Thursday, December 06, 2007

Good sense

Fruits, vegetables and whole grains added to federal WIC program, via Salon.

11 comments:

Indie Pereira said...

So it finally went through. Now I'm actually going to be excited to go through two hours of begging my children not to tear the child unfriendly place apart.

Karen said...

Finally! This is indeed great news. ...oh, I'm wiggling in anticipation of all the yummy produce we'll receive!

Shannon said...

I'm so glad to hear this. It only makes sense to aim for the most nutritional bang for a buck. I'm actually surprised that it's taken so long.

Meredith A. said...

FINALLY! As a dietitian, I know this is LONG overdue and very needed.

Anonymous said...

You mean it wasn't included before? That's just craziness!

TJ said...

Yay Finally! Now when will they promote breastfeeding over formula? I love how they tell you about it, and then give you free formula.

~Babychaser~ said...

My WIC office does promote breastfeeding over formula and even has an excellent lactation consultant on staff. In fact... when I had to switch to pumping EVERYTHING for my son this last year they a gave me (as in FREE) a really nice pump that would have cost us more than $100 if we had to buy it ourselves!

Re: the fruit and veggies... I am very excited... I just hope that it doesn't end up costing us more. Milk prices are steep these days!

Indie Pereira said...

I'm wondering if they are changing the food packages for exclusively breastfeeding moms. Carrots and mercury ladened tuna is not exactly a good way to encourage moms to breastfeed. I think they do loan pumps at ours because I saw a woman with one. It seems to me if they are going to provide free formula that they should provide enough quality food to provide for the extra calories needed to sustain breastfeeding. Tuna and carrots don't cut it for me even if I wasn't handing the tuna off to my husband.

We're getting a lot more milk than we can use even when I get around to making yogurt, so I'm glad that it will be less. I just can't understand why they are willing to pay for the brand name milk which is not organic but costs about as much as a gallon of organic. It is just a ridiculous waste of money.

Catherine at Frugal Homemaker Plus said...

You read Salon! I love Salon!

This WIC stuff is way overdue. WAY overdue.

Jennifer @ Fruit of My Hands said...

I haven't received WIC benefits for a really long time, but when I did back in the day I was so frustrated with how junky the foods were. The juice sat in my freezer until it went bad because I have never given my kids that much sugar, and the peanut butter that was allowed was packed with trans fats.

I'm so glad they are finally including healthy nutrient rich whole foods instead of all the processed junk that used to be on the checks.

Indie Pereira said...

I did a little research on this and states are not required to have this in place until Aug. 5 2009. That's almost two years! So I guess those of us on WIC now shouldn't get excited because we'll probably never see the benefits. I'll see if I can find out more the next time I go to the WIC office.