March 30, 2007

City Hall
100 Queen St. West.
Toronto, ON

To: Mayor David Miller and Budget Committee Chair Shelley Carroll
Re: Budget Allocation for Municipally Run Daycares

We are writing to you because we would like you to address a budget problem with major and long term consequences on children’s health. We are talking about the poor quality food fed to kids in city daycares. The city has a huge responsibility and it has been overlooked. It seems that the city sold the contract to the lowest bidder and left the quality of the food up to the supplier.

We are asking you to assist Brenda Patterson, GM of Children’s Services, 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, Woodgreen, ActiveKids, etc) has started to feed kids.

With a “zero budget increase” for next year, she cannot make this change alone.

The toddler fee we’ve been paying is $64 dollars a day and when we asked Brenda Patterson, what was the cost for food per day per child we were given a verbal estimate of approximately $2.50. We are still waiting for the exact numbers, which could even be lower. We had been suspecting a very low actual amount, since we had read in the Globe and Mail article “ Have you Any Gwey Poupon, ” 17/02/07, that the price for a “natural lunch” at Woodgreen daycares was only $2.80. So we realized that the city must pay even less than that.

So, our question is: where does the rest of $61.5 dollars go, from the $64 we pay? The price we pay is definitely not reflected in the quality of the food fed to children.
This makes us feel cheated.

We have copied below the statement from the YMCA 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.” This is all music to our ears. The YMCA allocates an amount in the low $ 4 dollar range for their food and we believe the city could do the same.

With respect to the city daycare food, we do not have a problem with the menu itself, but with the products delivered by your supplier: the cheapest processed food, some containing trans fats and/or preservatives banned in other countries; an excessive amount of canned food (unsafe exposure to the estrogen mimicker- bisphenol A) ranging from canned potatoes to imported canned fruit; etc. Please refer to our package sent to Brenda Patterson for our issues with the daycare food. We urge you to provide the money to buy local, uncanned, fresh fruits and vegetables and meat/eggs/dairy that come from animals that were not fed routine antibiotics and hormones. Please support local farmers and Canadian fishermen as the food would also be healthier and transported less. We do not want to see anymore canned peaches from Greece and fish fillets from China.

In order for cans to be made, metal ore has to be dug up from some part of the world, refined, turned into cans coated with plastic, fruit must be boiled, sugar added, and then the cans get to be transported half way across the world, and for what — vitamin depleted fruit spiked with bisphenol A and at the expense of children’s health, local farmers, and the environment?

As big and plentiful as Canada is, why are our children being fed poorer quality food from other parts of the world?

We are asking you to assist Brenda Patterson to bridge the difference in cost between the current quality food fed to children in city daycares and what the YMCA feeds kids.

Some of the ways you can do this, by not spending more, are conservation methods. Let’s have eco-daycares, just like the TDSB has started to have eco-schools.

• We propose that the lights go off at night/ weekends (or be put on motion sensors) in daycares and other city buildings.
• We are also proposing that the hot water be put on a timer like is done in most parts of the world.
• Raising the air-conditioning temperature in city buildings is also a must.
• Looking at other places where there is waste in the system, such a paper use, and switch to recycled paper and make double sided photocopying/ printing mandatory.

It is very painful for us to see the energy splurge and know that the cost of our daughter’s food has been reduced to as little as $2.50 a day.

Before you do the allocation for more salary increases and office renovations, we are urging you to look at a daycare food budget that allows children to be fed the food they deserve.

Since other daycare chains, such as the YMCA, Woodgreen, Hydrokids, ActiveKids and some private ones have begun to go organic and feed meat, dairy, and eggs from naturally raised animals, we believe the city daycares can do the same. We would like the city daycares to be equally progressive and eliminate all remaining foods that contain artificially occurring trans fats and also move towards reducing other types of chemical exposures. We believe that such an action would give the city of Toronto a positive progressive image and it would also raise more environmental awareness.

We would like to see a higher proportion of our $64 dollars be spent on healthy food. So we are asking you to divert some of that $ 61.5 that goes somewhere else, back into quality food for children.

Please have a bidding process that will not 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.

So please assist Brenda Patterson with the necessary budgetary increase in order for her to be able to put out an RFP as progressive as the YMCA’s.

Sincerely,

(signed by the parents from the Parent Advisory Committee at Danforth Childcare Centre)

Summary of Package

1. Letter including topics to be discussed at the March 6, meeting.
2. Appendix A- The Trans Fat Issue (response to Brenda Patterson’s letter dated Nov 13, 2006).
3. Appendix B – Globe and Mail article “Are Plastic Products Coated in Peril?”, May 31, 2006.
4. Appendix C – Segment from Franklin Institute of Science web article on trans fats being brain blockers + New Scientist article “Fears raised over the Safety of Trans Fats”, Nov 6, 2004.
5. Appendix D - MSDS for the children’s soap at the daycare
6. Appendix E - sample menu from the YMCA
7. Appendix F – Letters of support

• Letter of support from the Heart and Stroke Foundation
• Letters of support from parents.
• Letter of support from oncologist Monika Krzyzanowska and professor Nathan Taback

C.C.
-Susan Makin, Director of Public Health
-Elizabeth Moffat, Director of Municipal Daycares
-Paula Fletcher, City Councillor, Ward 31
-David Miller, Mayor of Toronto

Metro Hall March 2, 2007
55 John St., 10th Floor
Toronto, ON
M5V 3C6

Dear Brenda Patterson,

We thank you for your response to our queries and concerns that we have raised verbally and in written form in the past few months.

We would like to start by enumerating the many things we like about the daycare. First of all, we must mention that our daughter’s emotional being is well taken care of by her immediate daycare teachers and the other staff working in the daycare. The staff is made up by caring, educated, professionals who also happen to be experienced parents and grandparents.
Our daughter is attached to her teachers and her classmates and she is ecstatic every morning when we take her to daycare. We also like the fact that this is a place that was designed to be a daycare (it is not a dungeon in the basement of a church like many other daycares), it has access to natural light, a well designed playground with access to shade and sun, no carpets, its own kitchen, and it is secure, etc. I also have to say that its meal plan is also better then the meals served at many other daycares, such as the ones that serve Koolaid “juice” and hotdogs. We do not have a problem with the design of the nutritional menu. It is a well thought out, balanced nutritional plan.

However, there is room for improvement when it comes to the type of food products ordered in terms of eliminating artificial trans fats and minimizing other types of chemical exposures. Other daycare chains, such as the YMCA, Woodgreen, Hydrokids, ActiveKids (Richmond Hill), and some private ones have begun to go organic and feed meat, dairy and eggs from naturally raised animals. We would like the city run daycares to be equally progressive and eliminate all remaining foods that contain artificially occurring trans fats (ex: pasta primavera, birthday cakes, etc) and also move towards reducing other types of toxic chemical exposures. We believe that such an action would give the city of Toronto a positive progressive image and it would also raise more environmental awareness.

Below is our list of suggestions:

1. Remove all remaining trans fat containing food with healthy alternatives that do not contain any artificially made fats (hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils) such as the pasta primavera, birthday cakes (please see appendix A on trans fats). Could we aim to phase out all foods that contain artificially made fats (referring to the words modified , hydrogenated, and vegetable oil shortening)? The children’s health is more important than the shelf life of these processed foods.
2. Switch the daily breakfast juice to fruit and water. The juice that’s served in the daycare is nutrient depleted and every morning when we drop our daughter off we see her gallop several glasses of juice. The same goes for the fruit puree/dip/apple sauce. We would like the daycare to switch to fruit and water instead. Giving fruit and water would increase the nutrition intake (vitamin + fibre) and eliminate an unnecessary source of extra sugar. The breakfast cereal already has added sugar.
3. The next thing we would like to mention is the exposure to estrogen mimickers due to the type of food packaging (phthalates/bisphenol A). This topic has also been covered quite extensively in the media (please see Globe&Mail article in Appendix B). We are not asking for a full elimination, but an attempt to reduce the exposure. A lot of the food in the daycare comes in bisphenol-A leaching cans: fruit (mandarins, pineapple, mango slices, fruit cocktail, nectarine, peach, the fruit used in muffins, puree fruit, etc), soup, tuna, salmon (for tortilla rolls), tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, beans, sliced beets, and perhaps some others of which we are not aware.
   Canned fruit is also much sweeter than fresh fruit and since our children’s pallets are developing now, we believe that it is not healthy for children to develop a preference for canned fruit over fresh fruit. Canned fruit should be eliminated. Switching to fresh fruit would also reduce the amount of discarded packaging the city has to deal with.
4. Points:
   • switch from canned to frozen whenever possible.
   • switch from can to bottle (ex. tomato paste)
   • switch from concentrated lemon juice in a plastic container imported from across the ocean (Greece) to fresh lemons.
   • eliminate all canned fruit
   • no fruit puree/dip/apple sauce from plastic/cans but fruit and water (best option)
   • no juice in tetrapacks
5. We would also like to switch to organic fruit whenever possible. This would not only decrease the exposure to pesticides but it would also eliminate the current practice of the cook to peal the “vitaminful” and “fibreful” outer layer of the fruit. So, in the case of the juice and all the canned fruit the kids get, the exposure to estrogen mimickers would again be eliminated and the food would be more nutritious.
6. We would also like the city to demand from its suppliers to ensure that all meat, dairy and eggs come from farms that raise their animals naturally, ethically, and locally. No parent wants to find out that their child’s food comes from factory farms that feed routine antibiotics and hormones to their animals, or practice cannibalism (or cows eating chicken, etc). If the YMCA and Woodgreen can demand this from their suppliers, so can the City.
7. The kids’ food should be free of artificial colouring (the birthday cakes are a shade of pink that not even a flamingo could compete with), artificial flavouring, refined sugar and certain preservatives such as BHT(cooking oil), nitrates (cold cuts), azodicarbonamide (cheese sticks), etc. Decreasing the number of processed foods would eliminate many of these chemicals.
   We are pleased to see that since our first letter the amount of tuna fed to the kids was decreased from weekly to just twice a month. We would support a further decrease. Frozen sardines could be an alternative.
8. No frozen fried egg – The “egg pattie” could be switched to just a plain old boiled egg which is served some days in the daycare anyway. Also, if the white rice could be switched to the more nutritious short grain brown rice that would be great.
9. The daycare soap (DebCanada.ca – Industrial – Foam Soaps – Debonaire Foaming Skin Cleanser) is labelled by the manufacturer as for “industrial use”. This is not the adjective that comes to our mind when we think of a toddler. Our daughter gets a rash from this soap and we brought in another milder soap for her which has solved the problem. This is also the case for another child at our daycare. But, since this soap is used on kids as young as 1 (I’ve seen my daughter tasting it one time when I came to pick her up), we would like to recommend using a milder soap. One of the ingredients is even known to be toxic to aquatic organisms (2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol) and we don’t need the extra pollution in Lake Ontario.

So, in conclusion, we would like the city run daycares to be as progressive as the YMCA. When the YMCA can list on their menus that their foods are free of trans fats, refined sugar, and artificial flavouring, and that their meat products are hormone and antibiotic free, naturally and ethically raised (music to our ears), it makes us believe that the city daycares can attain the same standard.

Ms. Patterson, we are sure you understand that we want the best for our child and we think the rest of society would benefit by feeding children the healthiest food possible. I must state that when the city of Toronto puts forward a proposal to spend 6 million dollars on new fancy offices, we believe that trying to save pennies by feeding kids a lower quality food than they deserve is not appropriate or acceptable. Energy conservation methods should be the target for decreasing costs, not the food fed to children. We do not want our child’s health to be sold to the lowest bidder, if that means feeding children a lower quality food than they deserve.

Please join us in making a progressive change in our city and in our children’s menus.

In the Toronto Star article “Concerned Mom takes a close look at city daycare menus” (Jan 13, 2007) I found out that there will be a review on this issue. we would like to know if we may be a part of this review.

We would also like to know what is the city daycare cost per food per toddler for:
a) morning snack b) lunch c) afternoon snack
Thank you,

Andreea Ionescu and Deryk Jackson
Appendix A – The Trans Fat Issue

In the paragraphs below I would like to clarify a few things from our exchange of letters:

Trans Fat amounts in KRAFT formulations: New versus “Old”
I would like to point out that in your response letter to me you quoted a different number for the amount of trans fats in the Kraft Arrowroot biscuits then I did. I quoted 3.79 grams of trans fat per 100 grams of biscuits. You quoted 0.1 g of trans per 100 g of biscuits. I quoted the amount of trans fats which I found on the commercial pack of the Kraft Arrowroot biscuits in the daycare’s kitchen storage in Aug and Sept 2006. .The amount you quoted is the amount currently found on the KRAFT Arrowroot biscuits. Please allow me to explain.

Kraft has been sued by BanTransFats.com in the US and since then, they have been in the process of changing their formulations in order to reduce and/or eliminate trans fats. As of December, I have noticed that almost all types of Kraft biscuits in stores have new formulations with very low and even zero trans fat. I noticed the same thing at the daycare. So I fear that these KRAFT biscuits had been flying under the radar in the daycare system, and came and left unnoticed. This is why I would like to emphasize that “high trans” was the case with all the other biscuits found at the daycare by me in Aug/Sept, such as Newton’s Fig Figures which were 0.4 g of trans per 28 g serving (1.43 % trans) . You can check this data yourself if you happen to have an old box of Fig Newtons lying around. The new ones are labelled as 0 trans (even though they still contain vegetable oil shortening). My question is: is there anyway to ensure that no old stock Kraft Newton’s Fig Figures, Arrowroot, etc will still be delivered to the daycare?

“Legally 0 trans” may not truly mean 0 trans.
Most of the “new formulation” Kraft biscuits still contain trans fats or other artificial fats even though they are labeled 0 trans (contain vegetable oil shortening, hydrogenated oil, modified oil). This is the case now with some of the biscuits found in the daycare, such as the Newton’s Fig Figures, Arrowroot, etc.

Foods still containing trans fats in daycare:
I would like to have all other trans fat containing foods eliminated from the daycare, such as the pasta primavera, birthday cakes, margarine, pizza, etc and switch to healthier and more natural alternatives that do not contain hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated, or vegetable oil shortening at all.

The suggestion to bring our own food does not work. We are still trying it with the snacks but most of the time it fails. It makes it difficult for the daycare workers in the room as it makes our daughter frustrated and angry since the other kids are all eating some other food which she is not allowed to have. A two-year old child cannot understand why she is not allowed to have the same food as the other kids and is emotionally traumatizing for the child. I do not want to frustrate my daughter on a daily basis and I do not want to give extra work/problems for the daycare workers. I also do not believe that any other child should be fed unhealthy food. For the amount of money we pay we think we can expect safer food.

____________________________________

1 The amount listed on the retail biscuit box used in my daughter’s toddler room was of course listed for a smaller serving, but 3.79 percent is still 3.79 percent whether one talks about a small or a big quantity. The dietician had asked me if I looked at the “big box or the little box”, meaning the commercial pack versus the retail pack, when I expressed my frustration at this high percent number.

My experiences in communicating and trying to obtain the nutritional information regarding the food my daughter is being fed.

In Aug/Sept when we enrolled our daughter in daycare and I saw the biscuits she was eating in her toddler room and in the kitchen storage room we saw a whole wall of different types of Kraft biscuits, almost all of them containing trans fats. The worst kind were the Arrowroot which stood at 3.78 g per 100 g and these were also presented to me as the biscuits the kids liked the most!
I requested to speak to the person in charge of the menu and I ended up communicating back and forth with the dietician through the supervisor of the daycare about my concern relating to the trans fat containing biscuits. I was told that a new menu was going to be made up and I could offer some suggestions which I gladly did in a letter. In this letter I also indicated my concern about trans fats becoming incorporated in the fatty tissue around the brain cells of a developing child, but I never got a reply.
I finally obtained the dietician’s phone number and called to ask her how could my daughter be fed almost 4% trans biscuits (Arrowroot). I was told that no such biscuits were being served in the daycare. After I told her that I saw my daughter eating these biscuits in her toddler room and I also saw the delivery commercial box in the storage room there was no more argument I stated that KRAFT was a horrible company for putting 4 % trans fats in toddler biscuits and I was told that “that is your opinion”.
I called and I spoke to another city dietician (this during the time when KFC announced they were going to eliminate trans fats) who upon hearing my concern about trans fats told me that I don’t need to worry so much about trans fats since they can also be naturally occurring. This is true, but the same is true for nicotine, arsenic, mercury, etc.

In Brenda Patterson’s letter, dated Nov 13, 2006, I was given the new numbers for the Kraft biscuits, not the ones that I saw with my own eyes in the daycare.

I’ve requested in November to be given the nutritional information for ALL THE SNACKS SERVED but I received a partially complete package. I tried two more times (Dec, Jan) to get the missing information, and each time, after a long wait, I received a partial list. On my last attempt, I was told that some of the items that I wanted the information for have been discontinued, such as the soft bread twists and the beef patties. This last package, the one informing me that soft bread twists and beef patties had been discontinued, I received on Feb 21. Yet, on Feb 26, beef patties were served in the daycare!

All of these events have made me lose faith in the accuracy of the information I have been given.

Note: This letter was sent to the local city councilor, MPP, MP
Oct 15, 2006

Queen’s Park
Rm 159, Main Legislative Building
Toronto ON
M7A 1A5

Dear Peter Tabuns,

My name is Andreea Ionescu and I am a mother and math/science teacher in the Toronto District School Board. The reason why I am writing to you is because I have recently enrolled my daughter in a public daycare and discovered that children are fed the cheapest food possible, which among many bad things, includes cereal and biscuits with trans fats. I am deeply disturbed to find that these chemicals, known as plastic fats, are fed to children as young as one year of age or less. Since these substances have been known for a long time (I’ve known about them since the mid ’90 when I was in university) to clog arteries, interfere with the proper functioning of liver enzymes, and possibly cause neurological damage (trans fats replace the cis fats on the myelin coating of brain cells), they should not, under any circumstances, be fed to growing children. I do not want my child’s brain to develop with the wrong kind of fat.

I enrolled my daughter in a city run, public daycare since I wanted to have her taken care of by someone who is not overworked, stressed out and underpaid such as the people working for close to minimum wage in private daycares. I wanted my young child’s mind to be shaped by a qualified person, who is paid a fair wage and has pleasant working conditions. And yes, I got all that in a city run daycare: she is cared for by some wonderful people. But, the fact is that the food needs to be changed.

So, why is a city run PUBLIC daycare buying the worst food for our children?

Most of the biscuits and some of the cereal that are fed to children contain trans fats.
I have voiced my concerns about the trans fats at my daughter’s daycare to the dietician
in formal letter of concern along with a suggestion list of alternatives, but it has gotten me nowhere. After pressing for a response, I got a secondhand answer (through the supervisor of the daycare) that things were not going to change.
Furthermore, I have not yet been able to find out from the daycare the brand name and trans fat content of the semi-prepared meat products (referring to artificial trans fat added in processing) the children are fed. I think that I can safely assume that the trans fat content the kids get from the semi-prepared meat products resemble the amount one would get in a restaurant or fast food place. The Cristie “Arrow Root” biscuits (made in the US) served at her daycare have 3.79 g of trans fat per 100 g. So, to do a rough calculation, if my daughter eats about 100 g per day of these biscuits (or other similar ones) 365 times a year, 4 years in a row, that would mean a total of 5533.4 g, or 5.5 kg, or 12.17 pounds of trans fat. That is the weight of one of my full grown cats! I had proposed to the dietician to switch to the CHEAPER, made in Canada, President’s Choice Arrow Root biscuits, but there was no response on that.

To be realistic, to the biscuit trans-fat amount we must also add the amount of trans fats my daughter gets from the semi-processed meat products she is served, of whose amount I have not yet been able to find out. It must be the weight of a second cat!

I would also like to add that my daughter, during October, harvest time in Ontario, is being fed canned fruit, when the markets are full of local produce. High in mercury tuna, instead of another smaller fish, further down the food chain, is fed to the kids on a regular basis. Most of the cereal and biscuits that are fed to children are made in the US by some big corporations, such as Christie (Kraft) and Kelloggs.

I would like to know why we are not supporting local Canadian farmers and manufacturers?

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.

After having spoken with many other parents, I found out that they were as frustrated about the same trans fat problem and other bad food served in our daycares. It’s seems to be the case in both public and private daycares, but since there is such a daycare space crisis, many feel that it is impossible to complain.

I only ask that my child be fed the food Nature intended a human to eat, not what’s dictated by a corporation bent on minimizing cost and maximizing profit. I do not want my child’s health to become the externality of a corporation. I also fear the drain on tax dollars for the healthcare costs of millions of children who grow up eating this kind of unnatural, toxic food.

I think we should look elsewhere on decreasing costs, not on the food fed to children, such as minimizing our energy consumption by turning the air conditioner on higher in the summer (I remember freezing in my daughter’s daycare in August), and turning lights off after leaving the room; retrofitting buildings, not feeding juice in tetrapacks (more money spent on garbage/recycling) but fruit and water; using both sides of a sheet of paper, etc, and last and most importantly, looking at the long term savings in health care costs when our children are fed healthier food.

My suggestion is that we work together to immediately remove trans fat containing food from being fed to children. I would like to ask you if you could please assist me in my quest to have trans fat containing food immediately removed from daycares and schools. My daughter’s brain, liver and arteries are being affected right now.

Would it also be possible to have kids eat only meat and milk from grain fed animals that were not fed antibiotics, hormones, and were not forced to eat their own kind?

Sincerely,

Andreea Ionescu