MS. BARNES: and to prepare a healthy mealmeals for their student population. So, it includes issues like that. Its received widespread support. Were looking for additional support and additional funding for that. Theres another initiativea big part of thisone of our important goals deals with access to healthy foods and vegetables in communities. There are some communities that are considered food deserts, places where people cant get fresh, nutritious food, where there isnt a grocery store in a mile or two within a persons home.
MR. ALLEN: This isthis is usually inner cities, always inner cities?
MS. BARNES: It actuallyits aboth an urban and a rural problem.
MR. ALLEN: Okay.
MS. BARNES: I think people find that really interesting when they think about rural America they think about farms and access to really
MR. ALLEN: Mm-hmm.
MS. BARNES: wonderful, healthy foods, but there are food deserts in rural areas, as well. What we want to do, and what the President included in his budget is an initiative to levuse public funds to leverage even larger private dollars to put the grocery stores in communities where they dont exist and also some really creative and innovative waysfor example, mobile grocery stores, where youre moving those into communities where theres not a lot of population density
MS. BARNES: but you want to make sure that people have access to those fresh fruits and vegetables.
MR. ALLEN: Fundingits not a small thing, but in addition to funding, is there anything specific youre asking Congress to do? Are you trytrying to change any laws or just behavior?
MS. BARNES: Well, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill is a key example.
Again, by providing additional resources for school breakfasts and school lunch, to make sure that theyre meeting the nutritional guidelines, reduced amounts of sugars and salt and other things, and the portions that were serving children at school. You know, weve been involved in the school lunch and breakfast program since World War II. So, thats an area where the federal government actually has a role and has had a role for many, many decades. So, thats an area that we think is very important and we hope Congress will act on, along with the resources for the healthy food financing initiative that I also mentioned.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37257_Page4.html#ixzz0rAfXZhDW
“What they mean by a food desert is an urban area where there are no grocery stores left.
This is about giving more free stuff to well-fare crowd.”
“Enticing or forcing food chains to re-open or build new stores in areas they abandoned years ago. They left because they couldn’t afford the high cost of business in these areas. Shoplifting, burglary, and armed robberies made it too expensive to have stores in these area.
The only goal of this program is to retain the obama vote.”
posted by maine yankee
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2537015/posts?page=15#15