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

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