NewsBites & NoteWorthy Bits

Forget about playing Mozart when the baby is in the womb--start a school garden instead!
School Gardening Makes Children Smarter

Concordia Elementary kids make rain barrels to collect water for butterfly garden Learn how!
            

Some plants are not safe for children.  Find out what they are.

Insect eggs are neat, but we had no idea they looked this neat.  Insect Eggs Look Amazing Up Close 

Prince Charles uses his vegetable patch, to grow carrots, cauliflower, squash, peas, lettuce, rocket, celery and beans to use for for his dinner guests and held a garden party there to make a difference.

You know we support edible school gardens 100%. But there are other opinions. The Atlantic published one in their Jan/Feb 2010 issue called Cultivating Failure. 

The perils of monoculture.
 SAVE OUR CHOCOLATE!
Chocolate comes from only one species of cacao tree. Scientists are racing to breed resistance into the breed before we lose them all.

The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum's Butterfly Lab in Chicago has many opportunities to explore the world of butterflies. If you can’t get to the museum, travel through their website to learn more about butterflies. Start with the Life Cycle page. Be sure not to miss the Field Guide. It has information for people in Illinois, but the rest of us can learn from it, too! Just click on a picture or pick a species in the drop-down menu. 

Las Pilitas Nursery has a wonderful webpage with plants for a California or Western Butterfly Garden. The Amorpha californica (false indigo) above is a host plant for the California Dogface, California's state butterfly. Also check out the Dallas Co. Lepidopterists. They have pictures of different butterflies and list their foods.

"...we need to think about the stuff we're exposing our bodies to."
 Obesity, Chemical Exposure Causing Some Girls to Hit Puberty at Age 7, Study Finds

 How we can change our cafeterias and lower the obesity rate. 5 Ideas That Would Revolutionize School Food (and Save our Kids)

Manufacturers are asking they be allowed to rebrand "High Fructose Corn Syrup" as "Corn Sugar." Some say HFCS is more unhealthy then table sugar. The Harvard School of Public Health says it probably isn't.

Kids love "Baby Carrots" but are they really "babies?" Read more in  The Odd Evolution of the Baby Carrot on Planet Green

 The Harvard School of Public Healths Nutrition Update reports that it's not clear that milk and dairy products are the best sources of calcium. Milk is actually only one of many sources of calcium—dark leafy green vegetables and some types of legumes are among the other sources—and there are some important reasons why milk may not be the best source for everyone. 

What are the holes in Swiss cheese called? What's the most popular pizza topping in America? Play "FEEDING AMERICA's" trivia quiz and for every right answer, Kraft Foods will donate $1 to Feeding America. 

Now you have no excuse not to start preserving.Preserving the Harvest: Giardiniera from The Art of Preserving (Book Review)

The Top Ten Foods you aren't eating, but you should be eating! ...and, of course, they are all from plants!
 

Something for everyone on this list. 40 Healthy School Lunch Recipes to Make for Your Kids

Cool new ways to carry your lunch, all BPA and vinyl free. Green Your Kid's Packed School Lunch: The Buy Guided 

This NOT That:
Lunchbox Replacements for the Worst Junk Foods

CONTAMINATED WATERMELON:
The U.S. EPA has announced plans to phase the use of aldicarb, a toxic insecticide commonly used on food crops. 

from the New York Times:

A melon farm in Colorado has issued a recall of cantaloupe following a Listeria outbreak that has killed at least two people, sickened 22 and spread to several states.