Posted by Emily Brooks
Tim Cipriano calls himself a "lunch lady." That's simplifying things a bit. Actually, he directs one of the most progressive school lunch programs in the country, for New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), which prepares more than 17,000 lunches and 11,000 breakfasts a day for schools across the district. It's a tremendous program that focuses on quality, nutritious food, prepared from scratch, where possible.
Tim is a passionate, articulate and tireless advocate for hunger relief. In his job, he sees directly the effects of hunger on children. He knows the scope and the depth of the problem.
What's Next on Chef Tim's Campaign Schedule?
NH School Food is searching for a mobile kitchen truck. Ideally it is a truck similar to what you would see at a fair or like an ice cream truck but with refrigeration instead of freezers. With refrigeration, Chef Tim would store cold meals that he makes at the central kitchen and pass them out. If it had cooking capacity, Tim would also offer simple, hot meals with a high nutritional value like stir fried protein and veggies.
This Leading Lunch Lady is looking for a vehicle that is new or in very good condition. Ideally he would like it to be white. If not Tim would look to have it custom painted as the goal is to stand out (farm scenes with children as the farmers promoting free meals for kids) in these neighborhoods and make coming to Chef Tim fun and exciting for the kids!
The idea behind this and more info is below:
According to this Leading Lunch Lady, the idea behind the mobile kitchen is to bring the food to the housing projects that are too far of a walk from schools. "We want to be able to feed all the hungry kids regardless of whether or not they can get to a feeding site. We want to bring healthy food DIRECTLY to our kids!!!"
Meals are free to kids 18 and under regardless of income during the summer, and YOU CAN HELP!!
The goal to start is to acquire one mobile unit for New Haven for this year. In the future Chef Tim would like to acquire additional units to supply other areas of CT.
The NHPS Central Kitchen has the capacity to provide summer meals for every hungry kid in CT if needed and he intends to feed them all.
CONTACT: Chef Timothy Cipriano and read his blog.
Chef Timothy Cipriano
Executive Director of Food Services
203-946-8813 Ext. 11
TIMOTHY.CIPRIANO@new-haven.k12.ct.us
Who is this Leading Lunch Lady?
He's the Local Food Dude! Chef Tim, as he is commonly referred to, is Executive Director of Food Services for the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) in Connecticut. He began this position in July 2008 and immediately started building collaborative partnerships around school food with local organizations such as Yale University, CT Food Bank, and Lockwood Farm in nearby Hamden, Connecticut. One of Tim's most valuable achievements to date has been introducing more fresh, local produce into the school lunch program and working to educate New Haven's urban students about fresh, healthy and great tasting food choices.
Chef Tim Cipriano is one of the most progressive advocates for school lunch reform we have in our arsenal for change. Read his blog. Interested in K-12 School Lunch Branded Concepts Program that will make YOUR school lunch program ROCK????? Let this Local Food Dude help you be successful in your commitment to serving great food to children.
Are you a Hero with a Truck to help Tim Feed Hungry Kids?
Posted by Emily Brooks
So Jamie Oliver has crossed the big blue pond with a new TV Show on ABC called Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution in the hopes of transforming the unhealthiest town - i.e. the fattest town - in America: Huntington, West Virginia.
Jamie Oliver is not the first Brit to visit our shores with loud pedantics and rude taglines. Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen takes discourtesy to a whole new level. Hell's Kitchen is a reality show, people! AND WE LOVE IT!
But there are distinct differences between Ramsay and Oliver. Primarily, for those of you who aren't chefs, Hell's Kitchen is a good representation of what goes on behind that swinging kitchen door, and you had better believe that head Chefs demand that type of perfection. Why? It's their name on the door, not yours. Too, if you watch Ramsay's complete body of work, you quickly realize that he's a pretty smart guy - smart enough to ramp up rudeness for American TV for the WOW factor. He's right, and that mock-spitefulness works beautifully in the Hell's Kitchen format.
Jamie Oliver, on the other hand? I'm concerned that his disagreeable offensiveness is nothing more than simply what he actually is - an intolerable sledgehammer.
Hell's Kitchen - reality TV. Contestants sign up to play. The Food Revolution? We're talking about real kids, here . . . real families . . . really serious issues - health issues - life and death issues . . . exceedingly large system-wide governmental problems. Oliver does mention many of the problems with our school food system in this country, but according to Oliver, if your kid is fat it is YOUR fault. If your kid is unhealthy, IT'S YOUR FAULT.
Throw Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution under the Bad Reality TV Bus.
There are many, exceedingly qualified folks working behind the scenes with Oliver in West Virginia - folks who's vision is to make the world a better place through better food. These quiet revolutionaries believe in partnership, not WWE-style upheaval. These revolutionaries DO NOT point the finger. They don't come out swinging fists and blaming parents. They work their asses off every day in the trenches. They don't fly in to West Virginia, record video for 1 hour, and then fly back home. The real change in Huntington is coming from those left behind to actually do the work - the off camera work.
For those of you who are seeking level-headed, consistent, fair-handed change . . . for those of you desperate for new systems and new solutions to help make and keep your kids healthier . . . don't be dismayed by Jamie Oliver's bazooka pointed down your throat. Because Oliver's Food Revolution regurgitates the worst of reality TV where Oliver is hoping that America will make fun of itself - that we'll think unhealthy kids is a side-splitting, entertaining riot.
The real food revolution is taking place all over the country. There are great consultants out there to help you.
They should comment on this blog post and tell you who they are.
In the meantime, ZIP IT Oliver. We do need a food revolution in this country. But you're using our deepest concerns about the fate of our children to compete against Gordon Ramsay for TV viewership and financial gain. I fear that you're actually doing more harm than good.
Posted by Emily Brooks
I applaud Ms. Obama for her Let's Move campaign. I do.
There is a danger, however, of Let's Move ending up just as silly a joke as Mrs. Reagan's Just Say No campaign if social marketing isn't backed by public policy and legislation.
When it comes to "eating healthy" one might as well jump right into the "which religion is better?" cesspool - as both yield the same inconclusive battle of argumentative ideology.
Our children don't need our ideology. They need fresh food.
Kids don't need prescriptive eating rules such as less fructose, or less fat, or more protein, or South Beach, or Atkins, or Weight Watchers. They need unadulterated food - real food - not man-made, processed food that is super cheap because most of it is made in a laboratory somewhere.
I also want to caution that this is NOT a problem that can be solved overnight. Policy change takes time and we should approach the incorporation of fresh food into children's diets as a systematic strategic plan of complete governmental policy overhaul.
I tire of those who bang the drum of childhood nutrition utopia who aren't really helping the matter, demanding instant widespread overhauls without understanding that the entire system has to be modified without collapsing, and who are currently as obstructionist as Strom Thurmond or Joseph McCarthy or Mitch McConnell.
Here are 5 government policies we can implement to help make Let's Move successful:
- Increase support for farmers and modify the ridiculous corn commodity structure that creates an impossible pricing-to-market structure for FOOD & DAIRY FARMERS. Give federal dollars to a farmer who actually grows FOOD - edible food? What a bloody brilliant idea.
- Create legislation that makes fruits and vegetables affordable to most families. I cringe when hear that feeding kids healthier starts at home. In this economic recession where most families can only afford to feed their kids once or twice a day, I don't blame ANYONE for choosing to give their kids 10 Oreos for 950 calories for $.50, over 10 carrots for 250 calories for $1.50. The 5 A Day Fruit & Vegetable campaign is a MARKETING CAMPAIGN not a standard by which to measure good or bad parenting. Something is very wrong with this picture, and feeding kids healthier starts in the Farm Bill, not at American dinner tables. Blame Senators, not working moms.
- Increase funding to schools so that they can raise the amount that they spend per child/ per meal. Duh. What is the average now, less than $2/child/meal? Food Service Directors, just like Mom, are forced to serve Oreos too.
- Create a US Ban on food advertising to kids under 12 years old and between the hours of 7am - 10pm. The EU has been doing this for awhile, and in the light of massive research proving that "seeing is believing" for kids who don't have their cause-effect differentiators in place yet, Spain is following. What are WE doing over here. Oh . . . . . nothing. Let's show kids what a healthy lunch is on TV (pizza rolls) and then try to feed them a decent dinner (chicken with mashed sweet potatoes) and complain to our friends at our social gatherings that our kids are such picky eaters we've given up cooking for them as the only thing they'll eat are pizza rolls.
- Create MORE funding for Know your Farmer, Know your Food initiatives so that communities and school districts and make learning about agriculture, farming, and food, with annual field trips to local farms a normal and integral part of the curriculum. What does it say about any anti-obesity campaigns when 85% of our children can't find a carrot in a field? Why? Because somewhere in the last 50 years we forgot to mention that carrots grow underground. How in the hell can we expect a child to eat more carrots when they have no idea what one really is?
I'm skeptical to think that Mrs. Obama's Let's Move campaign can actually be successful against the tsunami tide of industry lobbyists who grease the hands of our politicians.
I'll stand for a moment, and applaud Mrs. Obama for trying to do the right thing. And then I'll go back to working in the trenches supporting my friends like Chef Tim Cipriano of New Haven Public Schools who beats this drum every day, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that perhaps Mrs. Obama can actually positively affect federal food policy.