Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.
 
March is National Nutrition Month, an excellent time to think about some of the monumental changes our nation’s nutrition programs have undergone under the Obama Administration. To celebrate, this month we launched Chapter III of our yearlong storytelling effort, titled Growing a Healthier Future: Improving Nutrition and Access to Healthy Food for Americans. The chapter, released in two parts, invites you to travel with Secretary Vilsack through seven years of historic progress to our nation’s nutrition safety net.
Part I, issued last week, provides an overview of how changes made under the historic Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, have created a healthier school food environment for over 50 million children and have put our country’s future on more stable footing. Part II of the chapter, released earlier today, addresses how we’ve worked during the past seven years to maximize the ability of our programs to fight hunger and improve health for more children and families.
Since taking office in 2009, the Obama Administration has strengthened the core USDA nutrition programs that support our nation’s vulnerable populations while, at the same time, putting in place strategies that improve the nutritional quality of the foods we provide. Alongside our partners, we’ve developed innovative strategies designed to make our country’s safety net better, smarter and more efficient, while also safeguarding taxpayer dollars in our programs. Our unwavering commitment to science-based food and nutrition policies has lifted millions of Americans out of poverty and has undoubtedly contributed to our country’s national and economic security.
International School Meals Day on March 3 raised awareness of the importance of food and nutrition in education and offered an opportunity for students to share school feeding experiences from across the globe.
Since the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, we have seen some extraordinary summer meal programs sponsors and partners. Arizona Cardinals football player Drew Butler makes pizza with kids at the Ken "Chief" Hill Learning Academy of the Chandler Unified School District in Arizona during Pizza Camp, funded by the Dairy Council of Arizona.
How the Biggest Changes in Our Nation’s Nutrition Programs in a Generation Came to Be In this blog, Secretary Tom Vilsack kicks off a month-long celebration of USDA’s work in nutrition by reflecting on some of the historic changes that have come to pass under the Obama Administration. The United States has always prided itself on lending a helping hand to its citizens in trying times. Throughout our history, when Americans have fallen on hardship, our safety net has stepped in to provide temporary help to those who need it. In a guest blog, Wendy Bolger, Director of Program Innovation Strategy, No Kid Hungry, highlights the results of a pilot with Share our Strength and conducted through No Kid Hungry’s Child and Adult-care Food Program, or CACFP, which enables schools to offer one meal and/or one snack in a congregate meal setting as part of enrichment programs offered outside of regular school hours. In many ways, urban forests are unsung heroes of strong, vital and healthy communities, enriching the lives of the more than 80 percent of Americans who live in cities among the nation’s 136 million acres of urban forest land. USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service’s Western Region outlines tips from 13 of its partners about how to ensure successful summer programs. The U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree is a national tradition that dates back to 1964. Since 1970 USDA’s U.S. Forest Service has selected a different national forest to find, harvest and deliver the tree to the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., in December. This year, the Payette National Forest in Idaho will provide the 2016 tree. An increasing number of our nation’s schools are using locally grown foods for school meals thanks to efforts of The USDA Farm to School Program. In a guest blog, Lindsey Grubbs, Florida Farm to School and WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program Director, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, discusses how Florida citrus farmers are working with school food service directors and the Florida Farm to School Team to give students the chance to eat the new “Florida Peach.” USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) offers a variety of tools, available in desktop, tablet, and mobile formats, to help you plan a healthy diet and see how you’re doing over time. The SuperTracker is a free food, physical activity, and weight tracking tool which includes the Food Tracker feature—an at-a-glance view of your dietary intake, including the five MyPlate food groups, calories, added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. When it comes to understanding and improving turkey habitat restoration, there are few more knowledgeable than farmer Chuck Borum in Pulaski, Tennessee. Borum used the National Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Environmental Quality Initiatives Program (EQIP) to improve his grazing operation by installing water structures and lines for his livestock and fields. The program enabled him to establish field borders too, which happen to provide excellent habitat for turkeys. March 3 marked the fourth consecutive year that USDA has partnered with the United Kingdom to invite children from across the globe to promote nutrition and school meals, this year focusing on introducing fresh and healthy local fare into their diets. The celebration of this movement – International School Meals Day – draws our attention to the importance of good nutrition for all children. On that day children connect through social media to share their food experiences and healthy eating habits. Dr. Evelyn F. Crayton, RDN, LDN, FAND, President of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, discusses the value of nutrition education, such as MyPlate, in a guest blog kicked off USDA’s month-long celebration of National Nutrition Month. This Science Tuesday post discusses the recent work of the IR-4 Program (“Inter-Regional Project #4”), a collaboration established more than 50 years ago and headquartered at Rutgers University to help ensure the safe production of a diverse food supply. Since she was a teenager some 60 years ago, Gail Dunlap has played an active role in her family’s seventh generation Ohio farming operation by focusing on ways to continually improve conservation practices and establish a natural and sustainable way of life. Organic systems seek to mirror nature by maintaining biodiversity on the farm and using methods that support conservation of natural resources. For instance, organic producers often plant native vegetation throughout a certified organic farm. Sustainable conservation and protection of natural resources has always been a goal of the Lac du Flambeau Tribe since inhabiting parts of Wisconsin in 1745. The reservation, established by the Treaty of La Pointe in 1854, includes 86,000 acres of land, 24,000 acres of wetlands, 260 lakes and 65 miles of streams and rivers. In 2011, the Iowa Soybean Association was awarded a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NCRS) Conservation Innovation Grant to increase farmer awareness and accelerate implementation of denitrifying bioreactors. According to a 2013 study funded by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), an average of 57,900 jobs will open every year from 2015 to 2020 and require a bachelor’s degree or higher in food, agriculture, natural resources, or environmental studies. Strikingly, it is also expected that 39% of positions will go unfilled.
South African Market Now Open To US Meat Exports Broadcast Date: Wed, March 2, 2016 Broadcast Date: Wed, March 2, 2016 Broadcast Date: Wed, March 2, 2016 Broadcast Date: Wed, March 2, 2016 Broadcast Date: Tue, March 1, 2016 Broadcast Date: Tue, March 1, 2016 Broadcast Date: Mon, February 29, 2016 Broadcast Date: Mon, February 29, 2016 Broadcast Date: Mon, February 29, 2016 Broadcast Date: Mon, February 29, 2016 Broadcast Date: Mon, February 29, 2016
Electronic cards to make WIC easier to use (Associated Press) Pregnant women and parents using the Women, Infants and Children program will have an easier time buying food at the grocery store. The Agriculture Department is announcing Monday that it will require states to transition from paper vouchers to electronic cards over the next five years. At the tiny Schwartz Supermarket in the Marshall-Shadeland neighborhood in Pittsburgh’s North Side, market owner Abdul Rahim does a brisk business, greeting some customers by name as he sells chips, candy and cigarettes. Under a proposed new federal rule, stores like his that accept food stamp cards would be required to stock far more healthy food choices for customers than they do currently.
|
