WHY LOCAL?

Support local Canadian farmers and manufacturers because:

1. From a nutritional perspective, local food is more nutritious since it is actually picked when it’s ripe, not green.
2. From a chemical perspective, less fungicides and preservatives need to be used when food travels for shorter durations.
3. From a global warming perspective, local food is the most environmentally friendly since less fuel is used to transport it.
4. From a traffic perspective, it would decrease the number of transcontinental traveling trucks on our highways.
5. From an economical perspective, it keeps Canadian jobs in Canada.
6. From a taxpayer’s perspective, less tax money will be used on healthcare if people will eat healthier food beginning in childhood.

WHY ETHICAL?
Factory farmed animals are given drugs or genetically altered to grow faster or produce more milk (legal in US) or eggs, and often the animal’s legs or other body parts are broken or injured due to the inability to sustain this unnatural growth . Severe overcrowding and confinement to extremely small spaces cause these animals great pain and crippling.

Chickens and turkeys have their beaks burned off, cows have their horns cut off or burned off, female pigs are kept in metal crates so small that they can barely turn around, etc.

These animals are deprived of maternal love, space, exercise or stimulation and as expected, often go insane. What would happen to a human raised under such conditions?

WHY NATURAL?

The feed of factory farmed animals is a problem onto itself. The feed can include added trans fats, the leftover grease from fast food restaurants, hormones, routine antibiotics, and cannibalism may be practiced or other weird and unnatural methods may be used, such as chicken being fed cow remains, etc.

This unhealthy, unnatural feed in turn affects the health of the humans who consume the animals that were fed such a diet.

WHY ACT NOW?

The City of Toronto’s current food contract supplying Municipal Daycares will expire in the Spring of 2008. The City is currently preparing conditions for the new contract tender—a process that will be completed by December 2007. By applying pressure to the City now, we can influence the conditions that go into the contract tender and get our kids the kind of food they need, deserve and that we pay for.

MONEY IS OFTEN THE ANSWER

We would like to see a higher proportion of the daycare fee spent on healthy food. For example, the city’s daily food allocation per toddler is $2.54 (number given by Children’s services) out of the current $65 toddler fee. We would like to see a higher proportion of the daycare fee and a higher proportion of future fee increases allocated to the children’s food budget.

So we are asking the city to divert some of that $ 62.46 that goes somewhere else (out of $65 toddler fee), back into quality food for children. Note: as of January, the toddler daycare fee is projected to increase to $67.

We do not want a bidding process that will squeeze out the supplier and in turn lead to sacrificing the quality of food fed to children.

Children’s food is not the place where costs should be cut to the lowest possible level.

We are asking the Budget Committee of the City of Toronto to bridge the difference in cost between the current quality food fed to kids in city daycares and what the YMCA (as well as Hydrokids, ActiveKids, etc) has started to feed kids.

So for, City of Toronto Budget Councillor, Shelley Caroll or Mayor David Miller has not responded to us on this matter.

Below is a list of those at the City who make decisions regarding Municipal Daycares. Please contact as many of them as possible and make it clear to them that we want the best quality food for our children.

If your child is not in a municipal daycare, but you are also frustrated by the low quality food standard in your daycare, you can still send the following people an email asking them that the minimum food standard be raised when it comes to daycare licensing.

 Please post a blog entry on our website about your food concerns.

WE ARE VERY GRATEFUL for all the changes that have been made so far by Toronto Municipal Daycares, but since the food standard still falls far behind what the YMCA daycares offer for less money, we would like to see a higher standard.
Furthermore, the 10% local food motion proposed and passed by the Parks and Environment Committee is still very weak and far below what local farmers can supply.

We see no reason why Toronto Municipal Daycares could not match and be equally progressive to, or even surpass the YMCA food standard.

WHAT IS THE YMCA STANDARD?

This is a direct quote from their menu:

“We only use 100% natural ingredients, including organic whenever possible. Our chicken, beef, & turkey are hormone and antibiotic – free, naturally & ethically raised.

Fruits and vegetables listed on the menu may vary according to season and availability of fresh, local produce.

All items are free of trans fats, refined sugar, excess salt, artificial colouring, thickeners and preservatives.

We use triple – filtered water for our cooking, which removes chlorine, fluoride and eliminates the risk of E.Coli, Cryptosporidioum & Giardia.”

FRUSTRATIONS

We are frustrated by the sharp contrast in the food quality between Toronto Municipal Daycares and the YMCA daycares. The YMCA feeds kids organic/natural/local foods for $ 52/day versus the city feeding lower quality foods for $ 65/day (toddler fee). For preschoolers, theYMCA charges $ 35/day and the city charges $ 53/day.

One more statistic:

The Toronto Municipal Daycares allocate only $ 2.58 per day per toddler out of the already very hight fee of $ 65 per day.

WHO WE ARE

We are a coalition of parents who would like to improve the quality of food in Toronto’s Municipal Daycares which care for about 3000 children. We believe that feeding natural and local foods to children will have long lasting health effects and bring benefits to society as a whole. We also think city licensing should set a higher standard for daycare food quality for other daycares as well.

OUR CONCERN

Very cheap, often poor quality processed food is a problem in our daycares. We fear the drain on tax dollars for the healthcare costs of millions of children who grow up eating this kind of unnatural, nutrient depleted and chemically treated processed food as well as the physical and psychological stress that these children may endure as a result of adverse health effects of such a diet. Excessive use of canned food, processed foods with fillers and artificial additives, meat/dairy products from animals given growth hormones, routine antibiotics and fed an artificial diet are not items that are healthy to a growing child.

OUR CURRENT GOAL

“To change the food quality, delivery and standards in Toronto Municipal Daycares.”

We would like our children to be fed:

1. meat/dairy products from animals that were raised naturally, ethically and locally, without the use of hormones, antibiotics, or insane unhealthy diets
2. more local produce or as local as possible (no imported fruit during harvest time in Ontario and no imported lemon juice from Greece but fresh lemons from the US instead), no fish fillets from China etc.)
3. only fresh fruit should be served, not canned, e.g. no canned pineapple with added sugar from Thailand.
4. only whole grains and no bleached “enriched” white flour
5. further decrease of processed foods and more meals cooked on site from scratch (for processed foods, it is nearly impossible to trace the origin or quality of the individual ingredients).
6. no artificial fats such as hydrogenated oils, modified oils or margarine
7. no foods with artificial flavouring, refined sugar, nutritionally empty fillers, nitrates, BHT and other artificial additives
8. eliminate exposure to the endrocrine disrupter, “bispherol-A, by switching to the non-canned version (fresh, frozen, in a glass container, or cooked from scratch) for the following foods: fruits, vegetables, sauces, soup and fish.