Vegetables

Kids may not like it, but schools are on the right track with healthier lunch menus that serve up more fruits and vegetables and less junk food. Under nutritional standards that took effect this year, cafeterias must serve twice as many fruits and vegetables while limiting proteins and carbohydrates. High school students are restricted to a maximum of 850 calories. The healthier menu was pushed by first lady Michelle Obama as part of her Let's Move campaign to fight childhood obesity.

LONDON - Scientists yesterday blamed Europe's worst recorded food-poisoning outbreak on a "super-toxic" strain of E. coli bacteria that may be brand new. But while suspicion has fallen on raw tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce as the source of the germ, researchers have been unable to pinpoint the food responsible for the frightening illness, which has killed at least 18 people, sickened more than 1,600 and spread to least 10 European countries. An alarming number of victims - about 500 - have developed kidney complications that can be deadly.

What does it take to get people to change unhealthy behavior? Some cynics would say nothing works, but researchers at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine got good results with Palm Pilots (OK, the study started five years ago), remote coaching, and money. A team led by Bonnie Spring, a health psychologist and professor of preventive medicine, worked with 204 people with bad eating and exercise habits. The study, published in last week's Archives of Internal Medicine, targeted specific behavior — eating too much saturated fat and too few fruits and vegetables, plus watching TV too much and exercising too little — that are associated with health problems and shorter lives.

BERLIN - Cucumbers were back on the radar of German health authorities Wednesday as the possible cause of an E. coli outbreak in Europe that has killed at least 26 people and sickened more than 2,700. Two weeks ago, investigators blamed cucumbers from Spain for the deadly outbreak and then later ruled them out as the source. Then, the focus shifted to sprouts from northern Germany, but none that were tested turned out to be contaminated with the bacterium strain blamed for the outbreak.

We've seen farm-to-family, farm-to-school, even farm-to-office programs. Now it's time for farm-to-freezer. Winter Sun Farm Greater Philadelphia ( wintersunfarmsgp.com ) is the region's first farm-to-freezer Community Supported Agriculture program. Launched by Adam and Sara Gordon of Doylestown, the December-through-April CSA offers once-a-month pick-up at locations in Philadelphia, Elkins Park, Swarthmore, Newtown, Doylestown, and Ottsville in Pennsylvania and Collingswood and Stockton, Hunterdon County, in New Jersey.

WASHINGTON - There's a new U.S. symbol for healthful eating: The Agriculture Department unveiled "My Plate" on Thursday, abandoning the food pyramid that had guided many Americans but merely confused others. The new guide is divided into four different-sized quadrants, with fruits and vegetables taking up half the space and grains and protein making up the other half. The vegetables and grains portions are the largest of the four. Gone are the old pyramid's references to sugars, fats, or oils.

Mariah Bey was the first to arrive in the kitchen for our third cooking lesson. "Hellooooo," she crooned, throwing her arms wide open to announce herself. "What are we cooking today?" "Omelets," I said. "And you get to decide what to put in. I have lots of choices: mushrooms, peppers, greens, cheese, tomatoes. And we're also going to dye eggs for Easter. " "We're going to dye eggs!" she cried, her eyes filling with excitement. "This is the best cooking class ever!" I've been cooking once a week with fifth- and sixth-grade girls from St. Martin de Porres school in North Philadelphia, with the goal of improving not only their culinary skills but also their nutrition with easy meals they can make themselves.

Eve Minson had challenging careers in advertising and education, but what she loved more than anything else was working the soil. Now, at 53, she makes her living - in the most holistic sense of the word - growing vegetables, flowers, and herbs on a rented swath of heaven that she calls Just One Seed, a field of barely 1 1/2 acres in rural upper Bucks County. Her equally enterprising neighbors, Marc and Joanna Michini, raise hogs, lambs, chickens, turkeys, and rabbits on another rented parcel carved from the 120-acre Come Along Farm, about a mile from the Delaware River in Tinicum Township.

Sometimes the best-laid plans are last-minute plans. Before all the comings and goings of this holiday week are done, extend one last invitation to friends and family. An impromptu gathering at your home is by definition informal, and relieves you of the obligation to have every detail covered. With even a semi-stocked larder, you can invite folks on New Year's Eve to join you for brunch on New Year's Day. The loose time frame of an open-house invitation lets people drop in, or settle in. Spanning either lunch or dinner, the food to offer will shift accordingly.

Exotic and unusual herbs may be in vogue these days with chefs and food writers, but good cooks of all kinds, well-known or not, professional or otherwise, know the value of familiar, plain old parsley. Parsley is common, the opposite of trendy. But it's also among the most useful, refreshing, and lovely of herbs. Albert Stockli, formerly of New York's Four Seasons Restaurant once called parsley "the jewel of herbs, both in the pot and on the plate. "   We're used to seeing parsley sprinkled - into salads, on top of a grilled chop or fish filet or over cooked rice.