MS. BARNES: —and to prepare a healthy meal—meals for their student population. So, it includes issues like that. It’s received widespread support. We’re looking for additional support and additional funding for that. There’s another initiative—a big part of this—one of our important goals deals with access to healthy foods and vegetables in communities. There are some communities that are considered “food deserts,” places where people can’t get fresh, nutritious food, where there isn’t a grocery store in a mile or two within a person’s home.
MR. ALLEN: This is—this is usually inner cities, always inner cities?
MS. BARNES: It actually—it’s a—both an urban and a rural problem.
MR. ALLEN: Okay.
MS. BARNES: I think people find that really interesting when they think about rural America they think about farms and access to really—
MR. ALLEN: Mm-hmm.
MS. BARNES: —wonderful, healthy foods, but there are food deserts in rural areas, as well. What we want to do, and what the President included in his budget is an initiative to lev—use public funds to leverage even larger private dollars to put the grocery stores in communities where they don’t exist and also some really creative and innovative ways—for example, mobile grocery stores, where you’re moving those into communities where there’s not a lot of population density—
MS. BARNES: —but you want to make sure that people have access to those fresh fruits and vegetables.
MR. ALLEN: Funding—it’s not a small thing, but in addition to funding, is there anything specific you’re asking Congress to do? Are you try—trying to change any laws or just behavior?
MS. BARNES: Well, the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill is a key example.
MR. ALLEN: Mm-hmm.
MS. BARNES: Again, by providing additional resources for school breakfasts and school lunch, to make sure that they’re meeting the nutritional guidelines, reduced amounts of sugars and salt and other things, and the portions that we’re serving children at school. You know, we’ve been involved in the school lunch and breakfast program since World War II. So, that’s an area where the federal government actually has a role and has had a role for many, many decades. So, that’s an area that we think is very important and we hope Congress will act on, along with the resources for the healthy food financing initiative that I also mentioned.
Read more: POLITICO Interview: Melody Barnes
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37257_Page4.html#ixzz0rAfXZhDW
US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service online research tool called the Food Environment Atlas. http://maps.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/foodenv5.aspx Meanwhile - Food Stamp Use Soars Across U.S., and Stigma Fades (Feds want to enroll 16 million more people) http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2396100/posts
Mobile grocery stores?!? What, like the milk man coming to your door or the ice cream truck? Oh, yeah, that's cost effective. Those trucks use gas so that's not very green for the environment especially now that he's clueless about plugging the hole in the Gulf.