School gardens one way to teach better nutrition

If Congress is not supporting healthier lunch choices for kids, will obesity and type 2 diabetes continue to increase for American kids? For now, the choice of frozen pizza and fries for lunch puts the younger generation at risk. [“Congress pushes back on healthier school lunches,” News, Nov. 11.]

As a society, we are more removed from our food now than ever with heavy processing and additives. Instead of fries and pizza sauce counting as a vegetable serving, lunch programs at schools need to be moving toward implementing real fresh vegetables and fruits into the diets of our kids.

With out the ability to choose foods that are most nutritious for them, kids need guidance in their food choices. In being exposed to healthy choices through gardening, kids will be able to be active in that education.

By planting school gardens, the doomed-for-obesity young generation will be shown how healthy food is planted, grown and harvested. Educating kids on healthy food is key to turning around their impending health risks toward a healthy, longer future.

— Brooke Johnston, Seattle

Neighborhood plots can save money and ensure food security

In order to combat food insecurity in local low-income communities, it is essential that we expand the use of community gardens and organizations that support them.

Community gardens are not only a way to help to get people healthy food, but it also helps to significantly save the families that use them money.

Families that have a 64-square-foot plot can save up to $600 in food purchases per year. If families were able to have all that extra money in their pockets it could help to pull them out of the hole the recession has dug for them. These gardens also help to provide affordable, healthy food to everyone in the community by either giving away or selling excess food that is grown for a low price.

We also must create more organizations like GroundUP Organics, which provides education and access to a community garden for local youth. These teens have access to healthy food along with the knowledge about the benefits of community gardens which they can use the help the rest of the community.

With the current recession, food insecurity is a very serious problem in our community and community gardens will be instrumental in ending this dilemma.

— Bret Hartnett, Kent