Healthy food for the Painted Brain

[slideshow] RootDown LA was THRILLED to be asked to join the magazine launch party for another Community Partners' project last week. -  The Painted Brain is a peer-driven media and outreach campaign that works to  eradicate the stigma of mental illness, to foster social development, and to create a community of young adults.

They describe their magazine better than we could:  The magazine itself, and its rascally little cousin the mini brain, are the physical, reproducible  manifestations of the actual project of the painted brain, the outcome of hours and months of group art activities, meetings, red carpet events and spiritual meditations on the issues of the day.  order a subscription here.

RootDown showed up last Saturday night with another RootDown Healthy Food Tasting for a fun evening of live music, spoken word and the release of the latest edition of the Painted Brain.  Thanks to everyone who ate (and waxed poetic about) our homemade hummus and sauteed veggie wraps, homemade salsa, and smoked paprika veggie dip!  One guest commented: "The Veggie Wraps were Tantalizing and Chock full of Sabor!"  We'll get that recipe on our recipe page soon!

How's a kid supposed to avoid diabetes with all this sugar?

Yesterday during lunch at Jefferson High, a student proudly told me he lost 46 pounds giving up soda. I said "that's awesome!" and asked if I could help him keep up his health improvements with a tip - did he know the strawberry milk he was drinking had just about as much sugar as a soda?  We looked for plain milk from the lunch line to compare, but were told they don't give out the plain milk anymore!  So his only milk option yesterday gave him 23 grams of mostly added sugar - nearly half of what the CSPI recommends for daily intake.
  Policy makers and advocates in LA work so hard to make healthy changes in school menus, but what translates down through to the lunch line isn't always consistent with good health.

If we are even remotely serious about addressing diabetes and obesity in this nation, we can't keep mainlining sugar to our kids via all the juices, sweetened milks, and refined foods that can be part of the so called healthy school lunch.  On a recent day, a school breakfast delivered MORE than the 50 grams of added sugar.  How is that healthy?
  Meager funds and logistics make feeding a district this size a daunting task, but why turn away those who are seroius about doing the work that's really needed if we are going to give our kids a real fighting change to change their health statistics?  Resisting change to maintain a comfortably functioning but unhealthy system is not good business.

No LAUSD, school lunch is not getting healthy fast enough.

LAUSD recently turned down Jamie Oliver's offer to work with a Los Angeles school to help improve the school lunch program.  LAUSD replied by saying, "While we appreciate your interest in our school meal program, we believe our direct work with nutrition experts, health advocates, the community, schools and students is the most effective strategy for our continued success and improvement," That's funny, in past months,  our dedicated board member and caterer extraordinaire, Jennie Cook, has tirelessly joined in the chorus of advocates, policy makers, parents and students who do NOT think school lunch is healthy or palatable enough.   We applaud those who have fought hard to make important policy changes around school food, yet READ THIS STORY and you'll see - we are still standing at the end of the school lunch line where policy and current national health standards are not translating into truly healthy options for students.

We don't expect LAUSD to make the changes alone. RootDown LA and other grassroots nutrition, food advocacy, healthy cooking and garden orgs. across the city are working their tails off to build preferences  for healthy food.  Our kids WILL eat healthy food when it tastes great and is the food that is readily accessible.  What a great opportunity now for the school district to start -even with small steps- to start to meet this increasing demand for fresh, unprocessed, unsweetened, no-additive, great tasting food.

Heck, just this week, our kids our Youth Leaders managed to get over 100 kids to eat a tuna salad chock full of carrots, celery, chilis, cilantro, onions, cucumber, and fresh lime juice.  Cheap, healthy, and HIGH in protein, fiber and nutrients.  Not a drop of added sugar! The bowl was swiped clean by students clamoring for the last bites.   Who says kids don't want to eat healthy food?!