machines, a la carte items and school stores) haven’t changed since the 1970s.  In fact, nutrition criteria for non-meal foods only apply to “foods of minimal nutritional value” and don’t address calories, saturated and trans-fats or sodium. So while little Suzie can’t get a breath mint with her onion-laden chili dog, she can get a side of fries and a candy bar.

Photo credit: shapingyouth.org

The Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act (H.R. 1324), one of the many bills up for review in the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, would update national school nutrition standards for foods and beverages sold outside of school meals to conform to current nutrition science.

So, how can this legislation help hungry Central Texas children?

By not using the same nutrition standards for junk food/non-food items as we do for the school lunch system, we undermine our investment in these nutrition programs.  Ultimately, the health of our children is undermined – especially low-income children.

States do have the option of exceeding USDA guidelines such as limiting access to competitive foods, or through stricter nutrition standards. Unfortunately, Texas has chosen to simply comply with USDA competitive food guidelines, leaving Texas children subject to these antiquated laws.

Why can’t we just focus on improving participation?

When school revenue is directly linked to the number of meals they serve, schools are forced to focus not on nutrition, but on pleasing the customer for maximum participation. In this School Lunch Talk interview, Leslie Phillips, business development director for Meriwhether Godsey, which runs the lunch program at Sidwell where President Obama’s girls attend school, explains how the retail model used by public schools makes it difficult for children to choose healthy, balanced meals.

If we are to address the problems food-insecure and hungry Texas children face during the school day and the life-long problems from poor nutrition, the answer isn’t to simply increase participation. We must also change incentives and nutrition standards so that profit doesn’t take precedence over nutrition.

If you’ve ever struggled with weight, or quitting cigarettes, or any other vice, you know how important a positive environment is for your success. Let’s make the lunchroom a place for positive experiential learning, where the most vulnerable children can make informed choices based on modern, scientific nutrition standards.

Take action: 
Support the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act by asking your representative to co-sponsor H.R. 1324. Click here to find your congressperson.

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Nutrition and School Related Bills Passed in the 81st Legislative Session

SB 282          Sen. Jane Nelson                                     
Provides for grants for nutrition education and nutrition programs in early childhood programs.

 SB 1027       Sen. Kirk Watson                                  
Establishes a farm-to-school task force so public schools have more locally grown fresh food.

SB 395         Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr.                        
Creates a council to improve nutrition, health and physical activity in early childhood programs.

Bonus advocacy points: 

Tell your Texas legislative representatives that nutrition and health initiatives for low-income children remain a priority for you. Click here to find your representative.

Lisa Goddard
Advocacy and Online Marketing Director

During these tough economic times, I’m sure many of you are re-evaluating how you give. Are you giving time instead of money?  Are you focused on the best “bang for your buck?” Maybe your charitable giving is less formal, like watching a family member’s child for free while he/she runs errands, or providing a warm meal for your elderly neighbor, or holding a clothing swap with friends to help those needing a wardrobe refresher.   

Social service nonprofits are experiencing this shift in giving at a time when we are expected to do more for our clients.  A recent UTNE article highlights the challenges nonprofits face during these times of economic belt tightening and increased need.

What about the new math?

Sending a letter to your legislative representative is an inexpensive way for you to make an impact: 15 minutes to write, the cost of a stamp and cost of gas to get to the post office (brownie points if you walk or ride your bike).

This legislative session, CAFB has an opportunity to receive state funding to purchase healthy, low-fat foods for children in need. The bill, filed by Senator Zaffirini, is SB 944 and will help address the food insecurity and obesity problems affecting Texas children. One hundred percent of this funding will be for purchasing food; there are no start-up or administrative costs included in this bill. 

Not sure how obesity and food insecurity relate? Read our previous blog post and learn why food banks are a solution.

Your gift of 15 minutes and 43 cents (the cost it takes to write and send a letter) will help Texas Food banks gain access to $20 million in new funding and it doesn’t end there.  Food banks have incredible purchasing power (at CAFB, every $5 donated provides $25 worth of food) so your gift makes a difference. 

Not sure what to write? Here’s a sample letter and find your legislative representative here. 

Approximately 700,000 Texas children relied on food banks last year. Let’s ensure that we’re at least providing them with healthy food.

Lisa Goddard
Advocacy and Online Marketing Director

Access to quality, nutritious food is a challenge for low-income families:
Low-income neighborhoods are often characterized by a lack of full-service grocery stores, but have easy access to small convenience stores, fast food chains, and other sources of low-nutritional value foods.  But even with access, price is still a factor in making those healthy choices.

Tough choices – feel satisfied or eat healthy:
Low-income families will often compromise with their food budget because, unlike rent, utilities or health care costs, it is the most flexible.  And food with low nutritional value is cheaper. A University of Washington study showed that higher-calorie, energy-dense foods cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 calories, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 calories for low-energy but nutritious foods. That’s almost ten times more expensive!  These low-quality calories, however, provide that full, satisfied feeling necessary to keep hunger pains at bay.  

The problem with the Thrifty Food Plan:
The Thrifty Food Plan, the USDA’s national standard for a nutritious diet at a minimal cost, is the used as the basis for determining maximum food stamp allotments. Most recently, the cost of foods in the Thrifty Food Plan are rising faster than the average cost of food. This rapid inflation in food prices has created a gap between what the government deems necessary for a healthy diet, and the money allotted to purchase those foods.

Source: CBPP.org

While the Food Stamp program was intended to supplement diets, low-income families relying on this program for their entire food budget are put at a significant disadvantage in achieving a nutritionally sufficient diet, much less one that is optimal for health.

The effects of food insecurity and obesity:
In food-insecure households with children, it is often the parent who will go without food, or reduce their intake of food so that their children can eat.  The effects of these coping strategies affect children not only in how they learn to eat, but also in the quality of the food they eat. Food insecurity can trigger stress responses leading to eating disorders, reduced physical activity, and depression, all of which may be related to weight gain.

 The cost of not taking care of Texans:
Addressing poverty, food insecurity and obesity should be viewed as a social investment. It could mean billions of dollars in returns to society in the form of increased economic productivity, reduced expenditures on health care and the criminal justice system, and improvements to children’s well-being. 

• Annie E Casey estimates that the 24 percent child poverty rate in Texas cost $57.5 billion in revenue in 2006 through lost earnings, increasing the criminal justice system, and emergency healthcare.
• The estimated cost of obesity to Texas businesses in 2005 was $3.3 billion, and if nothing is done to curb the problem, this could reach $15.8 billion by 2025. (Source: “Counting Costs and Calories” published by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts in 2005)
• In 2005, Texas Medicaid paid more than $200 million in claims for cardiovascular disease. (Source: Texas Medicaid Program, HHSC)

Define the Issue:
Being healthy takes much more than knowing what to eat and having an active lifestyle.  When families don’t have access to the right foods, they cannot put into practice healthy eating knowledge, nor have the fuel to support exercise and fitness routines. To have healthy adults, able to be productive members of society, we must start with healthy children, and ensure they have a good foundation to support lifelong learning and a healthy quality of life. Ensuring children live in food secure households is not enough. It must be good food so that children can actively learn and practice healthy behaviors.

Lisa Goddard
Advocacy and Online Marketing Director

My earliest memories with my father always centered on food. It wasn’t so much about what I ate, but how I ate it. Dinner was more than a moment of consumption – it was a performance. He would beam when I would clear my plate and ask for seconds, or use my knife and fork to ensure every last morsel of meat was cleaned from a bone. I was scolded as being “scornful” if I chose not to consume the un-pretty parts of meat, such gristle, slightly burnt or fatty pieces.

He, on the other hand, relished eating. Fat was for flavor. Bones, as long as they were soft enough, were consumed. And he always ate fast, starting on seconds before the rest of the family was finished with their first plate. Wanting to please my father, like most children do, I emulated his eating habits.

Scarborough, Tobago

Meat was not a treat for him but a requirement for a well-rounded dinner. It was my mom’s charge to ensure we had one yellow and green vegetable on our plates. On the occasional weekends when my mom was at her second or third job, he would purchase a fatty steak and broil it for breakfast, serving it with fresh Italian bread from the local bakery to sop up the juices. I think it was his way of compensating for the lack of family time so my brother and I could enjoy a good education and the occasional vacation trip.

In my adulthood, my conversations with my dad often center on food. Trips down memory lane are not of a destination, but a special meal. He loves to share his cooking achievements with a play-by-play of the seasonings used and detailed descriptions of preparation methods. He would ask what’s for dinner right after eating breakfast. When he visits me in Austin, his face lights up when we take a trip to Whole Foods or Central Market because, according to him, “The meat sections are so pretty.”

As I got older, I began to understand the connection between his eating habits and what seemed to be an obsession with meat. You see, my father grew up poor in rural Tobago in the early 1940′s. Even with the chicken farm he was charged to tend to, he often went without food, or was limited to a diet of eggs. He recalls the embarrassment of passing out in school because he only had eggs or nothing to eat. On the very few occasions that meat was available for him to eat, he would keep the bone in his pocket to suck on from time to time, ensuring every last morsel of nutrition was consumed.

It’s sometimes difficult for me to listen to his stories of poverty and food insecurity as a sadness and shame consumes his face. In his mind, he has transcended poverty and lack of education, and enjoys a comfortable retirement in Miami with his wife of 37 years. But I know from my own childhood and the conversations we have to this day, that there is a lasting affect from experiencing poverty and childhood hunger. He still cannot eat slowly and exhibits disordered eating from time to time. He still watches how his family eats. He still exhibits an anxiety about having enough food for those unexpected guests dropping by. I now understand how his childhood hunger influenced personal relationships with food as I try to remind myself to eat slowly.

This year’s legislative focus on childhood nutrition is not just part of my “job” but a personal mission to do what’s right for the innocent and vulnerable members of society. I can’t help but think of my own father, and the physical and emotional toll food insecurity has taken on his life. This is not rural, post-colonial Tobago in the 1940s. There is no legitimate reason for children in Texas to be hungry and malnourished.

Lisa Goddard
Advocacy and Online Marketing Director

I’m often humbled by the trust, generosity and confidence Central Texans bestow upon the Food Bank, during times of crisis. When we’ve asked for your help, you’ve responded. Together, we’ve risen to confront the challenges of hunger, food insecurity and emergency food assistance. But our work is not done, and will not be done if we see hunger as a Food Bank problem. Indeed, it is a Texas problem.

This legislative session is a new opportunity to reach out to the most vulnerable in our community, and provide lasting change beyond the power of donations and volunteer time. To support those we serve, the Food Bank and our hard working legislative representatives will need your support on public policy in the coming months. We’re asking you to engage your representatives and challenge them to support meaningful solutions to the hunger crisis in Texas, especially in the area of child nutrition.

In President Obama’s inaugural address he said, “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” While those on the political spectrum will certainly have different definitions of what a working government looks like, we should agree that the most basic needs for existence should be attainable in a functioning government. A working government should make it easier for Texans to thrive and be productive members of society. A working government should make wise investments in its future – the children of the great state of Texas. Former president George W. Bush often speaks of the character of Americans, that we are resilient and hopeful, caring and strong, sturdy and honest. Fellow Texans, we must not let hunger consume our potential and dampen our character.

I hope the 81st Texas Legislative Session is the year of the well-fed child, where access to food is seen as an investment in Texas’ future, and nourishment is recognized as essential to addressing obesity, sickness and disease, facing our children. With the legislation filed thus far, it seems to be a promising year.

You can stay informed on hunger-ending legislation by joining the Take Action Community.

Hunger-ending legislation to watch:

Representative Naishtat
81(R) HB 613 – Food Stamp eligibility recertification without interview.

81(R) HB 612 – Relating to the eligibility of certain persons for the food stamp program.

Representative Rodriguez
81(R) HB 482
ESTABLISHMENT OF SMALL RETAILERS COMPETITIVE GRANT PILOT PROGRAM. (a) The department shall develop and implement a small retailer’s competitive grant pilot program through which the department will award grants to small retailers in certain low-income communities in this state to increase the access to fresh produce by individuals in those communities.

HB 275  would provide grants to low-income school districts to help them increase
breakfast participation by incorporating breakfast into the school day.

Senator Nelson
81(R) SB 344 – Relating to the establishment of an advisory committee to study the acceptance at farmers markets of food stamps and benefits under the women, infants, and children supplemental food program.

81(R) SB 282 Relating to grant programs to provide nutrition education to children.

Senator Eddie Lucio
SB 395  creation of the Early Childhood Health and Nutrition Interagency Council.