Blog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 

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School Lunches – 23 August 2007
By Mary T. Hoffman

Is your school lunch program healthful or is it contributing to childhood obesity and related diseases?

Everywhere you turn, you hear about the alarming increase of obesity, early onset diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic diseases in children and teens. Yet the USDA, using tax payers’ money, buys surplus animal products – hundreds of millions of pounds of pork, beef, chicken, dairy, ad nauseam – from the huge, powerful animal agriculture industry and dumps these on schools through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and other food assistance programs.

It’s obvious that for politicians, money from lobbyists is far more important than children’s health. This results in lots of unhealthful food such as chicken nuggets, hot dogs and other high-cholesterol, high-fat foods served to those who are most at risk and who will suffer from preventable diseases into adulthood, placing a burden on the health system and increasing profits for the pharmaceutical industry. This is just one example of government hypocrisy.

In a positive approach to helping solve this problem, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and other organizations have been trying to encourage food service directors of schools to offer healthful options such as fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes.

For more about The Healthy School Lunch Campaign, please visit:
http://www.healthyschoollunches.org/reports/report2007_intro.html 

For delicious, healthful recipes, visit:
http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes.html 

Go on to: Selling Out Health for Votes – 24 August 2007
Return to: Fish Feel Pain – 22 August 2007
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