[kellynla]

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, has threatened to introduce legislation to strip the city of federal funds as a result of the City Council’s vote.

“This is a slap in the face to all brave service men and women and their families,” DeMint wrote on his Web site. “The First Amendment gives the city of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money. If the city can’t show respect for the Marines that have fought, bled and died for their freedom, Berkeley should not be receiving special taxpayer funded handouts.

“I am currently drafting legislation to ensure that American taxpayers aren’t forced to pay for this insult by rescinding all of the earmarks for Berkeley in the Omnibus Appropriations bill, and to transfer the funds to the Marine Corps.”

Among the funding DeMint seeks to remove is $87,000 for the Berkeley Unified School District’s nutrition education program.

“If there’s a senator from South Carolina that wants to take healthy food away from the children of Berkeley because the City Council has an issue with the military recruiting downtown, I just think that’s absurd,” said Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the district. “We’re in the throes of a health crisis (because of childhood obesity), and Berkeley is one of the very few cities in America that’s actually really working on children’s health through school food. Why anyone would want to take away healthy food away from children is just beyond me.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1963527/posts

[F-117A]

Why anyone would want to take away healthy food away from children is just beyond me.”

She should ask her city council why they want that to happen!

[jmcenanly]

“If there’s a senator from South Carolina that wants to take healthy food away from the children of Berkeley because the City Council has an issue with the military recruiting downtown, I just think that’s absurd,” said Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the district. “We’re in the throes of a health crisis (because of childhood obesity), and Berkeley is one of the very few cities in America that’s actually really working on children’s health through school food. Why anyone would want to take away healthy food away from children is just beyond me.”

I was under the impression that Berkeley was fairly well off, and was not in the grips of a famine. If they want healthy foods, it is local, not a Federal responsibility, if it is a governmental responsibility at all.

[kcvl]

“If there’s a senator from South Carolina that wants to take healthy food away from the children of Berkeley because the City Council has an issue with the military recruiting downtown, I just think that’s absurd,” said Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the district.

Chef Ann Cooper is a renegade lunch lady who works to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms for students - one school lunch at a time.

Ann is demanding that the issue become a part of the 2008 presidential race

Chef Ann is at the fore front of the movement to transform the National School Lunch Program into one that places greater emphasis on the health of students than the financial health of a select few agribusiness corporations. Chef Ann's lunch menus emphasize regional, organic, fresh foods, and nutritional education, helping students to build a connection between their personal health and where their food comes from. Chef Ann's newest book, Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children hit bookstores on September 5

In addition to her work with BUSD and the Chez Panisse Foundation in Berkeley, CA, Chef Ann collaborated with the Center for Ecoliteracy and Slow Food USA to develop a Model Wellness Policy Guide

[kcvl]

“If there’s a senator from South Carolina that wants to take healthy food away from the children of Berkeley because the City Council has an issue with the military recruiting downtown, I just think that’s absurd,” said Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the district.

It has not been easy to find time to talk with chef Ann Cooper since she became director of nutrition services last October for the Berkeley, California, Unified School District, where she oversees gardening programs at eleven schools

My time cooking lobster sushi Napoleons for rich people was over; it was time to try to make the world a better place.

We've gone from 95 percent processed foods to 95 percent made from scratch. When we reopen, every school will have a salad bar. We have only hormone- and antibiotic-free dairy and offer fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal.

We instituted a swipe-card system, so that instead of reduced-meal kids being conspicuously checked off a list, every child swipes a card to pay. We've eliminated the stigma about who is free and who is not.

We canceled all of our food contracts and are now buying much of our food from locally owned businesses. All of our Mexican food is made by a locally owned Hispanic company; all of our baked products come from a local, women-owned compan.

It costs about 18 percent more per kid per lunch--which is about 50 cents a day--more than what we get in reimbursements from the Feds and the state. (That's not just for food; it includes labor--but not overhead, which adds another 50 cents.)

When you include fossil fuels used in food production, and the several-billion-a-month war in Iraq, what is the real price?

We need to see school lunch as part of a health initiative, not just as a dumping ground for agribusiness. School food service is now administered by the US Department of Agriculture, which is basically a marketing arm for agribusiness. Really, school food should be housed in Health and Human Services or the Centers for Disease Control.

I'm a high school dropout

We have to have the will to stand up and say we're going to serve our kids healthy food and that we have to do it because we're killing our kids.