Louisville Zoo Trip this year. It was HOT but it was fun.
Monthly Archives: June 2010
Teaching Tuesday
FDA, NOAA increase Gulf of Mexico seafood safety efforts
Related topics: Food safety, Financial & Industry, Food safety and labeling, Meat, fish and savory ingredients
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said it is increasing its efforts to ensure the safety of fish and seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, and has released new guidance for industry.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the FDA have released a joint statement outlining how they plan to tackle seafood safety issues related to the ongoing oil spill in the region. Specifically, the plan includes precautionary closures of fishing areas, increased testing of seafood samples, and a protocol for reopening affected areas of the Gulf.
Undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco said: “Closing harvest waters that could be exposed to oil protects the public from potentially contaminated seafood because it keeps the product from entering the food supply. Combining the expertise of NOAA and FDA is the best way to use our scientific abilities to help the American people in this emergency.”
The FDA said that it would initially concentrate on increased sampling of oysters, crab and shrimp, which retain contaminants in their bodies longer than finfish. The agency added that it would target seafood processors that obtain their products directly from harvesters in an effort to stem any possible contamination problems at the first step in the supply chain.
“Monitoring this first step in the distribution chain will help to keep any potentially contaminated seafood from consumers,” the FDA said.
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In addition, the FDA and the NOAA said it would increase inspection of seafood processors to ensure proper documentation detailing the provenance of all seafood entering the US food supply, and to stop seafood of unknown origin from coming to market.
FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said: “It is important to coordinate seafood surveillance efforts on the water, at the docks and at seafood processors to ensure seafood in the market is safe to eat.”
The federal government declared a “fishery disaster” in the Gulf of Mexico late last month due to the massive oil spill in the region.
The fishing area affected includes Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, an area where more than 1bn pounds of fish and shellfish were harvested in 2008, according to the most recent available government figures.
Louisiana is the top provider of shrimp, oysters, crab and crayfish in the United States, providing about a third of the seafood consumed, according to the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board.
The FDA’s letter to the fish and fishery products industry is available here .
Monday’s Tattler
Good Morning.
My Internet has been down most of the weekend. Only catching up now that it’s on for a few minutes.
Today will be a class day.
Tuesday and Wednesday are swim days. Please bring your suit fee and your sun screen if you have not already done that.
Thursday will be a regular class day.
Friday, we will be going to a big cat rescue preserve. This preserve is at exoticfelinerescuecenter.com We asked what they needed because we always like to make friends when we travel someplace new, and the director said “chickens.” So if you would like to donate, please send a fresh or frozen chicken this week. I have plenty of freezer space!
If you are reading this, and your children no longer attend the GS but you would like to come along, the price is $25.00.
Your child’s swim suit has been laundered. Please take your dirty towel home on Wednesdays and bring it back on Tuesdays.
Questions? Ask Miss Judy.
Friday’s Tattler
We had a smashing time at the zoo in Louisville. The whole trip went off without a hitch. we boarded the bus at 8:00 and headed East. It was great cool day in the morning, and the kids seemed to love the bus ride. We pulled into the zoo about 10:15. We used the facility, and then split into two groups – the older group and the younger group. Miss Amy, her daughter Jessica, Savannah’s grandma and Mr. Casey, Alexis’s dad, took the smaller children while Miss Leigh, Mr. Roger, Jill’s dad, and Mr. Matt and Miss Dayna took the older children.
The younger kids looked at all the inside stuff – the orangutans, the birds and crocks, the reptiles, the fish, and the dragon, and then headed off to see the snow leopards, the flamingos, and all the animals on the way to lunch.
We lunched at the playground on choice of sandwich, watermelon which seems to be a favorite this year, chips, and carrots and pickles, and milk, and then we went to the water park and got soaked. It was wonderful. Then we swapped places and toured the other end of the park. The little guys saw the tigers, the gorillas, the zebras, the elephants, the rhinoceroses, giraffes, the lions who were growling, and some interesting new animals.
We made it back to the bus in good time, and had a soda and cookies and boarded the bus and made it home by about ten to five. It was very hot, and one of our kiddos got a little sun burned, but otherwise, it was a great trip.
Not sure what we will be doing next week because Toyota has canceled our tour. Wish they had told me that three months ago when I first called.
We have some options, not sure what we will do.
Kids were wonderful and everyone seemed to have a great time.
Tuesday’s Teacher
High blood pressure in young people concerns experts
Related topics: Sodium reduction, Science & Nutrition, Flavors and colors, Preservatives and acidulants
About one in 30 Canadian children and adolescents have high blood pressure or are at risk of developing it, according to a new study from Statistics Canada.
Comment: With so many people dependent on quick, easy, freezer to oven, fast, boxed and premade food, it’s hard to avoid illness due to poor food management. We are unnecessarily addicted to salt and bland, and that’s a shame, because salty, bland food is reducing our care free years on earth.
The study, said to be the most comprehensive direct measures health survey ever carried out in Canada, is the first examination of hypertension in Canadian children since 1978. It looked at data from the 2007 to 2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) for 6- to 19-year-olds. The researchers found 0.8 percent of children and adolescents had hypertension, while 2.1 percent had borderline levels.
In comparison, about 20 percent of Canadian adults have the condition, which is associated globally with 7.6 million premature deaths a year, and 92 million disability-adjusted life years, the government agency said. The study also found that the risk of developing the condition increased with weight.
“Echoing the results of other studies, the study found that mean systolic blood pressure was significantly higher among boys aged 12 to 19 and girls aged 6 to 11 who were overweight or obese,” Statistics Canada said.
Although the measured prevalence of hypertension in young people was actually lower than previously thought, co-author of the study and an assistant professor at the Centre for Obesity Research and Education at Queen’s University in Kingston, Dr. Ian Janssen still expressed concern at the results.
“It’s concerning when you see any type of risk factor developing at a young age. When you tend to have high blood pressure as a child, that tends to follow you as you become an adult,” he was quoted as saying in the Globe and Mail.
Meanwhile, US-based Dr. M. Isabel Roberti, director of pediatric nephrology and transplantation at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey, said she has seen an increase in the number of children with high blood pressure unrelated to any preexisting medical condition or disease.
Despite food industry efforts to reduce sodium content in foods, she said high sodium intake is difficult for children and adolescents to avoid, with an estimated 75 percent of sodium coming from processed foods.
“While processed, pre-packaged and restaurant foods are commonplace in today’s society, the sodium these items contain pose a great health risk to children and their parents who consume them,” Dr. Roberti said.
She has encouraged parents to read labels carefully to check for sodium content, and advises them to avoid foods with more than 200mg per serving.
A full copy of the Statistics Canada study is available to download via this link .
Monday’s Tattler
This week:
Monday: we will be doing regular classes in the morning and art in the afternoon.
Lasagna, salad and fruit for lunch
Muffins for breakfast and a new delicious recipe for snack.
Tuesday: Pancakes for breakfast, picnic for lunch and cookies for snack.
We will leave for the pool at 10:45. Please think about those undershirts.
Wednesday: Sticky buns for breakfast, picnic for lunch and cookies for snack.
Pool again from 10:45 – 3:00 P.M.
Thursday: regular classes and art in the P.M.
Chicken Quesadillas with fresh fruit and salad.
Brownies for snack.
Friday we will go to Louisville Zoo. We will have cereal for breakfast at 7:30. The bus will pull in at 8:00 and we will leave promptly after. We will return at 5:00 P.M. Parents are welcome. The fee is $25.00.
Sunday’s Plate
Today’s menu is Spaghetti, salad with dressing, and lightening cake.
Spaghetti is the simplest of dinners and most kids love it.
The first thing to do is buy your ingredients. For every family member, buy six ounces of ground meat. This can be any ground meat, but the leaner the better for YOU and your child. That means you want the really really red stuff. Spaghetti sauce can be made with ground lamb, ground pork, ground chicken, ground turkey or with no meat at all.
You will want to buy noodles to put your spaghetti sauce on. There are many many kinds of pasta. It does not have to be the long thin strands we normally see. Spaghetti is one kind of long thin strand. Shop for pasta the way you shop for a dress. Get exactly what you want. My favorite thin strand is vermicelli because the sauce tastes more powerful than the pasta when I use vermicelli. Buy whole grain noodles. I am not fond of the whole wheat because I find it grainy. I like whole grain – tastes better and you know it’s good for you. Regular white pasta is not good for you. It’s one of those foods that makes you fat without adding anything to the nutrients chart! Might as well be eating Twinkies.
Next thing to buy is the sauce ingredients. There is tomato sauce in a can, tomato paste which is much thicker and sometimes bitter, there are tomatoes diced in a can, and there are cans of whole tomatoes and spiced tomatoes. There are so many kinds of tomatoes in a can, it’s an industry!
I personally use the plain stuff. For every two people I’m serving, I use a can of plain tomato sauce and a can of diced plain tomatoes. I don’t want someone else seasoning my sauce. Mr. Terry uses tomato paste, but then he adds sugar.
The next question is: do you want vegetables in your sauce? At home the answer is always yes; at school it is always no. Kids are not fond of mushrooms, green peppers and onions which are the usual spaghetti sauce ingredients. So make your mind up about that, and if you want the veggies, buy an onion, a green pepper and any kind of mushrooms you think you like.
Spices are not hard that hard to understand. If you like the way it smells, you will probably like the way it tastes. You can buy fresh spices in the green grocery section of your market, or you can buy dried jar spices in the baking department. Sometimes for beginning cooks, the “Italian blend” is perfect. I grow a lot of my own spices, and my favorite is the wide leaf basil. You will need salt.
Don’t forget to pick up some Parmesan cheese.
At home, pull out your big frying pan and your big pot. Put enough hot water into your big pot to fill about three quarters full. Put the lid on and turn the burner on high.
In your big frying pan, you will brown your meat. That means on a fairly high heat you will want to cook the ground meat until it is gray. You will find that the fat separates from the meat and you will lose about 2 ounces by way of fat. Drain this fat off into the garbage pail. It reduces the wear and tear on your drains.
Slice your vegetables if you decide to use them. Slice your onions thin with your good knife. Cube or slice your green peppers and your mushrooms. If you cut these vegetables too small, you will have what amounts to cat food, so leave them fairly large. Some women grind them in a food processor so the kids don’t know they are there. I used to cook mine separately, and add them if desired at the table. This let the kids off the hook.
Add your vegetables to your drained meat. Experienced cooks will sigh about the fat, because the mushrooms and the onions will absorb the fat and enhance the taste, but the less fat, the healthier your meal – so let’s go healthy for the sake of the kids. When your veggies have been slightly cooked, add your salt and your spices. Try a half teaspoon of salt first. Too little and it’s bland; too much and you can’t eat it. So go easy on the salt. You can always add more, but once it’s in, you can’t take it away.
Add your spices as slowly as you added your salt, and taste a little. Then add your tomato products and stir and turn your heat down to low. Let this simmer a little.
When your water is boiling, drop your noodles into the boiling water and stir. Turn your heat down to medium and let the noodles cook about 8-10 minutes. A high heat will cause your noodles to starch out and go over the side of your pot. That’s a mess, so cook them on medium. When the noodles taste like they do on the table, drain them or let the water out. This is tricky without a colander. You can use a towel in the sink, but go slow and don’t use the garbage disposal side ;-}
Put your pasta on a plate and add a cup or two of your sauce. Add Parmesan cheese. Voila!
Dessert:
Lightening Cake
2 cups of white or whole grain pastry flour
1/2 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl with the big whisk. Beat until smooth about two minutes.
Spray your 9×9 inch glass baking pan with pan spray or take a paper towel and and use a teaspoon of oil to coat the bottom of the pan so the cake does not stick to the pan.
Topping:
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Cut the butter into small pieces. Work in the brown sugar, cinnamon and flour with your fingers until you have a crumby looking stuff. Use this on top of the simple cake.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.
Salad:
A salad is simply a group of broken or cut vegetables mixed together and served with a sauce. My favorite salads have walnuts, fruit, goat cheese, and onions to go with a dark romaine lettuce.
But a beginners salad begins with lettuce. Buy a nice medium lettuce and cut or break it into bite sized pieces. Add tomatoes, cheese, onions, anything you like.
Salad Dressing:
Salad dressing begins with either mayonnaise or oil.
Thousand Island Dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise – NOT MIRACLE WHIP
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup lemon juice
Sludge:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons ketchup
tablespoon of lemon juice
tablespoon of soy sauce
tad mustard
tad salt
tad pepper
Ranch
1 cup mayo
1 packet ranch dressing mix
1/2 cup milk
‘Fat tax’ opposition varies by location, education
From Food Navigator
Related topics: Legislation
People living in the eastern parts of the United States are the most supportive of placing a tax on soft drinks and fast food as a way to deter obesity, but the idea is still opposed by the majority of the country’s consumers, finds a new survey.
Comment: I am struck with awe about this idea. On the one hand, I think any new taxes are too much government, and on the other hand, I think the junk eating needs to halt. It amounts to child abuse when it is used as an easy way to feed a child. What do you think?
Imposing an ‘obesity tax’ – or ‘fat tax’ – has been a controversial and much debated issue across the country, as individual cities and states have considered this as a means to discourage unhealthy eating.
According to the new nationwide survey of American adults conducted by Harris Interactive, 56 percent of consumers are opposed to an ‘obesity tax’, with 42 percent saying they are ‘strongly opposed’. Just under a third of consumers (31 percent) support the tax.
Location and education
Regina Corso, director of The Harris Poll at Harris Interactive highlights that consumers’ location makes a difference in their attitudes to the ‘obesity tax’.
“Those who live in the East are the most supportive of the tax on soft drinks and fast food with 42 percent supporting it and just half opposing it, followed by those in the West where 35 percent support it and 53 percent oppose the ‘obesity tax.’ However, just one-quarter of those who live in the South (25 percent) support the tax while three in five (61 percent) oppose it. Midwesterners are not that different from those in the South, as 28 percent of them support the ‘obesity tax’ and 57 percent oppose it.”
The online survey, conducted last month with 2,140 participants, also found differences in opinion according to income. Only around a quarter of consumers earning under $50,000 support the tax, while almost 40 percent of those earning $75,000 were in favor.
The poll also found that the more educated the consumer, the more likely they were to support a tax on fast food and soda. A quarter of those with a high school education supported the tax, compared to 34 percent of those who attended college and 41 per cent of those with at least a college degree.
“These taxes are being hard fought and it is not just those in the industry who are against them. At the moment, supporters of the taxes on fast foods and soft drinks need to convince the American public that they are both necessary and that they will help curb this problem,” says Corso.
Tax proposals
Despite strong opposition from consumers and industry, several states around the country have already gone ahead with proposals for tax on soda.
New York governor David Paterson revived the idea of a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks in January, as the city looked for ways to close its budget gap. Mississippi’s state representative John Mayo introduced legislation to tax the syrup used to sweeten soda at a distribution level in January. In Kansas, Senator John Vratil put forward a proposal for a penny tax per teaspoon of sugar in soda, and Colorado has removed existing tax breaks on sugary beverages and candy. Just last month, the Washington D.C. Council voted to include sweetened soft drinks in its six percent sales tax bracket.
However, a proposed federal-level soda tax was left off the agenda in February, and last month a proposed two-cent-per-ounce soda tax in Philadelphia was shelved.
Friday’s Second Tattler
Great first field trip, but boy was it hot out there. The kids were great, and we enjoyed ourselves a lot. We traveled an hour into the Spencer County Forest. We stopped at the Lincoln Museum and Miss Judy asked the kids to “go look, and find the one thing that was MOST important to the pioneers. The kids spent a few minutes looking at all the things in the museum, and one by one they told me what they thought was the most important item. We had wonderful answers like: the carousel, the grave yard, the spinning wheel, the house, I don’t know, and many more. The correct answer was the ax. Four children got it right: Javeon, Lily, Kamden, and Isaac. Good for them.
We ran from the museum to the 
flag pole and stopped for a picture and a salute to the flag and the Star Spangled Banner. Then on to the little grave yard at the top of the hill where Lincoln’s mother is buried.
Then it was a down hill run to the picnic area and when we crossed the train track there, the kids all put their ears to the rail to see if we could hear the train.
Then it was off to the farm. There were not as many farm animals this year. The children enjoyed the house, the smoke house, the barns, and the run space. We got a lesson about animals and the way of life back then from Mr. Louie. The kids climbed and ran and played.
Then it was back to the picnic area where we ate ham and turkey; peanut butter and honey; tuna and egg salad on whole wheat bread. We had watermelon, apples, carrots and celery, chips and home made wonder cookies. The kids literally ate it up.
We took a nice long walk 
through the woods and ended up at the flag pole again, and the children rolled down the big grassy hill. Then it was off to the bus.
A nice short trip, but one of my favorites.
Friday’s Tattler
Good Morning!
Field trip to Lincoln today. Please have children wear short shorts, school shirts and shoes and socks.
We should leave at 10:00 and return about 3:30. We will see the museum, and walk in the woods to the cabin and enjoy the farm for about an hour. We will eat lunch about 12:30 and visit the woods again, and then come home. It’s our maiden voyage. Teachers will evaluate the children today and try to comb out the tangles, so to speak.
If you are a parent traveling with us, the cost is $25.00 per family. This cost helps with our enormous field trip expense. Some of our trips cost $1000.00.
Lunch will be a choice of peanut butter and honey, Miss Judy’s famous egg salad, tuna, and a ham turkey combo on whole wheat bread. We will have chips, watermelon, apples, pickles, and carrots and dip, milk and water.
It’s going to be hot… 90 degrees with a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms.