Mediterranean Lentil Salad  

Serves 6

Ingredients: 

When we hear about children and nutrition, it is often about the obesity crisis that affects a third of America's children. However, we are also facing a crisis of food insecurity; a large percentage of children in the U.S. do not know where their next meal is coming from. The new law signed this week, The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, addresses both of these issues. This bill provides funding ($4.5 billion over 10 years) to increase access to healthful foods for children in low-income households and provide nutrition programs for school-aged kids across the U.S.

The Act represents a major step forward in our nation's effort to provide all children with healthy food in schools. Increasingly, schools are playing a central role in children's health. Over 31 million children receive meals through the school lunch program and many children receive most, if not all, of their meals at school. With over seventeen million children living in food insecure households and one out of every three children in America now considered overweight or obese, schools are on the front lines of our national challenge to combat childhood obesity and improve children's overall health. This legislation includes significant improvements that will help provide children with healthier and more nutritious food options, educate children about making healthy food choices, and teach children healthy habits that can last a lifetime.

Under this new law, a school lunch that would have consisted of cheese pizza and tater tots will now be whole wheat cheese pizza and baked sweet potato fries; a still delicious, yet now healthful lunch. For more lunch insight, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/cnr_chart.pdf.

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/12/13/president-obama-signs-healthy-hunger-free-kids-act-2010-law

Urinary tract infections are painful and surprisingly common; about 11% of women get urinary tract infections every year. Urinary tract infections occur when the usually sterile urethra becomes infected with bacteria. And while this infection is cleared easily with antibiotics for most women, about 5% of patients get multiple infections in a year.

In addition to antibiotics, women have traditionally been encouraged to drink cranberry juice to prevent these infections. Cranberry juice is thought to reduce the incidence of urinary tract infections due to a compound in the juice that may make it harder for the bacteria to adhere to the urethra. However, new research is punching hole in this long-standing 'remedy.' Researchers at the University of Michigan School Of Public Health gave 319 college women who tested positive for an acute UTI either 8 ounces of 27% cranberry juice or a placebo twice a day for 6 months, or until they came back to the clinic with a second UTI, whichever came first. The researchers found that those women who drank the cranberry juice did not experience a decrease in the 6-month incidence of a second UTI, compared with those drinking a placebo.

Bottom Line: Although more research needs to be done to confirm the results of this study, it is one of the few to test this common home remedy. If you suspect a urinary tract infection, seek medical help; an untreated urinary tract infections has the potential to progress into a kidney infection.

Source: http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/1/23.full