mtblujeans
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2004
- Messages
- 17,126
I got this email today and I thought I would share this info:
"The Center for Disease Control predicts that one third of all children born in 2000 will contract diabetes.
What can you do? It's simple. Join Parents Against Junk Food (http://www.parentsagainstjunkfood.org/) and we'll send you (if you wish to receive it) a free newsletter with recipe makeovers, quick weeknight recipes, and fun, kid-friendly recipes such as Wacky Cake. Plus, you'll get tips, shortcuts, tasting results and equipment testing recommendations from America's Test Kitchen. Just click on the website address above to join.
Now let me tell you a story. One year ago, just outside of Boston, a chef and single mother, Susan Lacy, took over food service operations for a large public school. At lunch in her cafeteria, she proved to me that a school lunch can be great: fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, fresh salads, baked chicken, real juices instead of soda, baked chips not fried, and no candy bars. And the kids liked it. The upshot? Susan has been reprimanded for contributing insufficient profit to the school budget and her program may be terminated.
Here are some other facts. The United States spends about $2 on a school lunch whereas France spends $8 and Italy spends $5. Seventeen percent of our kids are overweight. Each year we spend $100 billion on diet related diseases and this year alone, 300,000 Americans will die from these diseases.
Let me end with a simple question. Is this what we wish for your kids? Lower life expectancy? Diabetes and other health problems? And, a health care system that will be bankrupted by the cost of these long-term trends?
I know that all of this sounds extreme, a bit like Chicken Little perhaps, but there is already overwhelming evidence that, for the first time in our history, the next generation will be less healthy and live a shorter life than their parents. In a country this rich and well educated, that's a crime and one that can easily be avoided."
"The Center for Disease Control predicts that one third of all children born in 2000 will contract diabetes.
What can you do? It's simple. Join Parents Against Junk Food (http://www.parentsagainstjunkfood.org/) and we'll send you (if you wish to receive it) a free newsletter with recipe makeovers, quick weeknight recipes, and fun, kid-friendly recipes such as Wacky Cake. Plus, you'll get tips, shortcuts, tasting results and equipment testing recommendations from America's Test Kitchen. Just click on the website address above to join.
Now let me tell you a story. One year ago, just outside of Boston, a chef and single mother, Susan Lacy, took over food service operations for a large public school. At lunch in her cafeteria, she proved to me that a school lunch can be great: fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, fresh salads, baked chicken, real juices instead of soda, baked chips not fried, and no candy bars. And the kids liked it. The upshot? Susan has been reprimanded for contributing insufficient profit to the school budget and her program may be terminated.
Here are some other facts. The United States spends about $2 on a school lunch whereas France spends $8 and Italy spends $5. Seventeen percent of our kids are overweight. Each year we spend $100 billion on diet related diseases and this year alone, 300,000 Americans will die from these diseases.
Let me end with a simple question. Is this what we wish for your kids? Lower life expectancy? Diabetes and other health problems? And, a health care system that will be bankrupted by the cost of these long-term trends?
I know that all of this sounds extreme, a bit like Chicken Little perhaps, but there is already overwhelming evidence that, for the first time in our history, the next generation will be less healthy and live a shorter life than their parents. In a country this rich and well educated, that's a crime and one that can easily be avoided."
