Sen. Gillibrand Visits Bronx Health Fair

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand checks out a display on healthy snack foods at Montefiore Medical Center.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made a stop in the Bronx this morning to attend a "healthy eating" fair at Montefiore Children's  Hospital in Norwood.

The senator took a quick tour of several booths set up in the hospital's lobby, where staff presented visitors with nutritional information and tips for eating healthier.

"This display is all about nutrition," said Gillibrand, who sits on the Senate's Agriculture and Nutrition Committee, the first New York representative to do so for nearly four decades. She's sponsored legislation to ban trans-fats in school lunches and increase funding for child fitness programs.

"Too many of our children are obese," she told reporters on her visit today. "We need to do much better."

The Bronx has some of the bleakest obesity statistics in the State. According to a 2009 report from Gillibrand's office, 62.7 percent of Bronx County adults are overweight or obese. In the South Bronx, a third of pre-schoolers enrolled in the city's Head Start program are obese.

Today's healthy eating fair was sponsored by Montefiore as part of the medical center's "Food Education Project," a series of seminars and events that aim to improve the community's eating habits by offering healthy recipes and nutritional tips.

Discovery High School Scores Wellness Award

Discovery High School students and science teacher Steve Ritz (right) serve home-grown vegetables at a luncheon last spring. (Photo by G. Ciliberto)

Congrats to students and teachers at Discovery High School, in Kingsbridge Heights, for scoring an "Excellence in School Wellness Award" from the Strategic Alliance for Health--the first public school in New York City to win the prize.

Students at Discovery have spent the past several years, under the guidance of gardening guru and science teacher Steve Ritz, cultivating their own on-premise organic herb and vegetable gardens. The students have hosted green cafeteria luncheons and farmer's markets and donated their homegrown produce to local soup kitchens.

Last fall, the group built garden installations---complete with their own irrigation systems--for the NBC Experience Store, on 49th Street in Manhattan.

According to a press release, the NYC Strategic Alliance for Health chose Discovery "because it offers schools an innovative and successful model for breaking the cycle of poor eating habits by providing instant access to healthy produce."

An awards ceremony will be hosted by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. on Tuesday April 12, at the Main Rotunda of Bronx Borough Hall starting at 11 a.m.

Food Stamp Use at Farmers Markets Doubled This Year

The City Council announced yesterday that the number of low-income New Yorkers using food stamps at the city's outdoor greenmarkets is higher than ever before. Residents spent over $500,000 in food stamps to buy fresh fruits and vegetables at the markets last year, double the amount spent in 2009.

City politicians and food advocacy groups have been campaigning for more greenmarkets to accept food stamps, seeing it as one way to increase access to healthy foods in neighborhoods where they're usually hard to find. This fall, the greenmarkets at Bronx Borough Hall, Lincoln Hospital, the New York Botanical Garden and Poe Park all accepted EBT card purchases--at Poe Park, over $500 a day came in via food stamps.

Local markets will open up again this spring and summer, though there are several in Manhattan that operate year-round. Locations and schedules can be found here.

School Lunch Bill Passed

The Child Nutrition Act, passed by the House of Representatives today, will mean more money for the city to spend on school lunches. (Photo by Jeanmarie Evelly)

Every five years, lawmakers in Washington have the opportunity to reauthorize a bill that funds and sets the guidelines for a number of child nutrition programs, including how much federal money gets put towards school lunches. Dubbed the Child Nutrition Act, the Senate passed the legislation this summer, and the House finally passed a version of it today, after much political pandering and delay.

The New York City public school system serves up a total of 860,000 cafeteria meals a day, and has about 90 cents to spend on each of them. This year, with a first lady in the White House who’s put nutrition at the top of her agenda, the Child Nutrition Act includes an additional $4.5 billion more than the one that was reauthorized five years ago.

“When they reauthorize, rarely do they include new funding, which is why this bill is being cited as historic,” said Kristen Mancinelli, from hunger advocacy group City Harvest and the NYC Alliance for Child Nutrition Reauthorization.

The extra funding means the city will be reimbursed an extra six cents per school lunch. More money will mean healthier, better quality food in the cafeteria, advocates say.

"Access to healthy foods is a big problem in the Bronx, and that puts extra pressure on the schools to have the resources provide a healthy meal," said Heidi Hynes, director at the Mary Mitchell Family and Youth Center in Crotona. "The schools can do a better job if they have more money."

Healthy Bodega Initiative in East Tremont

To follow up on Ivonne's previous post about healthy food finds: if you're in the East Tremont area in the next half hour or so (and if you love free food as much as I do) stop by the bodega on the corner of East Tremont and Daly Avenues for some tasty free samples.

There's a stand set up there as part of the city's Healthy Bodega Initiative, and folks from City Harvest are handing out refreshing fruit drinks and mayonnaise-free tuna sandwiches on whole wheat bread (made with lemon juice and cilantro). The demonstrations use only ingredients from the participating bodegas to encourage people to consider the joints for their healthier food options. They won't be there for long, so hurry over.