DEPUTATION by ANDREEA IONESCU

BOARD OF HEALTH

Nov 12, 2007

I am here today because I would like to point out one the main reasons why there is a correlation between poverty and poor health.

Very cheap, processed, poor quality food is the answer.

 I would like the Board of Health to:

1)    Endorse the more natural and progressive YMCA menu as the template for the 3000 children fed in Toronto Municipal Daycares.
2)    Urge the provincial/federal government to include in the Day Nurseries Act/CanadaFoodGuide  a minimum quality standard for food products served in daycare. [legislation deals with quantities not quality]

So, before I will describe what bad foods should never be fed to children in daycare, I would like to give you an example of what a healthy menu is for a young child.

Below is the statement written on the YMCA menu.
“All of our food is made with 100% natural ingredients and we place a strong emphasis on using as much local & organic content as possible.  Our food is free of added trans – fats, artificial coloring & preservatives, and excess salt & sugar.  We strive to purchase meats which do not receive artificial growth hormones & routine antibiotics and which are locally raised & ethically treated.  Fresh Fruits & vegetables vary according to season & availability. We triple –filter our cooking water to remove chlorine, fluoride and to reduce the risk of water born bacteria.”

This menu, containing only fresh fruit not canned; meat from animals guaranteed not to be pumped full of antibiotics and hormones; and free of processed foods full of additives, sugar, fillers, and so on, is a natural diet, and it is every parent’s dream and probably, every doctor’s dream as well.

I would like to point out that Toronto Municipal Daycares are nowhere close to resembling and being as progressive as the YMCA when it comes to feeding children.

Other daycares are even worse.

I would also like to point out that Toronto Municipal Daycares cares for about 3000 children in the city, and many are from poor families. These are 3000 children that could be raised and educated and accustomed to eating healthy natural food, just like the YMCA does for its children.

So, since these kids spend the majority of their day in the city’s care, they should also be fed a YMCA menu. If the YMCA can do it, so can Toronto Municipal Daycares.

Children’s Services is currently drafting the minimum food standard for the upcoming food contract bid for city daycares, and this new RFP (request for proposal), I believe, should be as progressive as the YMCA’s.

And now, in the remaining time, I would like to list 3 examples of poor quality food fed to kids in municipal daycares.

• Meat products are not guaranteed to come from animals not fed hormones and antibiotics or were fed a natural diet (no trans fats, no leftover grease from fast food restaurants, no cannibalism, etc), and also not guaranteed to come from areas of low pollution (fish fillets from China, perhaps fished out of the nearby polluted Russian Artic,  are still on the menu). Canada has an ocean on 3 sides!
• Canned fruits, vegetables, sauce, fish expose children to other risks. Ex. Canned potatoes or canned pineapple with added sugar is nutritionally depleted + bad for teeth+ + added bisphenol from the inner plastic lining).
• Many processed foods, as the cooks do not cook anymore, but open cans or heat up tv dinner like entrees. Ex. Attached cake recipe.

If additives like trans fats, have been discovered to be brain blockers, and disrupt communication among neurons, I can only imagine what the cocktail of chemicals found in today’s very cheap processed foods can do to a child.

I am scared of the a) cocktail effect and also the b) cumulative effect of many of the chemicals that end up in food and are fed to young children.

So, in conclusion, I would like the Board of Health to:

1. Endorse the YMCA menu as the template menu for the 3000 children fed in Toronto Municipal Daycares.
2. Urge the provincial/federal government to update Day Nurseries Act/CanadaFoodGuide  and include a minimum quality standard for food products served in daycare. For example, it should specify that fresh fruit, not canned fruit should be fed to children. Warm meals should not be warmed up TV dinners full of additives and fillers or food dumped from a can.  Juice (especially juice made from powder) should not be considered a “fruit serving”. Hot dogs should not be considered a meat serving, and so on.

History: Once upon a time, meals in Toronto Municipal Daycares, were made from scratch, but in a cost saving measure, some of the cooking staff was eliminated and as a result, the majority of prepared meals served now are processed.
Consequently, the city lost control over the origin and quality of the ingredients that make up the food served in daycares.

Example: A cook making food from scratch would not have boxes of tetrasodium pyrophosphate, modified corn starch, or propylene glycol mono fatty acid esters to add to the food while stirring the pot!

Example: In a premade frozen meal, it is not possible to know from which part of the world the ingredients originate and how polluted those lands are.

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