Food & Nutrition [Volume 2, Number 3]

              June 1972 • Volume 2 • Number 3
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FOOD
FACTS
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By june R. Wyman
THE SIGN IN THE WINDOW of the
Huntington, West Virginia, area wel­fare
office said it all: "Tired of wait­ing
in line for your food stamps? See
your worker about having them
mailed to you."
That simple notice masked months
of planning, working, and finger­crossing
by the State of West Virginia
and the U.S. Department of Agricul­ture
to implement the Nation's first
statewide system for the mail issu­ance
of food stamps.
The effort has proved its worth:
the State now boasts a smoothly
functioning mailout system for food
stamps and a staggeringly low loss
rate of .08 of one percent.
On March 2-3, the West Virginia
Department of Welfare in coopera­tion
with USDA sponsored a national
workshop on the public assistance
withholding requirement of the 1971
amendments to food stamp legisla­tion.
Held in Charleston, the work­shop
demonstrated to the 27 attend­ing
State delegations the system West
Virginia uses to withhold food stamp
"purchase requirements" from public
assistance grants.
West Virginia's history of innova­tion
in the food stamp program goes
back to May 1961, when McDowell
County became the first county in
the Nation to enter the program. By
April 1968 every county in the State
had a program. A fair hearing option
for food stamp recipients who felt
they had been treated unfairly was
offered in January 1969. In July of
that year, the State merged welfare
and food stamp eligibility functions
to increase efficiency. Bank issuance
began in January 1970.
The State began to experiment
with public assistance withholding in
August 1970. This meant that any wel­fare
recipient could have the pur-
2
_,.)
chase requirement of his food stamps
deducted automatically from his wel­fare
check and receive his stamps in
the mail. About one year later, the
mailout option was offered to non­welfare
recipients.
The behind-the-scenes story is this:
After experimenting with mail issu­ance
for awhile on their own, the
State planners approached the De­partment
of Agriculture and the De­partment
of Health, Education and
Welfare. USDA had no objections,
but HEW at first questioned the wis­dom
of deducting money from a
welfare check. What if the recipient
changes his mind?
Further objections came from local
postal officials who were concerned
about security. How could $2,000,000
worth of food stamps be mailed safe­ly?
West Virginia went straight to the
top: the U.S. Postmaster General.
The State won its case, and the pres­ent
mailing system was arranged.
Why did West Virginia fight so
hard for the chance to prove that
food stamps could be mailed suc­cessfully?
As Deputy Commissioner
of Welfare Dr. John Yankey says, a
big factor was the huge number of
food stamp thefts. The State lost
$600,000 in food stamps in 1969,
more than all other States combined.
In addition, West Virginia's food
stamp caseload had increased con-siderably.
Lines were long at issuance
centers. In large counties a recipient
might have to travel 50 miles to the
issuance center at a cost of $5 to $10
a month. Banks had a problem in
storing the stamps. Mailing, it was
felt, might alleviate these difficulties.
Finally, advances in data processing
made it possible to implement a
highly automated welfare program,
which enables the central office in
Charleston to handle information on
the State's 270,000 food stamp re­cipients
with a relatively small staff.
How does mail issuance work?
Public assistance recipients can
choose one of two methods. They
can authorize the Department of
Welfare to deduct their purchase re­quirement
from the monthly welfare
check and receive the stamps from
the State office with their check; or
they can reject the withholding op­tion,
receiving the usual authoriza­tion-
to-purchase (ATP) card, and buy­ing
the stamps at either a bank or
local welfare office.
Those who select the first option
may notify the department to stop
withholding the food stamp purchase
requirement from their check up to
a half-day before their stamps are
mailed. They must, however, buy the
full food stamp allotment; the vari­able
purchase option, which enables
the recipient to buy a fraction of the
With a highly automated welfare program, West
Virginia is able to handle information on the
State's 270,000 food stamp recipients with a
relatively small staff. Here, a staff assistant
checks an IBM print-out of names and addresses.
food and nutrition
full stamp allotment, does not apply
to mailed stamps.
Recipients not on public assistance"'
can also get their stamps in the mail
by sending their ATP cards with a
certified check or money order to
the area welfare office, which mails
the stamps on the day the envelope
is received. Those eligible for free
food stamps receive the mailed
stamps directly from the State office.
Any food stamp recipient may ask
for a cash refund for his stamps;
however, the State averages only five
refunds a month. Recipients may buy
one-quarter, one-half, three-quarters,
or the full allotment of stamps at
time of purchase, provided that they
purchase the coupons in person.
Besides mail issuance, West Vir­ginia
now offers bank and local wel­fare
office issuance and plans to pilot
post offices as issuance centers this
year. Cost figures per recipient are
these: the State pays $1.44 per house­hold
for local welfare office issuance,
75 cents for bank issuance, and 45
cents for mail issuance.
The cost of mail issuance will go
down to about 37 cents, State officials
say, with the use of four new USDA
family-sized coupon books, which
contain the exact amount of coupons
allotted for households of one to four
persons. Introduced in March, these
books will go to about 57 percent of
A member of the data processing
unit of the Department of Welfare works
at the central control panel. This
is the main control unit for the main
terminal and computer operation.
june 1972
the caseload. The 8 cent cost reduc­tion
is possible because the new
books will reduce local issuance and
office mailing time and almost elim­inate
cashier errors.
The backbone of the mailout sys­tem
is the central computer in the
State welfare department at Charles­ton.
It calculates and prints all wel­fare
checks and ATP cards. It is con­nected
to small terminals in each of
the 27 area welfare offices.
Changes in any food stamp case
are transmitted on these terminals
via leased telephone wires to the
central computer in Charleston. A
terminal operator in the area office
can check any information on a food
stamp case by "asking" the Charles­ton
computer through the terminal.
Any area office can "speak" to
another area office through the cen­tral
computer. And a newly certified
recipient can receive his identifica­tion
card in a matter of minutes; his
ATP card will be printed by the com­puter
using information on his case
transmitted by the area office.
West Virginia is using this data
processing system to full advantage.
For example, a print-out of all people
in the State eligible for food stamps
is being made using tax records. Each
office will receive a listing for its
area. Before certifying someone, the
area office staff can check his name
Workshop participants watch a demon­stration
of the 2260 IBM terminal,
which enables the Department to enter
and retrieve information on food
stamp cases.
against this list. If he is not on the
list, they will know something is
wrong. , .--
Mailing of stamps is done from
two vaults in the same building that
houses the computer. Stamps are
stored in one of the vaults and hand­stuffed
from a second. Envelopes are
sorted by zip code, budget group,
and category and bagged by zip code.
Bags then go directly to the 15 re­gional
post offices. Mailing is stag­gered
and occurs on the 1st, 10th,
15th, and 20th of every month. If the
stamps are returned, the county office
is notified to check the address, and
they are remailed. If no one claims
them, the stamps go back into the
inventory. Refunds on mailed stamps
are handled on a local basis.
Out of almost $7 million sold in
food stamps every month, $2.2 mil­lion
are now mailed from the State
office. This includes both public as­sistance
withholdings and free food
stamps. Altogether in State and local
mailings, 82,834 people now get
their food stamps in the mail, which
is 32 percent of the total food stamp
caseload. Forty-seven percent of the
122,314 public assistance recipients
elect withholding.
Both USDA and State welfare offi­cials
caution that the computer can­not
work miracles, though it may
sometimes seem that way. As Dr.
3
Yankey said, "There is no foolproof
system. Whether data processing or
manual, it can be had."
On the positive side, many people
directly affected by mail issuance
have hailed the innovation as a major
improvement. It has released local
staff somewhat from the burden of
issuance, freeing them to perform
more services for the client (such as
regular recertification). Clients no
longer have to wait on long lines to
buy stamps or go to the bank to cash
a welfare check before buying them.
They do not have to spend money for
transportation to the issuance office.
Food stamp workers also endorse
the withholding-mailout system. Said
the Kanawha County office super­visor:
"I'd much rather do it this
way." And an eligibility specialist in
the Huntington area office said that
most people she had talked to read­ily
accept the idea.
Delegates to the recent Charleston
workshop, however, did have some
reservations about mail issuance. A
common one was voiced by USDA's
Vernon Morgan, who said that "there
are going to be some areas where
mailing stamps is just not possible
because of previous experience with
thefts of welfare checks or food
stamps." An Illinois representative
pointed out that her State mails food
stamps in every area except Chicago,
where officials are afraid of a high
loss rate through mail theft. Dele­gates
from the District of Columbia
felt the same way. A Tennessee rep­resentative
said that the State had
successfully mailed stamps in the
urban area of Memphis by staggering
the mailings and avoiding too much
publicity. But many wondered whe­ther
West Virginia's loss rate would
remain low if the State had more
urban areas.
Other misgivings centered on fi­nancing
the system. A District of
Columbia delegate said that his de­partment,
lacking West Virginia's
equipment, would have to pay some­one
else to do the mailing. Many had
qualms about the cost of the data
processing system. Donald Roberts,
head of West Virginia's food stamp
program, admitted that the costs were
considerable, but said that the system
pays for itself. *
4
~·.
Post
Offices
Sell
Food
Stamps
"LET'S DO IT."
With those words from Western
Regional Postmaster General Fred
Huleen last fall, the United States
Postal Service was launched into the
business of issuing food stamps. On
October 12, 33 post offices in the
Seattle area began selling this "other
kind of stamp" to participants in the
Department of Agriculture's Food
Stamp Program.
It was to have been a 6 months'
pilot project. But the service proved
so popular and convenient for food
stamp users and so advantageous for
Federal, State and local governments
that it mushroomed quickly through­out
the State of Washington. By
April 1972, Washington had 124 post
office food stamp outlets, California
37, and Idaho two.
Fresno County, California, began
post office sales at 36 locations April
1. A few days later, Food and Nutri­tion
Service Fresno officer-in-charge
Howard Bradshaw made a personal
check of food stamp customers' reac­tions
to the new service. He talked
informally with food stamp pur­chasers
at a Fresno city post office.
"I think the post office is very recep­tive
to food stamp customers," one
man told Bradshaw as he finished his
purchase. Along with courteous treat­ment,
food stamp buyers liked the
speed with which postal clerks
handled the transactions. "I'm really
happy with their efficiency," a cus­tomer
informed Bradshaw, and
another added it took her only 2
minutes to buy her stamps.
By April, the Postal Service was in
at least discussion stage with State or
county welfare agencies for addi­tional
locations in the four States
which already have post office out­lets,
and in Alaska and Utah.
The interest that spurred this rapid
growth developed from contacts
with State welfare agencies by the
Postal Service's western regional
office and the Food and Nutrition
food and nutrition
The Postal Service is establishing
the concept of " all services at all
windows." Food stamp and postage
stamp customers share the same line
(right). A clerk (below) readies
the postage stamps and food coupons.
Service regional office. The response
has kept Tom Hart of the Postal Serv­ice's
regional retail division on an al­most
continuous circuit of explora­tory
meetings with State and county
welfare officials.
Hart explains, "We offer a supple­mental
service in the community in­terest.
We're not interested in com­peting
with established food stamp
outlets such as banks, and particu­larly
anti-poverty or community or­ganizations.
But where there's a need
for more outlets, we think we can
help."
A State or county that is interested
in post office issuance can let the
Postal Service know through the local
postmaster or district office. The
western regional office is then in­formed,
and Tom Hart is off to Hono­lulu,
Anchorage, Los Angeles, or
Fresno to explain what the Postal
Service can do.
If, as is happening as a result of
many of these meetings, agreement
june 1972
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and a contract between the Postal
Service and the welfare agency are
concluded, postal officials are frank
to admit there are benefits to post
offices no less than to food stamp
program participants.
Henry Riecks, western regional di­rector
of the Postal Service's retail
division, says, "Post offices are busiest
in the early morning and late after­noon.
So we can pattern our food
stamp sales hours to the banks and
other outlets and increase our clerks'
utility and capability. We can already
meet USDA's security requirements
in most offices and the procedures
are relatively easy to set up."
The Postal Service is establishing
the concept of "all services at all
windows." There are no separate
lines for food stamp customers, un­less
it's more convenient and faster
for them. Postmasters in some offices
have set up express-type lines-a
single line with each person going to
the next available window in turn.
All food stamp sales-·outlets charge
the State or county welfare agency a
fee for transactions. "Our price is
arrived at in terms of direct expense
to the Postal Service," says Hart. In
California, as determined by the
Regional Postmaster General, this
ranges between 80 and 85 cents per
transaction.
"Remember, the Postal Service is
now an independent Government
agency," he explains."But we certain­ly
don't look at food stamp sales in
terms of the money they will make
for us. It's a community service."
The Postal Service is aggressively
looking for commun ity services to
perform. In addition to selling food
stamps, they now sell license plates
for the State of Alaska, and are look­ing
into many other possibilities­having
postmasters serve as notaries
public, handling voter registration,
taking passport applications, even
providing facsimile transmission serv­ice.
According to Regional Postmaster
General Huleen, "Our policy is es­sentially
to provide service to public
agencies where we can do it and re­ceive
direct costs. We don't intend
to go into competition with private
business."
The Postal Service has its eye on
July 4, 1976-not only as the 200th
anniversary of American independ­ence,
but as a sort of Postal Service
Independence Day. That, according
to Riecks, is the date by which the
Postal Service hopes to be self-suffi­cient-
to be paying its own way. In­creased
utilization of post office facil­ities
and people during slack parts of
the day is the key. By 1976, a lot of
food stamp program participants will
have helped the Postal Service reach
its goal. Thousands in the far west
already have. The 33 post offices in
Seattle alone are handling about 6,000
food stamp transactions a month.
As for community needs, Henry
Riecks says, "We're proud of the way
the western postal region has re­sponded
to the needs of communi­ties
as they are today, not 20 years
ago. Once the Regional Postmaster
General gave the go-ahead, we were
in the food stamp business in a mat­ter
of a few weeks." *:
5
Reaching levels 20 to 30
feet high, flood waters up­rooted
homes, cars, and
other belongings and depos­ited
them along the banks
of the creek. National
guardsmen (right) clean up
the wreckage from a house
that was sliced in half
as it was washed onto a
railroad trestle.
Meals prepared with USDA­donated
foods were provided
to flood victims at three
local schools. At the
Man High School cafeteria
(below right), they are
served breakfast. Man High
School was also used for the
emergency issuance of free
food stamps. A young woman
(below left) signs for her
stamps in the school library.
feeding Rrograms aid
floOd victims
6
By Werner C. Hietsch
IT WAS SHORTLY after 8 o'clock
Saturday morning, February 26, after
3 days of heavy rain that the huge
coal-slag dam at the head of Buffalo
Creek Hollow in Logan County, West
Virginia, burst its seams. About 17.5
million gallons of water plunged into
food and nutrition
the 17-mile valley, leaving more than
100 people dead, injuring 1,100,
demolishing 756 homes and 186
trailers, and damaging another 610
homes in its wake.
Within just a few hours various
disaster relief organizations sprung
into action.
This included the Food and Nutri­tion
Service, whose Frank deMartino
was on the scene that Saturday after­noon
making arrangements to have
federally donated foods shipped to
disaster feeding sites from the com­modity
warehouse in nearby Logan.
DeMartino, a resident of William­son,
W. Va., was unable to get home
Friday night because floods caused
by the rains had made many roads
impassable. He heard of the disaster
on the radio in his Charleston,
W. Va., motel room 90 miles away.
On his way to the Buffalo Creek
area, he listened to more news re­ports
telling of the devastation that
took place in the narrow valley in
which 16 mining towns are nestled.
A murky wall of water, about 20
to 30 feet high, raged through these
communities carrying with it numer­ous
homes, trailers and cars, and de­positing
them against washed-out
bridges and along the banks of the
muddy creek. Four of the towns near­est
the dam, Latrobe, Lorado, Lun­dale
and Robinette, were completely
swept away by the deluge.
Once the water receded, a thick
black covering of silt and slime lined
the entire valley floor. The black high
water mark was clearly evident on
the homes that were not uprooted.
Red Cross and Salvation Army dis­aster
teams quickly set up rescue
headquarters in the small town of
Man, situated at the junction of Buf­falo
Creek and the Guyandat River.
Over the weekend foodstuffs
poured into the disaster area from
local merchants and the flood vic­tims'
more fortunate neighbors. Four­teen
USDA-donated foods were
available almost immediately. These
included boned chicken, frozen pork,
processed cheese, apple sauce, but­ter,
flour, dried milk, shortening,
beans, salad oil, peanut butter, and
fresh pears, apples and peaches.
The foods, transported in National
Guard, Red Cross, and Salvation
june 1972
Army vehicles, went to three schools
as well as seven mobile canteens.
During the emergency an average
of 2,000 flood victims were served
three meals a day prepared with
USDA foods in the cafeterias at Man
High School, South Man Grade
School and Amherstdale Grade
School. Approximately 10,415 pounds
of donated foods were provided from
the Logan warehouse during the first
2 weeks following the disaster.
In addition, eight cases of sweet­potatoes,
seven cases of tomato
paste, and five cases of pineapples,
which USDA had provided to the
Man High School and South Man
Grade School for use in their Na­tional
School Lunch Programs, were
also utilized.
Because the Amherstdale School
was without power for several days
after the flood, it was impossible to
serve hot meals there. As a result,
the boned chicken, served cold, was
extremely welcomed.
Since West Virginia participates ex­clusively
in the food stamp program,
flood victims made use of USDA
commodities by eating the prepared
meals served at the emergency feed­ing
sites.
USDA authorized the emergency
issuance of free food stamps for
those who were able to prepare their
own food at home but lacked the
money to buy it. The Department
could do this under the authority of
the Disaster Rei ief Act of 1970.
Arrangements for the speedy issu­ance
of coupons was made by Ray
Artz, the USDA Food Stamp Program
District Manager for western Pennsyl­vania
and West Virginia. On Monday
morning he made sure that enough
stores authorized by USDA to accept
food stamps were stocked with ample
food supplies to serve customers.
USDA's official announcement
authorizing the emergency issuance
could then follow.
The certification and issuance was
handled by the West Virginia Depart­ment
of Welfare at the Man High
School library as well as at their
Logan office. The Red Cross also ac­cepted
applications at the latter loca­tion.
In order to expedite the process,
flood victims used a simplified appli -
cation form, which affirmed that they
suffered a significant economic loss
as a result of the flood, and that they
had cooking facilities with which they
could prepare meals.
Under normal circumstances food
stamp participants are required to
purchase their coupons for a sum of
money much less than the actual face
value of the coupons, the purchase
price being determined by national
eligibility standards. Due to the
emergency, however, these coupons
were provided by USDA free of
charge. The monthly allotment of
coupons was the same as that given
to all food stamp participants.
Altogether, approximately 1,600
households consisting of 6,500 per­sons
received coupons valued at
$165,000.
Although the emergency issuance
was in effect for only one month,
persons suffering prolonged hardship
could still benefit from food stamps
through the regular certification proc­ess.
The success of the emergency re­lief
operations is due to the coop­erative
efforts of numerous private
organizations, the Federal Govern­ment,
West Virginia agencies, espe­cially
its Department of Welfare, and
the hundreds of local residents who
volunteered their services. '{::{
7
FOOD HAS BEEN GIVEN a new
place of importance in the cur­riculum
at the Metz Elementary
School in Westminster, Colorado.
Art classes use foods in their projects.
Math classes figure food costs. Sci­ence
classes study vitamins and food
preservation and run tests to deter­mine
the sugar, starch, fat and pro­tein
content of various foods. And
first graders whip up potato soup
while discussing the "basic four"
food groups.
The idea originated last summer
when the school's food service direc­tor,
Margaret Cunningham, attended
a school lunch workshop at Kansas
State University, which was spon­sored
by KSU and the Food and Nu­trition
Service. Each of the workshop
participants went home with the as­signment
to develop a nutrition edu­cation
project.
Mrs. Cunningham began by con­tacting
Mary Lou Zarlengo, who had
just been appointed principal of
Metz Elementary. " Mary Lou has al­ways
had an interest in nutrition,"
said the food service director, "and
I knew she would be ideal to give
this education idea a try."
Peggy McReynolds, school lunch
consultant with the Colorado Depart­ment
of Education, agreed to serve
as a resource person. She spent sev­eral
hours with the faculty and lunch­room
personnel developing ideas on
how to include food information in
the curriculum.
Teachers responded enthusiastically
and by the time the school had Open
8
FOOD FACTS CAl
Making tacos (right) is
a part of the food
education program at a
Westminster, Colo ., el­ementary
school. Stu­dents
plan a nutritious
meal (below) by placing
cut-out photographs
they have selected on
a paper plate. On the
cover Westminster first
graders make potato
soup and learn how it
co ntributes to daily
dietary needs.
food and nutrition
In BE FUn
iune 1972
House in mid-November, results of
the "food learning" project were evi­dent
everywhere. Posters and proj­ects
pertaining to food filled most of
the classrooms. Even the library had
place settings at a dining table where
books relating to food were dis­played.
A third grade math class developed
a country store atmosphere with
empty cans of vegetables and milk
cartons brought from home, and stu­dents
used play money to buy basic
foods needed for a well-balanced
meal.
One mother who missed the Open
House approached Miss Zarlengo at
a Parent-Teacher Association meeting
the following month with, "Just what
are you doing in school? My child
has been telling me the wildest
things about food."
Her son had soundly defended his
after-school snack of a peanut but­ter
and jelly sandwich by describing
all its nutritional benefits.
The school has utilized this tech­nique
to encourage children to ac­cept
foods that are not familiar to
them. For instance, dumplings, which
were new to almost all of the chil­dren,
were the featured discussion in
class the day before chicken with
dumplings was scheduled to be
served in the cafeteria. The children
learned how dumplings were made
and their different uses-with
chicken as a main course, for ex­ample,
or with apples as a dessert.
Then they watched the cafeteria staff
prepare the dumplings. After the
meal the cafeteria manager reported
good acceptance of the new food .
Recognizing that examples are im­portant
teaching tools, one of the
teachers arranged to have fashion
models speak to the students about
how important a good diet is to them.
One class even asked a local health
food store to supply a speaker.
Several of the classes have had
tasting parties to sample new foods,
such as pomegranates and beets.
Mrs. Cunningham has explained to
the local PTA that the program can
be a definite aid to teachers and food
service personnel as well as to chil-dren.
" It helps answer the question
of why we have to serve certain foods
the children generally don't like." To
introduce the idea to school lunch
managers of other Westminster
schools, workshops have been held
on a volunteer basis.
The highlight of the project has
been meals . prepared by the children
and served to their parents. First and
second graders made breakfast, third
and fourth graders undertook lunch,
and the fifth and sixth grade classes
prepared dinner.
Miss Zarlengo credits her food
service personnel with a big share of
the success of the program. "They
even let the children help them pre­pare
the food," she pointed out.
Many parents have taken an inter­est
in the project and have been in ­vited
to attend the workshop ses­sions.
As one mother, who has been
an active participant said, "Many
children will never be taught about
nutrition unless it is taught in school.
All you need to do is observe the
shopping in the supermarkets to
realize how very little many people
know or think about their daily diet."
Another mother said, "I think the
program is terrific. My child is eating
breakfast for the first time in his life."
The effect of the nutrition project
shows up in the increased number of
children eating lunch at school. From
35 to SO more students at Metz Ele­mentary
are eating the "Type A"
lunch each day. 1::f
WHEN ROBERT CARRIER
introduces his fourth and
fifth graders to nutrition,
he first asks the young­sters
what they had for breakfast that
morning.
Some enthusiastically reply, "Eggs,
juice, toast and milk."
Others answer, "A bowl of cereal
with milk."
Another group shyly says,
"Nothing."
The last response is one of the
prime reasons why Carrier presents a
nutrition unit to his students in the
Taylor, Michigan, school district. Like
9
many teachers, he knows that chil­dren
need a good breakfast to start
the day right.
At the beginning of the unit, his
students list just what they had for
breakfast that day. He relates the
various breakfasts to the basic four
food groups which include milk and
dairy products; meat, poultry, fish,
and eggs; fruits and vegetables; and
bread and cereals. After pointing
these out, he stresses the fact that
everyone needs foods from each
group to get a balanced diet every
day.
Investigative reports are then as­signed
on such topics as vitamins,
minerals, digestion, food in space,
and dental health. Students research
their topics and gather information
from sources such as encyclopedias,
magazines, and educational publica­tions
from various food trade asso­ciations.
As panels of youngsters present
their reports orally, Carrier ties in re-
10
lated films and guest speakers such
as a local dentist, doctor, and the
school dietitian.
The school dietitian reinforces the
importance of a balanced diet. She
explains menus she plans for lunches
served at the school under the Na­tional
School Lunch Program.
As the nutrition unit progresses,
Carrier introduces a number of ac­tivities
which he created to stress the
value of good nutrition. One of these
is a card game called "Bottle, Bottle,
Who's Got the Bottle." Played sim­ilarly
to Old Maid, the game tells the
story of milk from its very beginning
through its delivery to the store or
home.
"Milk Run" is another Carrier crea­tion.
It is a game which presents the
following concepts: the origin of
milk, how it gets to you, the various
milk products, people involved in
the processing of milk products, plus
several safety principles.
A third activity is a song with words
This child is looking at a filmstrip on
food and nutrition. She takes notes on it
in preparation for a report to the class.
and music by Carrier. It is entitled,
"What Do All Mothers Give?" The
answer is milk.
" Children learn by doing," he ex­plains.
"It is evident that activities
requiring student involvement gen­erate
the most interest, excitement
and motivation. This confirms our
class motto: " I hear, I forget; I see, I
remember; I do, I understand."
To reinforce this motto, the stu­dents
plan, prepare, and serve a
breakfast in the classroom.
The initial step is for the students
to agree upon a breakfast menu
based on the basic four food groups.
A recent one; consisted of orange
juice, scrambled eggs, sausage, and
muffins with butter and milk. The
class is then divided into four sec­tions
each assigned to provide food
from one food group. Other respon­sibilities
such as room decorators, ap­pliance
contributors, cook's helpers,
waiters and "cleaner-uppers" are also
decided upon at this time.
"When breakfast day arrives, every­thing
is well organized to 'plug-in'
for action," Carrier explains. " If
someone forgets something, the
school lunch cooks help out.
"Sometimes it gets to be quite a
circus, but it really is worth the ef­fort.
For some children, eating a
complete, adequate breakfast is a
new venture. In addition, the class is
actually doing what it previously had
studied and discussed."
Carrier's nutrition unit does not
end as soon as the breakfast dishes
are done. He follows up with an eval­uation
in which each student com­pares
his breakfast habits at the be­ginning
of the unit with those learned
and performed throughout the unit.
Themes are assigned on the basis of
individual experiences. Students also
draw pictures of what they have
learned. This approach helps review
nutrition concepts and allows the in­structor
to determine what has been
"digested."
Carrier believes that if nutrition
concepts were learned by students,
and their behavior was changed, it is
unlikely that any single learning ex­perience
was responsible. Rather, it
is a culmination of a variety of learn­ing
experiences that require student
involvement. -{;:{
food and nutrition
Advisory Council Reports on
Child Nutrition Programs
ON MARCH 7, 1972, IN the Oval
Room of the White House, the Na­tional
Advisory Council on Child Nu­trition
presented its first annual re­port
to the President, recommending
more emphasis on nutrition educa­tion
and the expansion of the child
nutrition programs to schools now
without any food service.
The National Advisory Council on
Child Nutrition was authorized by
Public Law 91-248 "to make a contin­uing
study of the operation of pro­grams
carried out under the National
School Lunch Act, the Child Nutrition
Act of 1966, and any related Act un­der
which meals are provided for
children, with a view to determining
how such programs may be im­proved."
Appointed by the Secretary of Ag­riculture
in February 1971 and
chaired by Assistant Secretary of Ag­riculture
Richard Lyng, the 13-mem­ber
Council includes nine members
from various fields of experience re­lated
to child nutrition and three
representatives from the Department
of Agriculture.
Following a year's review of the
Food and Nutrition Service's child
nutrition programs, the Council made
five major recommendations:
1. Nutrition Education
Greater emphasis should be given
to nutrition education through the
child nutrition programs, through
classroom instruction, and through
innovative means outside the class­room
to help close the gap in public
knowledge about nutrition.
Although the role of the National
School Lunch Program as a labora­tory
for nutrition education has long
been recognized, nutrition education
has not had the continued attention
or funding needed to make it avail­able
on a continuing basis to all
schoolchildren. It has become a for­gotten
part of the curriculum in many
schools, with teachers reluctant to in-june
1972
elude it in their teaching plans, often
because of their own lack of training
in nutrition and the demands of other
subjects. In addition, the funding and
emphasis given to other subjects has
not been provided for nutrition edu­cation.
The changes in American food
practices also point up the need for
nutrition education. People must
learn about the nutritional content of
the increasing number of manufac­tured
foods and synthetic nutrients
that are on the market. The problem
of inadequate knowledge is shown in
the Preliminary Report on the Ten­State
Nutrition Survey in the United
States, dated April1971 , which points
out that many Americans are suffer­ing
from nutritional deficiencies. As
a result of these factors, the Council
recommends that:
• Nutrition education should re­ceive
greater priority both at the ele­mentary
and secondary education
levels and should be included as a
curriculum component at all grade
levels.
• Means should be explored to
bring nutrition education to adults
and very young children through tele­vision,
children's books, adult edu­cation,
and other means.
• USDA should work more closely
with the Office of Education to en­courage
nutrition education in both
the classroom and the lunchroom.
• At the State level the State De­partments
of Education should pro­vide
nutrition education specialists to
coordinate food service programs and
educational programs, and they
should show in their State Plans of
Child Nutrition Operations specific­ally
how this coordination will be
accomplished.
• Nutrition education should be
a requirement for certification of all
teachers and should be made avail­able
as inservice training to teachers.
Federal funding, in the form of grants
to colleges and institutions and
scholarships for teachers and would­be
teachers, should be made avail­able
to assist in providing such train­ing.
• USDA should develop the new
nutrition center at the National Ag­ricultural
Library with a view toward
making the center a usable and effec­tive
resource for practical nutrition
education and for the development
of instructional materials.
• The food industry should foster
nutrition education through adver­tising,
promotional materials and
labeling practices which supplement
educational programs and define the
nutritional content of the foods pro­vided
under existing regulations of
local, State and Federal Governments.
2. Reaching Schools Without
Programs
USDA and the State Departments
of Education should continue to con­centrate
on extending child nutrition
programs to schools so that within 3
years all schools needing a school
lunch or breakfast program will be
participating and all schoolchildren
from low-income families will have
access to free and reduced-price
meals.
Despite the commendable expan­sion
of the National School Lunch
Program during the 25 years of its
existence-the percentage of schools
participating has increased from 24
percent to 68 percent of the total
schools in the United States, Puerto
Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and Amer­ican
Samoa, and 82 percent of the
total number of children enrolled in
schools currently attend schools of­fering
the program-many children
do not have access to any food serv­ice
at school. Results of an October
1971 survey show that approximately
18,000 schools with an enrollment of
over 5.5 million children are in this
category. The tragedy is that a sub­stantial
number of needy children,
perhaps over a million, cannot ob-
11
The Advisory Council submitted its first ann ual report to President Nixon March 7. Shown here at the White House are, left to right:
Edward /. Hekman, FNS Administrator; Dr. john F. Murphy, President, Swift Food Service Co., La Grange, Illinois; Mrs. Roger Whit­comb,
School Board Member, Wichita, Kansas; Miss josephine Martin, Georgia State School Lunch Director (pa rtly hidden); Miss Jacque­line
johnson, Administrator, Program Resources and Medical Service, Odyssey House, New York City; Assistant Secretary Lyng; Presi­dent
Nixon; Dr. Ruth Huenemann, Professor of Public Health Nutrition, University of California; Secretary of Agriculture Ealr L. Butz,
Edward Schwartzkopf, School Administrator, Lincoln, Nebraska ; Cola D. Watson, Director, Vocation-Technical Education , Vermont De­partment
of Education ; Russell H. james, FNS Southeast Regional Administrator; Dr. Dale Parnell, Superintendent of Public Instruction
in Oregon; Herbert D. Rorex, Child Nutrition Division Director (Msgr. Bennett Applegate of Columbus, Ohio, was not present.)
tain free and reduced-price meals
because they attend these schools.
The Council feels that although
Public Law 91-248, enacted in May
1970, recognized this problem and
provided specific means to resolve it,
improvements are needed. Spe­cifically,
not enough Nonfood Assis­tance
funds are being used to reach
needy schools currently without food
service; the State Plans of Child Nu­trition
Operations show insufficient
resolve to reach nonparticipating
schools; and the advance funding
provisions have not yet been imple­mented.
In view of these facts, the National
Advisory Council recommends that:
• In line with the new regulations
issued by USDA in November 1971
on Nonfood Assistance funds, the
Department of Agriculture and the
State Departments of Education
should concentrate the use of these
funds in schools which currently of­fer
no food service and give priority
to those which have the most needy
students.
• The States should set more
realistic expansion targets in their
State plans and concentrate on reach­ing
the neediest schools first, so that
within 3 years, all schools needing a
12
school lunch or school breakfast pro­gram
will be participating.
• In connection with the two
recommendations above, more accur­ate
data should be developed on the
number of needy children and their
location in terms of the schools they
attend and whether or not these
schools offer food service.
• The Department of Agriculture
and State and local officials should
continue to explore how new foods
and approaches can assist in reaching
nonparticipating schools, including
those where constructing kitchen
facilities is not a viable alternative.
• USDA and State and local offi­cials
should further emphasize the
need for schools receiving Federal
assistance for their food service pro­grams
to reach all attending eligible
children with free and reduced-price
meals.
• The provisions of Public Law
91-248 authorizing advance funding
should be implemented.
3. Upgrading School Food Service
Personnel
USDA should provide leadership
and coordination with State Depart­ments
of Education and professional
grtJups to upgrade school food serv-ice
personnel by developing suitable
staffing patterns and qualifications
and by further encouraging training
institutions to provide suitable school
food service training.
It has been obvious for some time
that food service supervisors and
workers in the Child Nutrition Pro­grams
are underpaid, undertrained,
and especially in the case of super­visors,
understaffed. The following
facts, as reported in the recently re­leased
School Food Service and Nu­trition
Education volume of the Na­tional
Educational Finance Project,
illustrate this situation:
• A 1968-69 Bureau of Labor Sta­tistics
survey showed the following
average hourly earnings for certain
categories of school employees:
School food service, $1.68 ; custodial,
$2.28; office, $2.37; skilled mainte­nance,
$3.44; bus drivers, $2.62; and
all employees $2.24.
• The October 1969 NEA Research
Bulletin contains a comparison of
salaries paid to professional em­ployees
which shows that persons in­volved
in food service administration
received the lowest pay of all school
administrators and second lowest in­crease
in salary over a 6-year period.
• A survey conducted by the Joint
food and nutrition
Committee of USDA and Land Grant
Colleges on Education for Govern­ment
Service showed that in the ten
States surveyed, 40 percent of the
56,366 persons involved in school
food service work did not have a
high school diploma and only 2 per­cent
had college degrees.
• The School Food Service and
Nutrition Education section con­cludes
that there is a supervisory per­sonnel
gap at the State and system
levels for school food service of at
least well over 5,000 positions be­tween
the actual number of trained
supervisors now available and the
number needed.
The situation is slowly changing
for the better. Food service workers
are now covered by Federal minimum
wage laws; colleges and vocational
education institutions are showing
more interest in food service training;
and money is now available and be­ing
used under Pub! ic Law 91-248 for
"nutritional training and education
for workers, cooperators and par­ticipants"
in the Child Nutrition Pro­grams.
However, the rate of change
is not fast enough, especially since
well-trained, adequately paid and
motivated workers must be available
if the Child Nutrition Programs are
to increase their current relatively low
rate of student participation.
Well-trained workers are needed
not only to improve the quality of
school meals but also to operate
lunch programs efficiently. Achieving
these goals leads in turn to increased
student participation.
The Council therefore recommends
that USDA provide the necessary
leadership and that the following
specific actions be carried out in co­operation
with professional organiza­tions
and interested Federal and State
agencies:
• The competencies required for
food service work should be deter­mined.
• Standards and qualifications for
personnel involved in food service
work should be established.
• Curricula for both pre-service
and inservice training of school food
service personnel should be devel­oped.
• Funds that can be used for train­ing
school food service personnel
june 1972
should be identified and used, with
particular attention to State and Fed­eral
funds available for vocational ed­ucation
and manpower training.
• Community colleges, universi­ties,
and other training institutions
should be further encouraged to pro­vide
suitable training for school food
service personnel.
• Manuals on school food service
operations should be available in all
programs.
4. Revising Nutritional Standards
for Child Nutrition Programs
The Council endorses USDA's pilot
program on providing alternative nu­tritional
standards for the Child Nu­trition
Programs based on nutrient
values.
As a prerequisite for participation
in the Child Nutrition Programs,
schools and service institutions must
agree to serve meals which meet cer­tain
nutritional standards as set forth
by the Department of Agriculture.
The Type A pattern, the best-known
standard for the National School
Lunch Program, was basically set up
to enable all foool service personnel,
regardless of their training or lack of
it, to easily understand the Federal
requirements.
The pattern also reflects the fact
that, until recently, most schools and
service institutions prepared most
components of meals themselves and
primarily by using non-processed
foods. This situation is changing in
two ways. First, the gradual upgrad­ing
in the training and qualifications
of food service personnel has resulted
in workers with a more sophisticated
understanding of nutrition and foods.
Secondly, technological advances are
resulting in schools and service in­stitutions
using more convenience
foods and "new" food products
which provide nutrients at lower
costs than traditional sources, e.g.,
textured vegetable protein products.
As a result of these new develop­ments,
the Department is engaged in
a pilot study to provide alternative
meal standards, based primarily on
the nutrient values of food. The Na­tional
Advisory Council endorses this
action. The Council takes this posi­tion
in the belief that a nutrient ap­proach
will be more flexible and
adaptable to regional, ethnic, and age
preferences, that it will more readily
permit the use of new and experi­mental
foods.
Lastly, the Council recommends
that in revising the nutritional stand­ards,
USDA should reconsider per­mitting
the use of lowfat milk on a
student choice basis, particularly
among weight-conscious teenagers.
5. Implementing Advance
Funding Authority
The advance funding authority con­tained
in Public Law 91-248 should
be implemented so that USDA's Child
Nutrition Programs appropriations re­quests
can be submitted to Congress
one year in advance of the year in
which the funds will be available.
The Council believes advance fund­ing
is needed to provide the State
and local officials with a firmer base
for long-range planning and expan­sion
efforts.
Because of the tight money situ­ation
affecting most State and local
Governments, funding problems are
given higher priority than planning.
The Council also urges the Admin­istration
to announce changes in the
rules and regulations regarding the
use of such funds well in advance of
the school year to permit orderly re­action
and adjustment to the changes.
Activities of the Council
The Council held three meetings
during the year in Washington, D.C.,
and conducted on-site reviews of
school lunch and summer feeding
program operations. Members gave
detailed consideration to program
operations leading to the recommen­dations
which USDA is acting upon
concerning such things as the devel­opment
of a uniform school food
service accounting manual and a
comprehensive survey of the number
of schools without food service.
The Council reviewed proposed
amendments to the National School
Lunch Program and School Breakfast
Program regulations. Representatives
of the Council also participated in
meetings of Federal, State and local
child nutrition officials on State Plans
of Child Nutrition Operations and
summer operations under the Special
Food Service Program for Children.'*
13
Meals on Wheels:
not
__ just
~
By june R. Wyman
14
ONE IN EVERY TEN Americans is
elderly. That means 20 million peo­ple,
many of whom are not eating
well. At worst, they may have serious
nutritional deficiencies.
For some, the answer is low-cost.
central feeding facilities specifically
for the aged. But when the elderly
can't get to the feeding center, the
meals must go to them. That's what
"meals on wheels" is all about.
"Meals on wheels" is the common
name for any program which delivers
prepared meals to the elderly or in-capacitated.
Programs vary from
sophisticated catered operations with
paid workers to rudimentary pro­grams
with volunteer drivers and
cooks working in church basements;
most are nonprofit and low-cost. All
serve a vital need, one that grows
more pressing every year as our
rapidly increasing older population
faces rising costs for nursing homes
and home care.
Congress recognized that need
when it recently mandated a national
elderly feeding program. And it real-food
and nutrition
ized the problem in last year's food
stamp reforms, which specified that
food stamps may now be used by the
elderly for meals that are delivered
by groups authorized by the Food
and Nutrition Service to accept food
stamps.
The amendment was welcomed
both by meals on wheels organiza­tions
and ·by the elderly themselves.
For many of the elderly, it could
mean the difference between salami
sandwiches and balanced hot meals.
For example, a West Virginia area
welfare administrator said that many
older people in his district had with­drawn
from the food stamp program
because they could not use stamps to
purchase delivered meals. And even
before the regulations implementing
the amendment were finalized, FNS
field offices began receiving inquiries
from local meal delivery services ask­ing
when they could apply for
authorization.
One reason for this eagerness may
be that more than the food needs of
the aging is involved. The Lutheran
Society of Western Pennsylvania,
which operates several programs, ex­plains:
" The physical response is dramatic
as people receive regular, carefully
balanced meals; but the emotional
response is even more dramatic as
lonely people realize that others do
care for them. In many cases, the
daily visit from the meals on wheels
volunteer is the only contact these
people have with the world outside
their rooms."
Even when the aid is not so dra­matic,
it goes beyond improved nu­trition.
Volunteers at the Trinity Luth­eran
Church in Wheeling, W. Va.,
help out with seemingly small things
which become vastly important to a
shut-in, such as reading letters and
threading needles.
Perhaps most significantly, meals
on wheels often means being able to
continue to live independently in
one's own home.
Trinity Lutheran Church was one
of the first two meals on wheels pro­grams
in the Nation to accept food
stamps. Serving Ohio County, the
program is an affiliate of the Lutheran
Service Society of Western Pennsyl­vania.
The church started deliveries
june 1972
in November 1971 and began accept­ing
food stamps in January 1972.
With the number growing every day,
the program now serves 48 people
between the ages of 60 and 88. De­liveries
are made once a day each
weekday, providing each person with
one cold meal and one hot meal,
which arrives heated. On weekends
the elderly must fend for themselves.
The charge for the service is $7.50
a week. Recipients who are getting
food stamps or cannot afford the full
price pay $6.50. The church provides
free meals to recipients who are un­able
to pay anything. Trinity Lutheran
depends solely on donations from
churches; they do not use USDA­donated
foods because the closest
warehouse is too far away.
Each recipient must be certified by
the welfare department to receive
meals on wheels. Food stamp recipi­ents
must be certified separately for
their stamps. Most are allotted about
$30 a month in stamps; $26 of this
goes for their delivered meals, which
leaves $4 for weekends. Food stamps
may be used for either delivered
meals or groceries.
Trinity's staff includes a full-time
cook-the only paid employee-and
50 volunteers, who are certified by
the health department to handle
food. The volunteers work at various
times during the week. Some of them
are retired persons, who seem to find
that working with the church " helps
to fill a void in their lives," said the
program chairman, Flora Bell. Others
are mothers, who frequently take
their children along, since the elderly
seem to enjoy them. Sometimes they
bring special treats which they have
made at home, like pumpkin pie.
Extra assistance comes from local col­lege
students, who help out during
vacations.
Everything is done the same day:
cooking, heating, and delivery. Diets
are altered for diabetics, those on
low-salt plans, and others with spe­cial
nutritional needs. For example,
recipients who can't tolerate fish get
other protein foods, and those with
stomach ulcers who can't eat rough­age,
get softer foods. De-caffeinated
coffee is served to everyone.
Usually two volunteers use their
own cars on each of four routes.
While they are in the recipients'
homes, they are restricted in what
they are allowed to do. For instance,
they may look up phone numbers
and write them. They may open con­tainers,
but they may not clean, touch
the food, or give advice. They may
not sit down because, it is felt, it
might be difficult for them to leave.
According to Dale Mann, who is
the group's vice chairman and direc­tor
of referral services, the caseload
is heaviest during the winter. A State
employee trained to work with the
elderly, he takes recommendations
from social service agencies (doctors,
hospitals, welfare agencies, church
charities) , refers them to Trinity, and
processes applications.
Some of those involved in the Trin­ity
program feel that their area is one
of the easier ones to serve. As Mrs.
Beth Ann Gast said, "It's easier to do
this in a small community because
word spreads faster; it starts to build
up by word of mouth." And Mrs.
Joan Green thought that " the hardest
route to drive is the city ... yet that
is where the most desperate need is."
Dr. Louise B. Gerrard, Executive
Director of the West Virginia Com­mission
on Aging, points out that
meals on wheels is still generally lim­ited
to metropolitan areas. " In gen­eral
," she says, " it's still a neighbor
feeding a neighbor."
Dr. Gerrard says that she has her­self
walked through isolated rural
hollows such as the site of the recent
flood disaster at Buffalo Creek,
W. Va., where she found some peo­ple
living on roads passable only part
of the year and 2 hours away from
the nearest hospital. Their children
had moved away; " that's the pattern
around here," she says. She met
fiercely proud mountaineers so feeble
from malnutrition they could hardly
function; yet they'd rather die than
ask for help. One woman said: "On
my little bit of money, I buy what I
know will fill me first. Then if I have
any money left, I buy what I know
I ought to eat."
Dr. Gerrard and others who spend
their days dealing with the elderly's
overwhelming problems realize that
delivering meals is only the begin­ning,
but the need for this program
has been clearly established. *
15
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
DIVISION OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS, WASHINGTON, D. C. 20402
POSTAGE riJ
OFFICIAL BUSINESS.
PENALTY FOR PRIVATE USE, $300
EARL L. BUTZ
Secretary of Agriculture
RICHARD LYNG
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture
EDWARD j. HEKMAN
Administrator
Food and Nutrition Service
BONNIE W. POLK, Editor
JANICE A. KERN, Assistant Editor
MARCIA B. EDDINS, Art Director
FOOD AND NUTRITION is published
bimonthly by the Food and Nutrition
Service, U.S. Department of Agricul­ture,
Washington, D.C. 20250. The
use of funds for printing this publica­tion
was approved by the Director
of the Office of Management and
Budget December 4, 1970. Yearly
subscription is $1.00 domestic, $1.50
foreign. Single copies 20 cents each.
Subscription orders should be sent to
the Superintendent of Documents,
Government Printing Office, Wash­ington,
D.C. 20402.
Reference to commercial products
and services does not imply endorse­ment
or discrimination by the Depart­ment
of Agriculture.
Prints of photos may be obtained
from Photo Library, U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
20250.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
a FEES PAID
U.S. DEPT.
OF
AGRICULTURE U.S.MAIL
! Food Stamp Maillssu·ance
II Post Offices Sell Food Stamps
I Programs Aid Flood Victims
I · Food Facts Can Be Fun
II Advisory Council Reports
PI Meals on Wheels
FIRST CLASS