http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/us/10bake.html

November 10, 2008

Bake Sales Fall Victim to Push for Healthier Foods

By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN

"PIEDMONT, Calif. - Tommy Cornelius and the other members of the Piedmont
High School boys water polo team never expected to find themselves running
through school in their Speedos to promote a bake sale across the street.
But times have been tough since the school banned homemade brownies and
cupcakes.

The old-fashioned school bake sale, once as American as apple pie, is fast
becoming obsolete in California, a result of strict new state nutrition
standards for public schools that regulate the types of food that can be
sold to students. The guidelines were passed by lawmakers in 2005 and took
effect in July 2007. They require that snacks sold during the school day
contain no more than 35 percent sugar by weight and derive no more than 35
percent of their calories from fat and no more than 10 percent of their
calories from saturated fat.

The Piedmont High water polo team falls woefully short of these standards,
selling cupcakes, caramel apples and lemon bars off campus in a flagrant act
of nutritional disobedience.

"I know obesity is a big problem, and it's good the school cares," said Sam
Cardoza, a senior who briefly became a successful entrepreneur last year
when chocolate chip cookies were banned from the cafeteria. "At the same
time, you shouldn't stop a kid from buying a cookie."

California is a hatchery of food trends, but its regulations are not the
country's strongest.

From 500 to 600 school districts nationwide now have policies that limit the
amount of fat, trans fats, sodium and sugars in food sold or served at
school, with the strictest rules directed at elementary schools, said Jamie
Chriqui, a senior research scientist with the Institute for Health Research
and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The idea is that policy
interventions to reduce consumption "will do for junk food what smoking bans
and taxes did for tobacco," Ms. Chriqui said.

In California, sports drinks, which can contain almost as much sugar as
soda, are still allowed in middle and high schools, but sodas, including
diet sodas, will be banned from all schools next year. According to the
Center for Science in the Public Interest, Kentucky has the strictest
regulations on school nutrition, with sugar and sodium limits on beverages
that eliminate most standard sports drinks.

"Before, it was the chips, the Hostess cupcakes, the Little Debbie doughnut
sticks," said Ginger Gray, the director of school nutrition for the Kenton
County School District in northern Kentucky. Now, only pure fruit juice and
low-fat or skim milk are allowed. The district's most popular dish is
whole-wheat stromboli made from scratch, Ms. Gray said, adding that she
leans toward foods that families can cook at home. "You're teaching them
habits for life," she said.

The regulatory focus on school nutrition has been gaining ground nationwide
in recent years, amid concerns over childhood obesity and a lack of access
to healthful food. Sixteen states have set standards for so-called
competitive foods that compete with meals, like à la carte cookies, cinnamon
buns and soft drinks. And, yes, this even affects bake sales.

In Chula Vista, Calif., near San Diego, sales plummeted at Hilltop High
School's multicultural food fair, an annual fund-raising event for the
foreign language and global studies departments that has traditionally
featured bratwurst, breadsticks with marinara sauce, apple pie and root beer
floats. "This year was really hard," said Jade Wagner, a senior, referring
to the half-bratwursts and nondairy diet root beers.

If bake sales are out, "healthy" fund-raisers, like carwashes and
balloon-o-grams, are in. In Oakland, Calif., new traditions are replacing
old ones: a "Healthy Halloween" vegetable platter for kindergartners at
Montclair Elementary; power bars and apple slices at the after-school
homework club at Crocker Highlands Elementary; a Caesar salad-making class,
a weekly organic produce stand and "nutrition breaks" replacing snack breaks
at Peralta Elementary.

In Berkeley, birthplace of California cuisine, food served at school is free
of bovine growth hormones, irradiation, hydrogenated oils and known genetic
modification.

Birthday celebrations are not immune from nutrition watchdogs: around the
country, there is growing pressure to forgo cupcakes in favor of nonfood
treats.

"I don't think all celebrations need to be around food," said Ann Cooper,
the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley school district. "We
need to get past the mentality of food used for punishment or praise."

In Guilford, Conn., the school district's health advisory committee has
decided that birthday parties belong at home. At A. W. Cox Elementary,
birthdays are celebrated with an extra 15 minutes of recess, special pencils
or a "birthday book club" with commemorative inserts. "The children have
totally refocused," said the principal, Merry Leventhal. "They're happy to
celebrate in these other ways."

A recent study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale found
that, contrary to parental fears, children were not compensating for the
absence of sugar or fat at school by raiding the refrigerator at home. "Some
people think that kids have this internal potato chip monitor, but there's
no evidence of that," said Marlene B. Schwartz, the center's deputy
director. "People really do eat what's in front of them."

In California, bake sales are waning because ingredients cannot be
regulated. Sales are banned during school hours but may be held a half-hour
before or after school.

The ban on bake sales has not been met with universal enthusiasm. The
Piedmont Highlander, the school newspaper, editorialized about "birthday
cakes turned into contraband" and homemade goodies snatched from students
"by the long arm and hungry mouth of the law."

Even some nutritionists question whether banishing bake sales is the best
approach. "It concerns me we're not teaching moderation," said Stephanie
Bruce, the president of the California School Nutrition Association, who
works in the Ontario-Montclair School District in Ontario, Calif.

Melissa Luna, considered the über-mom of Crocker Highlands Elementary in
Oakland, said that sometimes calories mattered less than the importance of a
cause - like the bake sale organized to raise money for Christopher
Rodriguez, a student who was shot and paralyzed last March by a stray bullet
from a gas station robbery while he was taking piano lessons across the
street. The sale, attended by members of the Oakland Raiders and Oakland
Athletics, raised $30,000.

In Berkeley, Anna X. L. Wong, a kindergarten teacher at Jefferson
Elementary, incorporates "good foods" versus "bad foods" into the curriculum
and offers her students healthy snacks, including edamame - her version of
preventive medicine.

"We talk about the word 'courage,' " Ms. Wong said of her young students.
"That means being brave enough to try new things."

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