Food for the Holidays

Food for the Holidays | The New York Observer:

"...'New York is still the city people look to for so many trends, and we need to keep focusing on these things,' Bloomberg said, referring to the City's newest battles on calories, trans-fat and the sodium content in packaged food products.

As part of its drive to create a healthy, happy city, the Mayor's Office has three goals:

* Get city agencies to abide by high nutrition standards that include lowering salt and calorie contents and supplying more high-fiber meals;
* Make healthy food more affordable; and
* Bring healthier food to low-income neighborhoods.

Each year New York City schools serve 225 million meals, more than any other US agency other than the Defense Department. The challenge, Bloomberg noted, is getting people to eat the healthy food provided. In other places getting people to eat healthy means increasing access to nutritious food. More than 1/4 of all Harlem residents are obese, a health problem that continues to get worse even as the city become more environmentally friendly, Bloomberg noted [...]"