La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!
Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
- Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- Bob Casey (D-PA)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Mike Johanns (R-NE)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)
Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA) *=House Organic Caucus member B=Blue Dog Democrat
Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA) *=House Organic Caucus member
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC) P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
This week Michelle Obama made big headlines by announcing a childhood obesity effort. There's a lot of analysis to be done on this, comparing her efforts with the overall work of the administration on childhood obesity, but for now, I'll just give you the news.
In addition to the high profile media coverage of Michelle Obama's campaign, the actual work will be done by a new government-wide Task Force on Childhood Obesity that was created when President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum to establish it this week. They've got 90 days to review everything the government is doing on childhood obesity and then come up with an action plan and track their progress. In the meantime, Michelle is also working with a variety of interest groups, including pediatricians and corporations. She's established Let's Move.gov as a one-stop-shop for healthy recipes, exercise plans, and charts parents can use to track their family's progress. And she wants to improve school lunch via the Child Nutrition Reauthorization and eliminate "food deserts" (areas where there's no healthy food available). She's also working on getting people to exercise more.
For more info (including links to transcripts and videos), keep reading below.
The bill that will govern school lunch is called the Child Nutrition Reauthorization. Below, I've included a few things we can ask Congress to put in the bill, as well as some favorite resources for learning more about school lunch.
Spanish Woman Dies of Mad Cow: Spain found its fourth case of vCJD, the human version of mad cow disease. Authorities say the woman contracted the disease before Spain tightened regulations in 2001.
Most Campylobacter Due to Livestock: Scientists have proven that 97% of food poisonings from Campylobacter are from cattle and poultry (as opposed to wild animals). Campylobacter causes at least 2-3 million cases of food poisoning in the US each year according to the study (although food poisoning cases are often underestimated because few people report them to local health officials).
Study Finds Increase in Type 2 Diabetes in Kids: Formerly called "adult-onset" diabetes, Type 2 diabetes is now on the rise in kids. A study of North Dakotan kids found that diabetes increased from 0.28% to 0.45% (a 60% increase) between 2003 and 2007. Of those cases of diabetes, the amount estimated to be Type 2 went from 23% to 31%. I'd like to see them try that same study in a low income minority community somewhere. They'd be blown away.
Another E. Coli Outbreak: Illinois and Michigan, Lettuce. People are sick in both states. The lettuce comes from a company in Michigan. How many times does this need to happen before we get the reforms we need?
I was just listening to a radio program called How We Eat and the Slow Food Nation when I got a phone call from Eddie C. The program is a conversation moderated by Eric Schlosser with panelists Alice Waters, Anya Fernald, Bertram Lubin, and Harold Goldstein about the Slow Food movement and children's health.
As I was listening to Alice speak about the power of good food, Eddie's phone call proved her point. Yesterday I sent around an email to several friends in San Francisco and one in New York (Eddie) about a Slow Food Nation event (text of the email is pasted below), an Eat-In that is a collaboration between Slow Food Nation and Outstanding in the Field. What was Eddie's phone call about? He's buying his plane tickets and he's going to San Francisco. Slow Food Nation was already going to be fantastic, but with Eddie there it will be a thousand times better (for me, at least!).
Click the link above to hear the radio show (it's wonderful and very worth listening to), and give me a heads up if you'll be in SF Labor Day Weekend.
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