As health care reform staggers along in the political realm, let’s feel grateful to those who don’t hesitate to stand up for the health of our children. With actions that speak louder than the words of a partisan political debate, two organizations, HealthCorps, launched by Mehmet Oz, MD and his wife, Lisa Oz, and Urban Zen, the foundation launched by Donna Karan, joined forces to share creative solutions for children’s health concerns. Since 2007, Urban Zen’s Health and Wellbeing Initiative has offered an ongoing series of public forums on wellness and nutrition for health, while HealthCorps’ school-based program has expanded nationwide to empower young people to become agents for healthy change.

There's an experiment going on right now--but it isn't being conducted by scientists. It's being conducted by parents. In 30 million kitchens across the U.S. that experiment is called  "What Can My Child Eat?" In families with children with autism and allergies, the result of that experiment can either be a day of relative calm and comfort, or it can produce anything from brain fog, digestive discomfort, and mood swings, to pain, seizures, skin outbreaks, and severe digestive distress.

As a reporter for the Park Slope Food Coop (the oldest food coop in the U.S.—yay!), last May, I attended the first Brooklyn Food Conference. This vibrant event brought together committed people seeking to build a healthy, sustainable, and socially just food system.

“We wanted to connect everyone involved in the food movement,” says Conference Organizer Nancy Rohmer. “If you’re working on health but don’t connect and involve people from the environment and social justice movements, you lose some of your power and support.”

Following the Conference, eighty people met to build an ongoing organization, eventually launching the Brooklyn Food Coalition, a grass roots community-based food organization in Brooklyn, with ten active neighborhood chapters in Park Slope, Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Fort Green/Clinton,Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Prospect Heights, Sunset Park, and Kensington/Windsor Terrace.

“Our members and activists are the decision makers. They determine what actions we’ll take,” Rohmer reports. For example, the Sunset Park group is focusing on immigrant food workers. They’re planning a youth summit this Spring leading up to a nationwide forum to be held in June in Detroit.

With a plethora of vacant lots transformed into urban farms, the Motor City has morphed into the biggest center for urban agriculture. Among the issues targeted by the Coalition are national food policy, school foods, mapping and surveys, and supporting the “Fresh Initiative” which gives supermarkets tax breaks to set up shop in low income neighborhoods. This gives families access to foods that protect adults and children from obesity—an initiative aligned with the goals of Urban Zen which on January 20^th will host the first program of its 2010 series, Food Solutions, which offers people tools for making healthy food changes.

Through the billion meals it serves daily, New York City has huge buying power. The Coalition will ask the Mayor to locally source as much food as possible. This will expand upstate New York agriculture through enhancing the economic platform for food farmers, create new business in the city. and build the upstate/downstate relationship.

The school food program is another key issue that unites health, sustainability, and social justice. “We want our kids to be healthy,” says Rohmer, pointing out that many city kids eat their only meal of the day at school. Unfortunately, with inadequate financial support from government, the current guidelines for food selections emphasize high carb and high sugar content foods, which research

shows are the very foods that contribute to obesity. In addition, to avoid liability, schools subcontract food service to large industrial suppliers who offer foods of low nutrient quality. Says Rohmer, the schools “want the food cheap, with an adequate calorie count, and minimal liability. This is very bad formula for healthy food.” The Coalition supports a national movement for a universal free breakfast and lunch program.

According to Rohmer, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) first founded the federal school lunch program back in the 1940’s in order to distribute subsidized foods grown by farmers during the Great Depression. Their goal was never specifically to meet the nutritional needs of children.

To build support for improving school food, the Coalition will invite parents and teachers to co-create a movement to change school foods. What begins at the neighborhood level will hopefully build to citywide actions for school food in New York City. Over the next three months, the Coalition will also prepare for future national legislation via a campaign directed towards an upcoming Congressional vote for the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, an appropriate entrée point for increasing allocations to improve school food.

To learn more, participate, and comment, you can go to their website at: http://www.brooklynfoodcoalition.org

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