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	<link>http://www.huetrition.com/blogs.php?id=13</link>
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	<title>My Plate to replace MyPyramid</title>
	<description><![CDATA[The Department of Agriculture introduces the new food icon, MyPlate, to replace the MyPyramid image as the government's primary food group symbol. An easy-to-understand visual cue to help consumers adopt healthy eating habits, MyPlate is consistent with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEFmSk08LIE
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	<link>http://www.huetrition.com/blogs.php?id=14</link>
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	<title>Trick or Treat: A Healthier and More Colorful Halloween</title>
	<description><![CDATA[For years people have handed out candy for Halloween because it was the thing to do, it was tradition.  Most of us do not even think about it, we go out, buy our candy each year, and hand it out to all the happy little trick-or-treaters.

With so much attention on childhood obesity right now though, perhaps it is time to mix things up, to start a new tradition.  Not only is candy a major contributor to childhood obesity, it is all full of preservatives and processed ingredients. 

The coloring you see is not natural, it is because it is made in a factory.  On the other hand, with foods like fruit, the bright and colorful hues you see are all natural. 
This helps make the case that it is time for change!  

What if this year we went for a healthier option?  What if this year we focused on something orange, but made it a healthy choice rather than candy corn?  What if we incorporated nutrition into things and focused on brightly colored, delicious, and nutritious choices?

The Change Will Be Welcomed

Oh yes, at first glance, most adults will brush off this idea saying that kids will turn their nose up at the notion of healthy Halloween fare. Rest assured though, there are some really cool products and ideas out there that can make this work for kids and adults. Many of us recognize the deeper the hue within a particular fruit or vegetable, the healthier it is for us. So, using orange colored fruits and vegetables keeps with the season and is a great way to celebrate this beloved holiday!

You might think kids will shy away from options other than candy but you can keep it fun and pique their interest with the right choices. Keeping in mind the foods that maintain the bright orange hue also offer superior nutritional value, you can really have fun with finding the right treats. Halloween candy rings up a little over $2 billion in sales annually!  If you are going to invest in something to hand out this year, why not make it an investment that is actually good for kids?!  


Make Your Own or Work With Cool New Products

There is far more out there than just oranges, though they can make for a nice and easily accessible treat. Get creative and use the nutrition and well-being of children to motivate you!  Also, if you prefer, there are some really cool ready-made options out there you can embrace. One of the hottest trends in super cool produce right now is Scarrots by Bolthouse. These specially-shaped baby carrots are designed to look like a witch or a scary monster. Any child would be happy to have these cool carrots in their trick-or-treat bag and will happily gobble them up!   It is a win for them, and a win for you, in keeping with a nutritional offering!

You can also make your own bagged mix of dried fruit by mixing together bananas, papaya, mangoes, and apricots. This is a delicious snack and makes for an excellent alternative to candy. Not only that, it stays within the orange family of colors so its festive and at the same time offers some excellent health benefits. Kids will be munching away on this delicious dried fruit mix and all the while getting a healthy dose of Vitamin C and beta carotene with every bite!

How about getting creative and having fun with the whole notion of brightly colored nutritional offerings...for decorations!  Take a Cutie (Clementine) and turn it into your own little pumpkin!  Kids will adore getting their own little edible pumpkin that they can take with them.  You can even use this to decorate your own house in a very nutritionally balanced and cute festive decoration! 

Or try taking a mango and attaching some stickers, glitter, or whatever other artistic elements you have around the house for a delicious and nutritious fruit decoration!  The kids will love it for the appeal and for the fact that it is something different than the same old candy they always get.  Parents will love that you took the time to dress up good nutrition and made it fun!  Get your kids to help decorate and turn this into a fun family activity!!  If you need a little extra motivation to move towards a healthier treat this year, consider this fun little comparison. 

Just one mini Snickers "fun bar" has 80 calories, 4 grams of fat, and 0% nutritional value. A Clementine Cutie has 40 calories, 0.25 grams of fat, and fulfills 145% of your Vitamin C intake. The choice is obvious!

This Halloween break the candy cycle and make your own tradition. Focus on good, proper nutrition by handing out colorful, healthful, and attractive treats.  At Halloween time, kids are looking for fun treats they can snack on.

There is no reason not to make those treats colorful and nutritious as well!  And, by making your offering cool or festive looking, they will have just as much fun getting them as eating them.  Have fun with this and remember, nutrition starts early and focusing on brightly colored options makes it work best! 
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	<link>http://www.huetrition.com/blogs.php?id=15</link>
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	<title>House Protects Pizza as a Vegetable!</title>
	<description><![CDATA[Reposted from jamieoliver.com
Congress is making sure schools keep feeding kids pizza and french fries
Reposted from jamieoliver.com
 
Story by The Food Revolution Team
 
Congress Messing with School Lunch Standards
 
The Food Revolution has been watching Washington this week, as members of Congress are sticking their fingers in the bowl and rolling back important wins that were achieved on standards for school lunch. French Fries, salt, and pizza: in. More leafy greens and whole grains: delayed.
 
What’s Happening?
 
We applauded the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act which was passed just a year ago, and we were enthusiastic this spring when the Department of Agriculture (USDA) released new proposed standards for school lunch, based on the 2009 recommendations of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Taken together, they meant more funding for school food, plus more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and less sodium and fat. That’s why over 25,000 Food Revolutionaries submitted personal comments to the USDA, backing the standards and offering ideas.
 
Now, as the houses of Congress negotiate an agriculture spending bill, pizza, potatoes, and salt all look to be back on the menu, to the detriment of our kids’ well-being (1).
 
The potato lobby fought hard last month to lift restrictions proposed by the USDA on French Fries(known in the lingo as starchy vegetables), which are served daily in many schools. The USDA had set recommendations to limit the number of portions of starchy vegetables, including potatoes and thus French fries, in a step to tackle childhood obesity and provide an opportunity for other vegetables to be seen more regularly on the lunch tray. However, through lobbying which pushed against more than 73,000 individuals whose comments to the USDA supported these limits, and due to a state amendment prohibiting these USDA limits it now looks undeniable that potatoes, and therefore French fries, are back on school trays with no limits.
 
And that’s not the end of it - more last-minute changes popped up this week that would protect pizza and interfere with other proposed new standards set for school food. A new Congressional bill that looks likely to pass quickly will slow down reductions in sodium by requiring further study on long-term requirements, block whole grains by haggling over the definition, and help pizza stay on the menu by allowing two tablespoons of tomato paste on pizza to keep counting as a vegetable.
 
While we wait to hear more about the salt and whole grains, the pizza topic is currently a hot one! The new USDA standards proposed that it would take at least a half-cup of tomato paste to be considered as a vegetable, which no normal slice of pizza includes. The food industry is seeking to block those proposed changes and keep the current practice, so that a single slice of pizza can meet all the requirements for lunch: grain, meat alternate, and vegetable. Fresh tomatoes, OK, but 2tablespoons of tomato paste to count as one of the required vegetable servings for federally-subsidized lunch requirements to be met? Really?
 
Voices for Better School Food
 
Many are outraged by these possible last minute changes, including Mission: Readiness, a group made up of hundreds of retired military Generals and Admirals who have been raising alarms about the readiness of our armed forces due to current childhood obesity. Amy Dawson Taggart, the director of Mission: Readiness, recently stated in a letter to politicians:
 
&quot;We are outraged that Congress is seriously considering language that would effectively categorize pizza as a vegetable in the school lunch program. It doesn't take an advanced degree in nutrition to call this a national disgrace.” (3)
 
Despite the meddling, the White House and Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack still believe the proposed new standards are needed to fight childhood obesity. A USDA spokeswoman said this week:
 
&quot;While it's unfortunate that some members of Congress continue to put special interests ahead of the health of America's children, USDA remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals.” (4)
 
Opponents of the USDA standards in general argue that the government shouldn’t be telling schools what to serve, or adding more costs in a tough budget climate.
 
However, we ask: if are spending more than $10 billion a year to feed on average more than 30 million kids a day, kids who need a good, nutritious meal, shouldn’t we be giving them the very best possible?
 
As our friend Margot Wootan at Center For Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) put it:
 
&quot;They are making sure that two of the biggest problems in the school lunch program, pizza and french fries, are untouched.&quot;(4)
 
Find out some of our communities thoughts on what congress has said this week and ways in which you can get involved to improve the food served in your schools here.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/news-content/playing-potato-pizza-politics]]></description>
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	<link>http://www.huetrition.com/blogs.php?id=16</link>
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	<title>New USDA School Lunch Regulations</title>
	<description><![CDATA[Contact: 
USDA Office of Communications (202) 720-4623

USDA Unveils Historic Improvements to Meals Served in America’s Schools

New Standards Will Improve the Health and Wellbeing of 32 Million Kids Nationwide

FAIRFAX, Va., Jan. 25. 2012 – First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today unveiled new standards for school meals that will result in healthier meals for kids across the nation. The new meal requirements will raise standards for the first time in more than fifteen years and improve the health and nutrition of nearly 32 million kids that participate in school meal programs every school day. The healthier meal requirements are a key component of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was championed by the First Lady as part of her Let’s Move! campaign and signed into law by President Obama. 

“As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat, and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “And when we’re putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria. When we send our kids to school, we expect that they won’t be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home. We want the food they get at school to be the same kind of food we would serve at our own kitchen tables.” 

“Improving the quality of the school meals is a critical step in building a healthy future for our kids,” said Vilsack. “When it comes to our children, we must do everything possible to provide them the nutrition they need to be healthy, active and ready to face the future – today we take an important step towards that goal.” 

The final standards make the same kinds of practical changes that many parents are already encouraging at home, including:

Ensuring students are offered both fruits and vegetables every day of the week; • Substantially increasing offerings of whole grain-rich foods;
Offering only fat-free or low-fat milk varieties;
Limiting calories based on the age of children being served to ensure proper portion size; and
Increasing the focus on reducing the amounts of saturated fat, trans fats and sodium.
A sample lunch menu with a before and after comparison is available to view and download in PDF and JPG formats.  

USDA built the new rule around recommendations from a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine —a gold standard for evidence-based health analysis. The standards were also updated with key changes from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans – the Federal government’s benchmark for nutrition – and aimed to foster the kind of healthy changes at school that many parents are already trying to encourage at home, such as making sure that kids are offered both fruits and vegetables each day, more whole grains, and portion sizes and calorie counts designed to maintain a healthy weight. 

USDA received an unprecedented 132,000 public comments on its proposed standards (available on the web at www.regulations.gov) – and made modifications to the proposed rule where appropriate. USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon said: “We know that robust public input is essential to developing successful standards and the final standards took a number of suggestions from stakeholders, school food service professions and parents to make important operational changes while maintaining nutritional integrity.” 

The new standards are expected to cost $3.2 billion over the next five years -- less than half of the estimated cost of the proposed rule and are just one of five major components of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, now implemented or under development, that will work together to reform school nutrition. In addition to the updated meal standards, unprecedented improvements to come include:

The ability to take nutrition standards beyond the lunchline for the first time ever, foods and beverages sold in vending machines and other venues on school campuses will also contribute to a healthy diet;
Increased funding for schools – an additional 6 cents a meal is the first real increase in 30 years – tied to strong performance in serving improved meals;
Common-sense pricing standards for schools to ensure that revenues from non-Federal sources keep pace with the Federal commitment to healthy school meals and properly align with costs; and
Training and technical assistance to help schools achieve and monitor compliance.
The final nutrition standards released today also provide more time for schools to implement key changes, which will be largely phased in over a three-year period, starting in School Year 2012-2013. For example, schools will be permitted to focus on changes in the lunches in the first year, with most changes in breakfast phased in during future years.

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service administers 15 nutrition assistance programs including the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs, the Summer Food Service Program, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Together these programs make up the federal nutrition safety net.]]></description>
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	<link>http://www.huetrition.com/blogs.php?id=17</link>
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	<title>Pack a Powerful and Colorful Punch for Lunch</title>
	<description><![CDATA[When is the last time that you packed a lunch for your child? Better yet, when is the last time that you packed a healthy lunch for your child? Most moms admittedly do not have time to pack lunches every single day. If they do pack a lunch then it leads you to wonder, if it is nutritionally sound. This is nothing to be ashamed of but it is something to get tuned into. If you want to help your kids to achieve proper nutrition and long lasting health, then you need to start packing lunches and making them as colorful as they can be.
Not Much of a Time Commitment
Just in reading that you may panic fearing that packing a healthy lunch is going to take time away from all the other things that you have going on. The only time it will cost you is preparing a shopping list and hitting the grocery store—chances are that you were going to do that anyhow!  Did you know that only 50% of kids eat a packed lunch over a cafeteria lunch each day? We recognize the need to pack a lunch for our children, but we must ensure that it is nutritionally sound. Controlling what we feed our children and giving them the right foods can work towards better health overall! 
As with so many other things within the Huetrition movement, it is all about the color. The more colorful the food the more nutritionally sound that it is going to be for the kids. So as it relates to packing lunches, you have some great options here. Sure it is all about incorporating fresh fruits and vegetables but you can be creative with this too.
•	Make your child their own little “sushi roll” that is as delicious as it is colorful. Start with a base like lavash bread and then spread with low fat cream cheese and top with sliced green cucumber, red pepper strips, and shredded carrots. This is a nice alternative to lunch and is bound to be something that they will love, colors blazing!

•	Put together a not so traditional sandwich but add some color to it. If you give them the same old turkey sandwich everyday they are going to get bored with it. How about a whole wheat English muffin with hummus, sprouts, turkey, lettuce, tomato, and even some yellow pepper.



•	Designate a different color for each day of the week and then give them a packed lunch to look forward to. Try orange day with a tomato basil lavash bread sandwich, sliced carrots, and a Clementine as a starting point. Build upon it and let the kids get involved with what the color is and what they get to enjoy as part of their packed lunch. This is not only nutritionally sound, but it’s fun for everyone too!

Incorporating Creativity
The key to making a nutritional packed lunch is to focus on color and to get creative. Offer them their own little lunch pizza but load it up with tons of colorful veggies. Make them a yogurt parfait with all different colors of fruits. This does not take any more time than a trip to the grocery store and a little bit of creativity. 
Before you know it, lunch is coming together before your eyes and they are loving something that is actually good for them. Break the cycle and become a part of the Huetrition movement! You can pack healthy and colorful  lunches for the kids that they are bound to love and don’t take much time out of your busy day! 
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	<link>http://www.huetrition.com/blogs.php?id=18</link>
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	<title>Weight of the Nation Series, Featuring School Meals</title>
	<description><![CDATA[May 14th, HBO will launch the Weight of the Nation series, part of a broad public health campaign and partnership between HBO, the Institute of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and others.
The four part series premieres on HBO, and will stream free of charge on HBO.com, starting Monday, May 14. The “Children in Crisis” episode, featuring school meals, airs Tuesday, May 15 at 8:00pm Eastern. For complete show times and more information, visit http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/. HBO is heavily promoting the series through social media and has sent 40,000 screening kits to community groups throughout the country.
 
A complete New Meal Pattern PR Toolkit is coming soon to help members promote their programs at back-to-school time – a critical time as HBO will air a separate series this fall titled the Weight of the Nation “for Kids.” Although HBO is not heavily promoting this second series at this time, they will air the first episode, “The Great Cafeteria Takeover” on Wednesday, May 16 at 7:00pm Eastern. This half hour episode features a group of students in New Orleans who “are determined to bring healthier (and tastier) options to their district’s school cafeterias.” ]]></description>
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