A ‘Rock-Star’ Chef’s Role in School Nutrition

Happy Holidays! We came upon this insightful article on Chef Tim Cipriano, the executive director of Food Services for the New Haven, CT school system. It talks about how he gets kids interested and excited about healthy lunches by going for the basics, and how he’s involved in a unique training program to teach food handlers the proper steps to offer safe and nutritious food. Cipriano also works with distributors that gather produce from local farms so delivery of these healthy foods remains fresh and fast. Says Cipriano of the training program:

We talked a lot about food safety. We shared information we could bring back to the farmers and food-service workers.  I think it definitely increased awareness about produce.  It opens up doors to a world one may never had any experience with unless you’ve worked in a produce house or in restaurants.

Concise Explanation of the New Child Nutrition Act

Passionate healthy school food advocate and star chef, Jamie Oliver, has a new posting on his website, JamieOliver.com, that provides a clear and concise explanation of the benefits of the newly signed Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Here are some of the provisions the $4.5 billion allocated to the Act will provide:

• DOA will update national school nutrition  standards for food sold outside school meals. This would effectively remove junk food sold on school premises.
• An increase in funding to the national school lunch program, providing an additional $0.06 to schools that meet higher nutritional standards.
• An increase of technical support to schools and strengthening  school compliance with nutritional standards.
• An expansion of after-school meal programs for at-risk children and new ways to enroll low-income students into the program.

The passage of the act couldn’t have come at a more critical time when 1 in 3 kids are affected by childhood obesity. Click the the link above for more on the article and the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.