Posts Tagged ‘chocolate milk’

Food News Wrap: June 17

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

After a brief hiatus from the news business (moving will do that to you) we are back with a doozy of a week in kids’ food news. Did you hear that L.A. schools have voted to eliminate flavored milk as of July 1? They are the biggest school district in the country to do so thus far. And that’s not all: LAUSD has plans in the works to phase out corn dogs and chicken nuggets and other breaded items. Maybe we’ve just been hearing about chocolate milk for too long, but this second part is what sounds most radical to us. What will kids eat? No, really, what will they eat?

At LAUSD, their future plans include sushi, spinach tortellini in butternut squash sauce, and other ethnic food items. By happy coincidence, this week is also the week that Let’s Move announced their Recipes for Healthy Kids school lunch winners. So coming to a school near you could be…Central Valley Harvest Bake, Porcupine Sliders (a turkey/rice/cranberry burger), or Tuscan Smoked Turkey and Bean Soup. The recipes sure sound good. Let’s hope a majority of kids agree.

Also in the news this week is the ongoing reaction to the new My Plate food recommendations from the USDA. (Quick refresher: This icon simplifies dietary recommendations and breaks new ground by calling for more than half of the “plate” to be filled with fruits and vegetables.) Here’s a frightening follow-up from Melanie Warner of Food Fight: Processed food manufacturers don’t find fruits and vegetables very easy to work with, but they could incorporate more fruits and vegetables into the food they produce by…powdering them. Yes, powdering them, through freeze drying and spray drying. So producers might get people (especially kids) to eat more fruits and veggies by using them in powdered form as fillers in everything from powdered beverages to chips. One of the manufacturer’s points we can all agree on, “[I]t’s better to have our powders with all of their nutrients in a packaged food than fillers or corn starch.” Oh, OK, if you put it that way…We’ll go eat a piece of fruit now.

In “Celebrity Corner” (hey, we’re in L.A., it’s a requirement), Jennifer Garner has teamed up with Frigidaire to promote its new Kids’ Cooking Academy Summer Session, which encourages parents and kids to cook and eat healthy with fresh-picked ingredients. If you check-in on the mobile app Gowalla while visiting your local farmers’ market, Frigidaire will contribute $1 to Save the Children.

Recipes! We’ll leave you with a treat – some of our favorite recipes we’ve stumbled across this week. From Rabbit Food Rocks we have a slam-dunk of a recipe in her Loaded Protein Baked Potato (it all ties in with a basketball theme from the NBA finals). Lemons and Anchovies gives us a recipe for Purple Sweet Potato Gnocchi (and you know we have a soft spot for purple). Cooking on the Weekends serves up a really cool Vegetable Mint Stir Fry with Tofu “Noodles” (the noodles are made from thinly shaved tofu). And Earth Eats shows us how to make tacos with walnuts, tilapia, and even liver and onions. Whoa.

Oh – and don’t forget the special dad in your life this weekend. From Saveur magazine, here are 13 food-themed gifts for dads.

Happy Friday to all, especially the dads, who deserve a nice indulgent weekend in their honor.

Posted Under: Childhood Obesity, Government Regulations, Nutrition | Tags: , , , , , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on June 16th, 2011

Fun Food Friday: Fruit Milk

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Big news in the Los Angeles area this week: LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy announced that L.A. schools will eliminate chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk from their menus. The move came in response to activists led by Food Revolution’s Jamie Oliver, who has hounded the district on school lunch reform for weeks since his arrival in L.A. Several other districts across the country, including those in Washington D.C., have already banned flavored milks.

But what’s the big deal about flavored milks – particularly strawberry? Aren’t strawberries good? Sure, but most strawberry milk is made with artificial flavors or strawberry “powder” and many brands have loads of added sugar. So even though it has a fruit-like connotation, “strawberry” milk is pretty far removed from the berry patch.

Embarrassing disclaimer: The older Jolly Tomato kid is a frequent consumer of strawberry milk whenever he buys his lunch at school. But we’ve been talking quite a bit about sugary drinks, and after it came up several times in conversation, it was his idea to start making our own berry-flavored milks as a Fun Food project.

Our first effort was strawberry milk, and we decided to use just a slight amount of sweetener. We settled on our new favorite liquid sweetener, agave syrup, to make blending easier. Here’s the basic recipe:

1 cup regular low-fat milk

4 medium strawberries, sliced

1/2 teaspoon agave syrup

Combine milk, strawberries, and agave syrup in a tall cup. Blend with immersion blender for one minute or until evenly smooth.

The result? A smooth, thick concoction that was delicious and milkshake-like. Better still, the total sugar was just over 18 grams (13 g for the milk, 2 g for the strawberries, and 3 g for the agave syrup, according to information from NutritionData), as opposed to 28 to 31 grams of sugar in various store-bought brands we checked out. Not to mention it had real fruit, as opposed to strawberry “flavor” or artificial colors. Note: Horizon Organic’s Lowfat Strawberry Milk used to have 31 grams of sugar, but with its new formulation it now has 23 grams of sugar – pretty close to our homemade version.

Flush with success, we tried the same thing but with half a banana, and then with 1/4 cup of blueberries. Both of those were yummy, but the strawberry milk was the hands-down favorite. Heck, we might need to start packing it in lunches, or at least having it ready as an after-school snack. Or maybe Jamie Oliver would like to buy a case?

We’re taking the weekend off to head out to Camp Blogaway, but we’ll be back soon with more information and inspiration. Until then, happy Fun Food Friday and happy weekend to all!

Posted Under: Childhood Obesity, Just For Fun, Nutrition | Tags: , , , , , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on April 28th, 2011

Friday Food News Wrap: April 14

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

It seems like we’ve been all over the map with school lunches this week. First the USDA had its deadline for comments for the proposed new rules over the school lunch and school breakfast programs (Did you get your comments in?).  Then USA Today looked at a school that is consistently making healthy lunches for kids, and published an op-ed about why we should pay for healthy school lunches now rather than paying a bigger health cost later.

The Washington Post weighed in with another story on the chocolate milk debate, highlighting Fairfax County’s decision to re-introduce chocolate milk, this time without the high fructose corn syrup.

Then Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution continued to make a raise a ruckus about banning chocolate milk in schools, and about not being granted access into the LAUSD schools.

Confused? Do you just want some advice about how to get better lunches for your kids at school? Then check out this slideshow from Great Schools about how to improve your school’s lunch program.

Other news this week:

Bad Diets: Are your kids eating healthfully? A new study from the YMCA (via USA Today) shows that many kids aren’t. The study found that 62% of 1,630 parents with children ages 5 to 10 say their kids eat junk food one to four days a week. Only 14% of parents say their kids eat at least five fruits and vegetables a day.

Mom’s Diet: If the kids aren’t eating well, how well is the mom eating? Researchers at the University of Minnesota found that young mothers — ranging in age from about 20 to 30 — reported higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and saturated fat if they had children five or younger in comparison to women of a similar age without children. The moms tended to have higher calorie intakes too.

Is Sugar Toxic? This week’s New York Times Magazine takes a look at claims about sugar and asks whether it is a “toxin” that can be blamed for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and many kinds of cancers.  A good rule of thumb: Eat sugar judiciously.

Community Gardening: NPR reports on a community that is facing down all of these childhood nutrition challenges in a positive way: A Petaluma, Ca. health clinic has created a community garden and the clinic encourages its young patients to plant, grow, and eat nutritious food straight from the ground (hat tip to Kids Health Tips for the story).

Spring Holidays: Last but not least, we’ve got two big holidays coming up, Passover and Easter. For Passover, we love this easy matzo ball soup recipe from The Scramble/PBS Parents that comes with a little extra history and more links to traditional Passover foods.  We also can’t wait to try this Drunken Passover Grilled Cheese (make it with apple juice instead of wine for the kids) from Doves and Figs.

For Easter, we LOVE this post from What’s Cooking on coloring eggs with natural ingredients. Extra bonus: Look for the links at the bottom for tips on making perfect boiled eggs.

Happy Friday to all!

Posted Under: Childhood Obesity, Nutrition | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
This post was written by jollytomato on April 14th, 2011
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