Healthy eating, nutrition, and understanding what food labels are REALLY saying were all topics covered in our grocery shopping tour with guest, Kimberly Lord Stewart.

Ms. Stewart is the author of Eating Between the Lines: The Supermarket Shopper’s Guide to the Truth Behind Food Labels.  She is the recipient of two 2004 Association of Food Journalist awards for food news reporting on hunger and fraud in the olive oil industry and a 2001 Jesse Neal Business Journalism Award.

Kimberly is a former editor of Dining Out, Natural Foods Merchandiser,Healthwell, Functional Ingredients and Nutrition Science News.  Her articles and her book have been in numerous publications and media including NPR, Eating Well, Shape Magazine, USAToday Weekend, Dr. Roizen’s You the Owner’s Manual radio, WGN and CBS, ABC and NBC television and radio affiliates.

Join us as Kimberly Lord Stewart takes us around the grocery store on a virtual grocery shopping trip where we discuss how to understand what food labels really mean, organics, healthy eating, fish and mercury, yogurt, raw food and how to fix truly affordable, healthy meals for your family.

This is one of the rare times we’ve reinterviewed a guest and is easily one of Staci’s favorites.  Not only is this interview with Kimberly very helpful for the next trip to your grocery store but we also highly recommend her book too – Eating Between the Lines: The Supermarket Shopper’s Guide to the Truth Behind Food Labels :
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More about the book ….

So many labels, so little time—just tell me what to buy!

“One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me “Superman” did not exist.  Cause even in the depths of the ghetto you just thought he was coming …. She thought I was crying because it’s like …. (he’s) not real.  I was crying because no one was coming with enough power to save us.”

- Geoffrey Canada. “Waiting for Superman”

The movie is controversial ….. very, very controversial.  Seen by some as a scathing expose on our current educational system and by others as simply a hit piece on the educational unions “Waiting For Superman” is, at the very least, a movie that is worth investing two hours of your time to see.  Since it hits on a topic near and dear to our hearts (and the hearts of anybody who really cares about this country I suppose) we wanted to make sure that not only did we see as soon as we could be that we could share it with you as quickly as possible.

Here are 10 facts from the “Waiting For Superman” movie and book that really jumped out at me:

1. NCLB – With four years left to reach the act’s goal of 100% proficiency  in Math and Reading most states hover around 20-30% proficiency
2. Among 30 developed countries the US is
   • 25th in Math
   • 21st in Science
   • When comparing our top 5% against their top 5% we’re …. last
3. High School Graduation Rates
   • African American – 51%
   • Latinos – 55%
   • Whites – 76%
   • 60% of those who do graduate will still need to take at least one remedial class in college
4. In Pennsylvania (as an example) 68% of state prison inmates are high school dropouts.  It’s costs, on average, $33,ooo per year and $132,000 per sentence to house, feed and care for that prisoner.   That’s enough to have sent that prisoner to private school for K-12th grade (avg. tuition $8,300) with $24,000 left over.
5. Since 1971 educational spending per student (adjusted for inflation) has doubled while test scores have remained flat.
6. The Teachers Unions (National Education Association & American Federation of Teachers) are the nation’s largest political contributors (exceeding NRA, Teamsters, AARP, Chambers of Commerce) with 90% of that money going to Democrats.
7. Protecting Teachers:
   • In Illinois (for example):
     • 1 in 57 Doctors loses their medical license
     • 1 in 97 Attorneys will lose their law license
     • Only 1 Teacher in 2,500 has ever lost their teaching credentials
   • In NY
     • Average teacher disciplinary hearing lasts 8 times longer that the average US criminal case at a cost of $65 million dollars per year
8. A top teacher in the top quintile will cover 150% of the required curriculum in a year.  A teacher in the bottom quintile will only cover 50% of the required curriculum.
9. If we eliminated the bottom 6-10% of underperforming teachers and replaced them with just “average” teachers we could bring the average US student up to the level of Finland, which is the top performing country in the world.
10. By the year 2020
    • 123 million jobs will be high skill/high pay occupations
    • Only 50 million Americans will be qualified to fill them

Some great resources I came across during interview prep:

• Michigan Public Schools Financial Data – Michigan Department of Education
  • See page 7 for the teacher pay summaries that we discussed during the show
• Predicting Success In Football & Teaching
  • This is a great piece by Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point, Outliers, Blink, What The Dog Saw) on the process we use for selecting, training and evaluating teachers.  We’ve referenced it before on the show and it’s a must read piece for all parents out there trying to figure out the challenges of education reform.
• Will Richardson – Tech Teacher
  • Here’s a teacher that truly gets the importance of changing HOW we teach in the information, tech heavy age.
• How To Fix Our Schools : A Manifesto – Washington Post
  • This is a brief “mainfesto” for educational reform  written, in part, by Joel Klein (Chancellor, NYC Dept. of Ed) and Michelle Rhee (former Chancellor, DC Public Schools)
• Rebuttal to the “How To Fix Our Schools Manifesto”
  • This rebuttal is but one (and there are MANY) of the rebuttals out there both to the type of reforms indicated in the above referenced manifesto but also in “Waiting For Superman”.  This one was written by Kevin Welner, Director of the Education Policy Center.  His rebuttal (evidently he was still a bit worked up is continued here.

“When you see a great teacher you are seeing a work of art.  You’re seeing a master and it is as, I think, as unbelievable as seeing a great athlete or seeing a great musician” – Geoffrey Canada, President & CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone

This undoubtedly will be a story and movie that we will continue to discuss in the coming weeks and months.  I hope you enjoy our interview with Karl Weber, author and editor of the book “Waiting for Superman”.  After listening to the interview and/or seeing the movie please feel free to share your comments (positive or negative) both here and on our Facebook page.

Click the picture above to purchase or find out more about the book!

Click the recorder below to hear our informative interview with Mr. Karl Weber from “Waiting For Superman” …..

In our inaugural show on 1310 WDTW we had the great opportunity to interview Chef Ann Cooper – The Renegade Lunch Lady (this was after the unfortunate incident where I accidentally stuck my foot in the urinal which we discussed in the beginning of this same show – sorry Chef Ann).  Now I’ll admit, at first blush when Staci brought me the idea of interviewing a lunch lady it wasn’t very exciting to me ….

Sure, we talk about education and the importance of education and sure ….. the lunch lady is a part of the school/education team at our schools but let’s be honest when we think of raising our kids Reading and Math scores the mystery meat selection at lunch isn’t the first thing that springs to mind.

But, maybe it should be…..

After all, we all know how important nutrition is for our kids and the lunch (and for many kids even the their breakfast) being served at school is for some, their biggest, healthiest meal of the day.  Beyond that it’s also critical to their energy levels in the afternoon and a regular opportunity to expose kids to different foods. Not to mention the frequently missed opportunity to expand their understanding of nutrition and how that food impacts everything else in their lives.

Basic stuff? Sure.

Important lessons to understand? Sure.

Something we really need being passed along by the lunch lady? After talking a look at the high obesity levels in our country and poor nutrition in our country – maybe.

Especially if that lunch lady has the credentials, mission and high level of passion for food and nutrition that Chef  Ann has ….

Click the link above to check out her blog

Check out some of Chef Ann’s cool recipes (including snack recipes for “Pizza Wheels”, “Granola”, “Apple Date Bars and “Congee”)

Chef Ann isn’t a fan of the USDA Food Pyramid so she came up with her own resource – The Food Wheel. Click the pic above for more details.  I have to admit, I think her wheel is easier to understand and better laid out than the pyramid.

Learn more about the school lunch programs, how they work and how you can make changes within the system ~ here’s three GREAT resources!

Click the picture above to check it out for yourself ..

Click above….for details

Click above to read the guide

Salad Bars at schools.  Ridiculous?  Maybe so … except in the schools that have tried it and are getting great results.

Click the link below to listen to our interview with Chef Ann Cooper on the “My Great Kid Radio Program”!

We really appreciated the opportunity to interview Michigan Gubenatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra last weekend.

This weekend we have a confirmation for an interview with Mike Bouchard and are working out the details on two other possible MI Gov candidate interviews.  I hope you enjoy the interview and will confirm the guests for this week’s show as soon as they are set.

(click the above link to get to his website)

To find out more about Pete’s plans for Education – click here

For more information about his Education Tax Credits – click here

Posting this information and interview is NOT an endorsement for Pete Hoekstra, however, he was the first one to agree to do the show and was extremely easy to schedule and work with. Our goal is to share information on the campaigns because we truly feel this is an important election for all of us – our kids included.

We have contacted all of the candidates and some have responded favorably, others have ignored our requests and others have been playing bouncing schedule and been impossible to get on the show.  We understand these folks are busy and are simply trying to throw a venue out there for them to share their views with us and the parents & grandparents that we try to help.

Pete Hoekstra was the first one to be interviewed so his information goes up first.  Mike Bouchard has been great with getting something scheduled this weekend and so he’s next up.  Two other candidates have expressed interest but won’t confirm … so we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime we hope you enjoy this interview with Mr. Hoekstra!

We aired our interview with Lorri Unumb from Autism Speaks this past Sunday, however, we weren’t able to cover everything that we wanted to. You see Lorri was extremely gracious to move her schedule around to allow us the opportunity to pre-record our interview with her last week for our Sunday show. Originally the plan was only to conduct a 15-20 minute interview but as we got rolling we covered so much information that in the end the interview had run to over 40 minutes. It was a GREAT information packed interview but unfortunately we couldn’t air the entire interview on the show because we simply didn’t have enough time.

However, the information she shared was too good not to share so we’ve attached a special edition of  the FULL interview with Lorri where we discussed topics that we weren’t able to cover on Sunday, including:

• Won’t the new Obama Healthcare legislation make this kind of legislation fight unecessary?
• What types of therapies and treatments will be covered if this type of legislation were to pass?
• Who is opposing this legislation …. and why?
• Where is the legislation now?
• What are the odds that we’ll see this legislation get passed this year?

And that’s just a start.  If you’re interested in the Autism Insurance legislation battle going on in every state across this country, you can’t miss this interview.

(This is part 2 in a five part Autism Insurance Debate series we’re running all of this week.)