A group of sixth graders from a Stratford, CT public school recently attended a nutrition workshop. This field trip was intended to teach children good eating habits and how to seek out healthy foods. Kids even got the chance to step into the kitchen and make their own sandwiches. So far so good, until you find out where this “nutrition workshop” took place — at a local McDonald’s.
As Change.org’s Health Editor, Brie Cadman, recently reported, for the past five years, McDonald’s has been dabbling in the nutrition education business. Local schools can bring in groups of students, and McDonald’s employees teach the kids about how to make “healthy” choices. As the Connecticut Post recently reported, the Golden Arches sponsors workshops at its restaurants where students “learn about calorie counts, sodium levels, fat content and other information about the important of nutritious foods.” This coming from a fast food joint selling Big Macs that boast more than 500 calories a pop.
Unless McDonald’s is teaching these kids that its fast food is entirely too high in “calorie counts, sodium levels, and fat content,” the restaurant has no business running any kind of nutrition workshop. It’s no secret that the Golden Arches serves up some of the most unhealthy vittles around. An Angus Bacon and Cheese sandwich, for example, holds 790 calories and 39 grams of fat. Even a kids’ meal cheeseburger has 300 calories in it — and that’s before you add on the fries and sugar-y beverage.
Is it sexist to call a senator a “little girl”? Republican Carl Paladino, New York gubernatorial candidate, doesn’t think so. In fact, he has “no regrets” about calling N.Y. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand “Chuck Schumer’s little girl.”
As the University of Oregon’s football team battles it out for the No. 1 BCS ranking this season, Duck fans seem far too eager to forget about what happened last year.
After a decade long battle to fight trafficking, exploitation, and abuse in the Florida tomato industry, the largest tomato grower in Florida Six L’s has signed on to the Coalition of Immokalee Worker’s Fair Food Campaign. That means they agree to pay workers a penny more per pound of tomatoes picked and institute a Code of Conduct, which among other things will help prevent abuse and exploitation of workers. This change represents a huge victory for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and everyone who has fought to end slavery in the tomato industry.
Many of us have had student teachers, those juniors and seniors in college who step into elementary school, middle school and high school classrooms to get some ‘on-the-job’ training. For anyone getting their degree in education, student teaching is practically a requirement; a time to put what you learned in the classroom into practice.
