School Lunch Wars

The health of our nation’s children is playing out on a quiet battleground. Every school day, school cafeterias in this country serve up 30 million lunches and 13 million breakfasts paid for by taxpayers. One would think that providing children with nutritious food at school would be the best place to make an impact on lifelong health and to stop the obesity epidemic. First Lady Michelle has thrown her back into this one. But once again corporate greed prevails. Food biz giants want their profits at the expense of the health of our children and they won’t give up ground without a fight.

One in three American children is obese or overweight. Right now. Projections indicate that in less than 15 years half the adult population will experience impaired health because of overweight/obesity (i.e., diabetes, heart disease, hypertension). Interestingly, some of the impetus behind improving school lunches in the past came from the military, which was having trouble finding enough fit young people to serve. In 2009, the Department of Defense reported that more recruits were turned away for obesity than for any other reason.

In 2010, the Obamas promoted the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. This bill placed new restrictions on food available to children at school based on guidelines for healthy eating. Passing the bill not only involved gaining approval from congressional reps, but also from manufacturers of food sold to schools, nutrition experts, and the cafeteria workers (who convinced children to take, try, and eat food on a daily basis). The Act passed, but when implementation began, things fell apart. The Republicans faulted the Democrats for getting behind Michelle to enforce heavy-handed, government-regulated rules about what children could eat at school. Food moguls hired lobbyists to work to derail and dilute the regulations. And the food moguls have the School Nutrition Association (A.K.A. the cafeteria workers) in their pocket. In public, the SNA pretends to be behind the Act, but behind closed doors it is the biggest critic.

As part of the Act, in 2012 school lunches were required to meet a host of new standards, including offering twice as many fruits and vegetables as previously. Starchy vegetables (read French fries) did not count. Believe it or not, there is a starchy vegetable lobby! But the biggest flashpoint of the war centered around pizza. Schools spend more than $450 million each year on pizza, the most popular cafeteria food. Prior to 2012, pizza could be served indiscriminately in school lunches because the pizza sauce on a pizza, rather than being counted as two tablespoons of tomato paste, could be counted as eight tablespoons of tomatoes (a vegetable). This may remind some of you older folks of the days when Ronald Reagan was raked over the coals for claiming that ketchup could be counted as a vegetable in school lunches. The 2012 changes associated with implementation of the Act no longer counted tomato paste as any type of vegetable. The SNA flipped out. I guess, cafeteria workers could not figure out how to design meals and prepare food that children would eat without the crutch of pizza. Furthermore, they didn’t want to try to get children to eat all those new fruits and veggies required.

Yay for Director of Food Policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest Margo Wootan! She turned the opponents to the 2012 regulations into fools by stating in the media that Congress wanted to pass off pizza as a vegetable. Unfortunately, the pizza-makers lobby was strong and rules regarding how pizza sauce and tomato paste were classified were diluted by lawmakers. Regulations were changed and pizza can be served with little else of nutritional value to offset it.

When the 2012 regulations went into effect, cafeteria workers and schoolchildren across the country staged their own local protests to the new rules. Some children refused to eat the extra fruits and vegetables. Interestingly, the children who refused the extra fruits and veggies and brought brown-bag food from home instead were more often from affluent families. The children living in poverty ate the extra helpings of fruits and veggies far more readily, and were grateful to receive them. In fact, participation in the free lunch program (for low-income students) increased in the wake of the new 2012 regulations. As a vegetarian, who has spent a lifetime cooking delicious food dominated by vegetables, I have to say that most people who don’t eat a vegetarian diet have no clue how to cook vegetables in a delectable way. No wonder the children pass up these delights on the school lunch line. Vegetables and fruits are the best things going if you know how to prepare them. Sheesh.

By 2013, the Republicans and the wave of anti-government right-wingers had seized on the school lunch wars as something requiring their attention. Don’t let government tell children what they can eat. Conservative media sites have had a field day attacking Michelle and the Let’s Move! campaign. Wait, what? I guess Michelle is too momly for them. They don’t want to eat what Mom puts on the table, it seems. All this opposition could have a devastating effect when the Act comes up for reauthorization in September 2015. All of Michelle’s hard work could be for naught. It’s entirely possible that the Republicans, corporate giant food moguls, and cafeteria workers (who are being manipulated by the food moguls) will pull the plug on efforts to improve the nutritional value of food provided to children at school. If the Republicans gain control of the Senate at the midterm election, the Act will likely be gutted, and the war the Obamas have been waging against childhood obesity will essentially be lost.

Education of children and families about what foods will make them feel great and give them the gift of health is desperately needed. People need to vote with their forks. 

On Friday I attended an evening service at my synagogue. It was followed by a potluck dinner. I brought a Mediterranean cucumber and tomato salad to the potluck. I also brought several packages of organic seaweed snacks. I opened the seaweed snacks and left them out on the table. Within minutes, the children at the synagogue had devoured the seaweed snacks as if they were the most marvelous delicacy. That’s what I’m talking about. Nutrition happens!

Wait, what? Are the carrots and grapes supposed to make it 

OK to serve chicken nuggets and Oreos as lunch? Appalling! 

And what about the non-food meal of only nuggets and Oreos? 

Do we even care about our children's health?

Wedding Notes

I thought that writing about the wedding beforehand was sufficient schmaltz from a mom with a son getting married, but quite a few of my blog readers have asked me why I didn’t write about the wedding afterward. I guess you all want to share in the good time, so here is a reflection on the wedding, this time from the other side.

The whole week in SoCal was full of enjoyable events and memorable times. Ron and I drove down with Sudi on Wednesday. The long drive through the parched Central Valley (so sad to see the devastation of the drought) afforded us time to chat with Sudi and get caught up on his doings.

On Thursday we hooked up with my dad and my brother Bill and went over to Akili and Tina’s lovely new apartment to check it out. They can even see the Pacific Ocean from their balcony on a clear day. I took the opportunity to pull Akili and Tina aside and give them the quilt I made for them as their wedding gift. Giving them the quilt was emotional for me since I put so much love into it. Some of the material in the quilt came from Akili’s clothes from when he was a little boy (yup, I saved some of them). The front of a Hopland Bears T-shirt (from Hopland Elementary School) was sewn into it along with the front of two other T-shirts from Akili’s boyhood. There was material from the dresses I wore when I was pregnant with him and material I have saved all these years that I inherited from my mother – material she had used to make curtains for the house I lived in until I was eleven years old. Other material was selected because it would be significant for Tina – shoes, red hot chili peppers, sock monkeys. Akili and Tina have a sweet little personal thing about sock monkeys. My first cry of the weekend came when I gave them hugs with their wedding quilt.

Thursday was the rehearsal dinner. My youngest's girlfriend and my daughter's boyfriend traveled to join us for the rehearsal dinner. On Friday, a few of us went to Newport Beach. We lolled by the glorious ocean for hours; longer than we had intended because it was just so gorgeous. Ron remained at the hotel waiting for his family to check in. By that evening the Reed family contingent had arrived – Ron’s sister Wanda and husband Rick, our niece Denise, nephew Keith and his wife Shana; also my stepson Brian rolled in from St. Louis. By Saturday, everyone from our side of the family/friends had checked in at the hotel. We were ready to party. The most raucous party of the evening occurred in Sudi’s room where they engaged in a loud, wild, competitive game of cards with Sudi’s younger cousins (teenaged children of my brother Dan and my first cousin Deb).

By the time the actual wedding day dawned, we had been celebrating for days. Ron and I spent the morning of the wedding watching football with our Fantasy Football League – one of the rare occasions when so many of us from both sides of the country were in one location. We turned the football off after lunch and cleared the room so we could get fancy and beautify ourselves to see our son married. I could have worn a potato sack and flip-flops and everyone would have told me I looked fabulous because I was glowing with such happiness. I didn’t wear a potato sack, though. I wore a fancy outfit that was comfortable and Tina’s florist helped me put a gardenia in my hair. I never looked more respectable. Even my fashionista daughter approved. (She looked spectacular as always.)

We arrived early at the wedding venue and so did the rest of the family so we had more time to visit. I spent a pre-wedding hour in the “bar” watching football with the guys, of course. Photos of everyone dressed up were taken. The guests took their seats. My dad was ushered down the aisle first by Dan’s youngest son Ben (Dan’s other two children were in the wedding party). Ron and I followed. Then Tina’s mom and Akili. Then the wedding party walked. There were about a dozen bridesmaids and a dozen groomsmen so it took a while for everyone to take their places. The flower girl was Tina’s four-year-old niece and she was a hit; so poised and adorable, accompanied by her little cousin, the official ring bearer (although Sudi actually had the rings). Tina’s niece refused to call Akili “uncle” until he officially married Tina.

I expected I would make a fool of myself crying when Tina came down the aisle. Well, I was not alone as it turned out. Everyone was crying. She was so beautiful and so happy; and her Dad, well he was the picture of happiness. Knowing how important Tina’s dad has been in Akili’s life, it was extra special to see him hand his daughter off to my son. Our friend Jim officiated. He was not only the best man at our wedding (Ron’s and mine), but he had been present at Akili’s birth. Jim said some excellent words for the occasion, finishing up by telling the bride and groom that he believes we should strive to live a life of which we can be proud and that their relationship is an exemplary relationship of which they can be proud. He also shared that when planning for their wedding, Akili had told him that he could not imagine the world without Tina in it. Tina spoke her words to Akili. Then it was Akili’s turn. Akili’s words to Tina included “I never  thought I would find a girl that likes cars, football, video games, cartoons, and beer, but somehow there was you.” He also told her that she inspires him to be a better person. When Jim asked for the rings, Sudi pretended he couldn’t find them, patting his pockets and looking confused. Then he laughed and produced the rings. Rings exchanged, Jim pronounced them husband and wife. Akili and Tina do not often show affection publicly. They are private that way. So I have never seen my son kiss the love of his life for real. But he sure gave her that real kiss before they walked back down the aisle. Any romantic would have swooned over that kiss.

As we returned to the reception area, a mariachi band (friends of Tina’s mother) began to serenade. They were exceptional. Dad and I soon began to dance with Tina’s mother and her cousins and women friends. We danced to that mariachi as the sun set on a golden day. There were cocktails and hors d’oeuvres and we were shepherded in to dinner. Tina’s dance with her dad melted me and Tina’s mom as we wept together at the parents’ table. But I have to say that my Macy’s mascara held and I didn’t look like a raccoon. Akili had chosen the Beatles song “In My Life (I Love You More)” for his dance with me. Dancing with him to that tune was one of the sweetest moments of my life.

The dinner was delicious. I went around and talked briefly with all the guests who were my family and friends. I wish that I had been able to meet all of Tina’s family and her parents’ friends, but there was just “not world enough and time.” Everyone was so happy that we danced and danced and danced all night. Many people told Akili when they left that it was the most fun wedding they had ever attended. There is so much more that I could write about the wedding. But this is already a lengthy description. I hope this account was enjoyable for you to read and satisfies the wish of those of you who wanted to hear more about the wedding. I thought that I would be sad afterward; let down because it was all over. But I’m not. I feel as though my life has shifted into a new place. Crazy, huh? I pray that Akili and Tina continue to live a charmed life of their own making.

A snapshot of the quilt I made -- laid out on my bed at home. 

Shmita Year: Rebalancing

This year is a shmita year in the Jewish tradition; translated into English that means it’s a sabbatical year. The literal translation of shmita is “release.” The concept of a shmita year is extraordinary. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year (lunar calendar), occurred on Thursday, with Yom Kippur next weekend (together they constitute the High Holidays). Every seventh year, as mandated in the Torah, is a sabbatical year, going back and back and back to ancient times when the Hebrews lived on the land now called Israel, before our first and second holy temples were destroyed, before we were exiled from our land or returned to it centuries later under conflicted circumstances. Shmita originated as a year of rest for the land in an agricultural society.

In ancient times, in the shmita year, fields were left fallow. It was forbidden to plow, plant, or prune. Watering, weeding, and mowing was allowed for basic maintenance. Conscious, organized harvesting was not allowed. Any fruits or vegetables that grew (volunteers) were considered ownerless and could be picked and eaten by anyone, regardless of the ownership of the land on which they grew. Thus, those who had previously gone hungry were able to access food. Allowing the gardens and fields to rest every seven years is incorporated into the laws governing whether food is kosher. Those who keep strictly kosher will not eat fruits or vegetables grown in fields that have not been allowed to rest every seven years. Furthermore, all debts are to be forgiven in the shmita year. Can you imagine what our world would be like if we all lived with the understanding that all debts are to be forgiven every seven years? The nature of lending, borrowing, and indebtedness would be dramatically different. Traditionally, all slaves were freed during the shmita year. In the shmita year, the playing field is re-leveled as agricultural, environmental, and economic adjustments are made to maintain an equitable, just, and healthy society. In the sabbatical year, we rebalance.

If we are not allowed to grow food, then how do we survive? The devout believe that God will provide and so shmita is a year of faith. Here is a true story. The village of Komemiyut in Israel was one of the few villages in the country that chose to observe shmita during 1952 (the first shmita to occur after the birth of modern Israel in 1948). Komemiyut refrained from working the land that year, ate volunteer vegetables, and did not save seed. At the end of the shmita, Komemiyut farmers searching for seed to plant found only inferior seed that lay rotting in an abandoned shed. They sewed this seed anyway, even though it was three months after neighboring villages had planted their fields. That year the autumn rains came late, the day after the Komemiyut seed was sown. As a result, the neighboring villages had a  meager harvest, while Komemiyut had a bumper crop. (Source:  Mordechai Kuber, "Shmittah for the Clueless," Jewish Action Magazine, 2007.)

While tzedakah (charity/giving) is a central tenet of the High Holidays, in a shmita year it is incumbent upon us to make a stretch and find additional ways to practice tzedakah. The Talmud teaches that the highest form of tzedakah is when the individual receiving tzedakah does not even know that it was tzedakah, but rather believes it was something lucky that happened out of the blue or, even better, something that person secured on his or her own merit and/or efforts. Think back over your life. Think of a time when you made something wonderful happen for someone else in such a way that they never knew that what happened was because of you, but instead thought it was entirely because of them. That kind of stealth tzedakah is high tzedakah; it’s shmita year tzedakah. I am pondering how to practice stealth tzedakah in the shmita year.

On Rosh Hashanah I resolved to spend the shmita year rebalancing my life. I intend to fend off negative thoughts and emotions. I will use grief to build love, convert despair to hope, and step up my efforts to avoid exposure to violence. In fact, I will minimize my exposure to the media entirely because it is so violent. I have read enough about beheadings, war, destruction, hunger, the irreversible damage to our planet, corporate greed, and abused children. Enough. This year I will refuse access to my consciousness by as much of this down-down-downer material as possible. I am not sticking my head in the sand, but rather leaping above the clouds to surround my head with the stars. There will be enough time in the intervening six years before another shmita year for me to learn about the sickness and sadness of our world. This year I will reinforce my positive self so that I can withstand the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” lurking in my future.

I will remain ever hopeful for those in my life who are struggling with challenges and facing the overwhelming abyss of grief, ill health, disappointment, age, and loss. I will be strong for them. I will be a positive force of nature, a lighthouse on high beam. I will take shmita into my heart for this sabbatical year and swing the balance back to all that is good and right in the world; to all that manifests love, that proves love. In the midst of the chaos, suffering, and disaster, we still have the embrace of family, friends, community, and, here in Mendocino County, where I am so blessed and deeply grateful to live, we have beautiful open enormous land filled with tall, tall, graceful, brilliant trees. In this shmita year, I will manifest and amplify the spirit of brilliant trees.

I invite you to think about what you might choose to do to rebalance in this shmita year.

Classic Mendocino scenery, featuring our brilliant oak and fir trees, watching over a vineyard.

Wedding Bells for Akili and Tina

I won’t be blogging next Sunday because I’ll be at Akili and Tina’s wedding in SoCal. Is my son really getting married? Pinch me. I have moments when I feel like I fell down a rabbit hole.

The first time I met Tina was when Akili brought her home for Sudi’s high school graduation in 2009. From the minute I saw the two of them together, I knew this was the one for Akili. They were quite simply completely comfortable with each other. He was so much himself with her. They fit. Tina has been a part of our family ever since. In fact, it seems as though she and Akili are already married. The wedding will give those of us present a moment to step into a place outside of time where we can take a breath and formally celebrate this lifelong partnership.

As the wedding approaches, my daughter sent me a link to an amusing collection of children’s views about marriage. The children answered questions posed by an interviewer. When asked the proper age to get married, Camille, age 10, answered, “23 is the best age because you know the person forever by then.” When asked how a stranger could tell if two people were married, Derrick, age 8, answered, “You might have to guess based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.”  In response to a question about conversations while on a date, Lynette, age 8, noted “Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.” Ricky, age 10, gave the following advice for making a marriage work, “Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck.” I think one of the best suggestions about taking care of your wife that I have read recently was the one that recommended to men that if their wife seemed out of sorts they should hug her and tell her she’s beautiful and if she growls then they should retreat to a safe distance and throw chocolate at her. Works for me.

The word “wedding” has always felt ancient to me. It has not changed much from the Old English form “weddian” or the Middle English “wedde.” A wedding, a symbolic joining of two souls, seeing them “wed,” is an old, old ritual. Witnessing a wedding feels nearly primitive. Attending the wedding of two people who are terrific together and who have an excellent relationship is up there at the top as one of the most wonderful experiences in life. How remarkable that these two young people found each other in this crazy, mixed-up world? That alone is cause for celebration. So many people go their whole lives and never meet someone to partner with, never find that special person. I rejoice that it happened for my son; and that the woman he found comes from a family who values family above all else and cherishes its children passionately. Her family adores Tina’s little niece and nephews! It will be the same with us as well one day when we have grandchildren. Akili could not have found a finer family to join.

I have accomplished many things in this life, yet none more significant to me than raising my three children. Nothing makes me happier than being surrounded by their chatter and basking in their presence. To see my Akili wed will be one of the greatest joys of my life and will certainly undo me when I watch his beautiful bride come down the aisle. I just hope they don’t play “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof at the festivities, because I could certainly go through a box of Kleenex on that song. My daughter and soon-to-be daughter-in-law insist that I have to wear makeup, so I bought waterproof mascara at Macy’s. This will be a strong test of the waterproofness of Macy’s mascara.

Every morning when I walk, I tell the trees that my wish for my children is that they will love their lives as much as I am loving mine. My big-hearted jolly baby boy is grown and about to take a bride. The years march by so swiftly. I am filled with gratitude for all of it. More, please.

  

 Where is the little boy I carried?

Where is the little girl at play?

I don’t remember growing older.

When did they?

Sunrise, sunset; sunrise, sunset;

Swiftly flow the years,

One season following another,

Laden with happiness and tears.

Domino Rodeo

I’m trapped in a lineup of dominoes that will determine my fate for the near and perhaps distant future. We opened escrow on our house on Tuesday, but the sale is contingent on the buyers selling their house. They are taking aggressive measures (dramatically dropped the price) to sell in the timeframes to which we agreed. Meanwhile, we have found a house that I want to buy. Ron is lukewarm, but I think he’ll come around. Unfortunately for me, the seller of the house I want to buy will not entertain an offer from us until our buyers manage to get their house into escrow. I am the domino in the middle. Since we have nowhere else to go when we sell our house, we could end up on the street. Does anyone have a spare bedroom we can rent (with our cats) until we find a house?

When I first began blogging, a little more than six years ago, we were in the process of coming in off the Ranch. It was a traumatic time of upheaval for me. I loved my home in the forest so dearly and had no desire to leave. Ron’s health forced the issue. After I had to call 911 one night, and it took the paramedics more than 30 minutes to reach us and bail Ron out of a particularly bad hypoglycemic episode, I realized that I had to choose between my husband and my land. On the day that we moved, I cried for a full half an hour on my final drive from the Ranch to our new home here near town.

Having closed the chapter on the Ranch, and making the break, I have not felt much attached to this house. It’s lovely, but has little meaning for me. I sometimes imagine that the spirit of my mother (gone these past nine years) conspired with Ron to find and purchase this house. Ron was enthusiastic about it. It’s not me. The property I wish to buy is so much more suited to me. It’s modest, funky, has a lot of character. It has a mature overgrown yard that was put in place and tended by a woman who clearly loved to garden. She died suddenly of cancer and her son inherited the property, which he is eager to sell. I think I am playing with fire to even write about this desired plot of land since the world of real estate is so terribly fickle and dreams evaporate in an instant. Yet I am visioning a move to this house with the overgrown garden. I surprise myself with these stirrings of attachment to a property that I thought I would never feel again.

According to our realtor, the seller of the property has sent word that he will sell at the price we are offering, but not until our buyers get their house into escrow. Waiting patiently is not one of my virtues; a fact which got me in deep with one of my realtors a couple of days ago. We have two realtors, and that’s a long story. The twitter version is that the older realtor is semi-retired so we worked it out for a young woman who is a friend of our daughter's to be our back-up realtor. She has turned out to be our primary realtor. The older realtor likes to say, “if it’s meant to be then it will happen.” I finally lost my cool with her philosophy the other day and snapped, “that’s a very Christian sentiment, however I prefer to be more proactive.” I hope I didn’t hurt her feelings, but I was burning out on the passive-reliance-on-god aphorisms. Our young realtor is a go-getter and she works hard to make things happen. So do I. The realtor who helped us buy the Ranch in 1991 referred to that deal as “a house exchange rodeo.” Real estate exchanges have never come easy for us. At least they are memorable. We are in a new rodeo.

It seems that my mundane discussion of real estate has degenerated into a theological dissertation on intelligent design, chaos theory, whether or not humans have free will, and the nature of fate. I had not meant to go there. As long as I’m there, though, I might as well ask you to send good thoughts for my real estate transaction to go smoothly, with no cats dying in the making of this sale. Sigh. My philosophy at the moment is LIFE HAPPENS. I hope in this instance it happens in my favor.