I was invited to attend yesterday evenings awards ceremony in City Hall Chambers for the New York
Council Members with first place winnersCity Council's School Breakfast Promotion Competition.  First, second and third place trophies were given to public school student competitors who designed one poster and one brochure each that would promote the school breakfast program according to specific criteria.   The competition’s other goals were to:

• Encourage the competition's participants as ambassadors to promote the availability of healthy breakfasts to all of their classmates; and
• Enable students to eat healthy and thereby helping to reduce the rates of obesity and diabetes especially in low income areas; and
• Reduce the stigma of receiving free meals.
  

The competition was held in conjunction with New York City's SchoolFood program, housed in the city's Department of Education, which is second only to the United States military in meal service.  The SchoolFood program serves public school students in 1,400 locations throughout the city 860,000 free and reduced-price meals every school day year round including breakfast, lunch and snacks.  And they have made a tremendous effort to make sure that the meals are low fat, low salt, devoid of MSG, BHT and trans fats.  SchoolFood is now working to eliminate my personal pet peeve of high fructose corn syrup.  Executive Director David Berkowitz and Chef Jorge Collazo are my heroes if they can eliminate that toxin. The creation and proliferation of cheap sugar made from corn has contributed to the high incidence of obesity and diabetes in this country. 

As an aside, there are over 400,000 children who go hungry on a daily basis in NYC.  Chef Collazo pointed out that children may be fed, but actually suffering from malnourishment because of the food they are eating.  Consider that Public Health officials predicted that starting in 2000 one in four children in this country would end up with diabetes.  And New York City Public Health officials are predicting that diabetes will be as severe a problem in this country as AIDS.  Okay, let's get back to the competition.

The awards ceremony was presided over by Council Member Eric Gioia standing in for Speaker Christine Quinn. Council Members Thomas White, Jr.,  Robert Jackson and Darlene Mealy were also at the ceremony to support this important cause and to cheer on the competitors.  Students from about three dozen schools participated and the neatest thing about the competition was that the judges included 15 NYC public school students.  So not only were students creating art to be judged around the idea of healthy food, but students were judged by their peers who were thereby involved as well.  But that's not all.  Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Education have made it possible for the winning poster to be placed in all NYC public schools to further promote the breakfast program.  And Council Member Robert Jackson suggested that all posters be displayed at the City Council Legislative offices in downtown New York.

And the winners were....third place went to 9th graders from August Martin High School in Queens.  Second place went to students from P.S. 139 in Rego Park, Queens and first place went to two young ladies from Forest Hills High School.  All winners also received the book Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson.  What's going on in Queens?

I had a lot of fun at this event.  It was creative, it engaged students around the concept of healthy food and promoted the oft forgotten subject of art.  It will be interesting to see how many students are participating in the SchoolFood Breakfast Program a year from now.

Care for a challenge?  Count the number of items in your refrigerator, kitchen cabinets and pantry containing high fructose corn syrup. I am convinced that you will be surprised how pervasive that ingredient is. Care to go one step further?  Replace the foods you found containing the high fructose corn syrup with local or organic fruits.