Unless there’s third-party certification for a claim, the labels are mostly meaningless.

Audubon Magazine has the detailed explanation of all the labels on their website. As noted, some require certification and inspections of farms, or food processing, by a third-party organization; others require no back-up to the claims whatsoever.

Cheat sheet

Here’s a cheat-sheet to the claims:

These labels require independent verification, so are the most valid:

• USDA Organic
• Fair Trade
• Rainforest Alliance
• Food Alliance
• Demeter Biodynamic
• Salmon-Safe
• Bird Friendly
• Certified Humane Raised and Handled
• FishWise
• Non-GMO Project Verified
• Healthy Grown Potatoes

Look for these on produce, fish and meats and packaged foods.

These should be taken with a grain of salt — they may mean something, but they don’t have to:

• Raised Without Antibiotics
• Natural
• Free Range
• Grass Fed
• Nutri Clean Residue Free Certification
• Marine Stewardship Council

These are found on meats, poultry, fish and prepared food packages.

These can be used by anybody at any time and are basically meaningless:

• Cruelty-free
• Cage-free
• Environmentally friendly
• Nature’s friend
• No chemicals
• Vegetarian fed

Look for these on eggs, poultry and meats – and packages of prepared foods.

New USDA food and nutrition suggestions now in plate form

Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture revealed it’s new “MyPlate” graphic that replaces the old USDA pyramid, giving Americans a visual reference to its suggested nutrition plan.

Along with the plate, which emphasizes fruits and vegetables and grains, with smaller spots for proteins (meats, fish, poultry, plant proteins) and dairy (shown in the cup), is a short list of tips:

Balancing Calories

• Enjoy your food, but eat less.
• Avoid oversized portions.

Foods to Increase

• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
• Make at least half your grains whole grains.
• Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.

Foods to Reduce

• Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals – and choose the foods with lower numbers.
• Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

Web site offers more

The USDA web site where this lives, Choosemyplate.gov, offers much more in the way of information about suggested foods. Food groups, and specific audiences for the advice, including breastfeeding and pregnant women, kids and those on weight loss plans are addressed.

There are a number of interactive features on the site, as well – you can have your diet analyzed, plan a menu, ask a question and look up individual foods.

Weigh in on what you think of this switchover – will you use this plate and does it make any difference in how you plan your meals? Do you think the government is still wary of dismissing things like soda and fried foods or fast foods, or are they leaving it up to the diner to decide?

Comments welcome below.

So if we all clock out at 6 p.m. May 21, here are the burning questions you need to answer for the Food Editor:

1. What’s your last meal going to be?

(Some ideas here: www.lastmealsproject.com and deadmaneating.blogspot.com)

2. What’s the meal you’ll take with you as your favorite food memory?

Federally funded lunches (and breakfasts) are targeted by the USDA. Last year, the Institute of Medicine recommended that most people already eat enough potatoes and that pregnant women and their children using the USDA program for low-income meals shouldn’t use the feds money for white potatoes.

Now several movements have started to keep potatoes in schools – parents, kids and the potato councils of several states are pushing for the spuds.

What do you think about potatoes in schools – should the schools limit any one food or teach kids moderation in all things?

What a comfort food, and simple, too. Grilled cheese sandwich: White bread, butter the outside, longhorn Cheddar in thin slices or American cheese if you must, a hot iron skillet*, a spatula. Done in 5 minutes or less.

(Or, an iron and tin foil, if you live in a dorm room.)

I heard of kids who ate them with a mug of tomato soup for dunking. We never did this – just had grilled cheese sandwiches and that was that.

Today, mine include plain, and pimento – it’s a grilled pimento-cheese sandwich, actually, my all-time wonderful comfort sandwich – bacon and cheese. I don’t like tomato on mine – it makes them soggy and that tomato will burn your mouth long after the cheese has cooled.

What kinds do you like best? What’s your favorite cheese?

Chef Zach Bell of Cafe Boulud in Palm Beach, the culinary organizer, said top chefs from the area have rallied to the cause. “As a chef, I know it’s hard to nail us down and get a commitment, especially now in less plentiful times, at a new event at the tail-end of a social season chock full of charity events. Some (chefs) were skeptical, but I assured them that this would be the beginnings of a great annual event.”

Chef Zach Bell

Sari Vatske, the Florida representative of Share Our Strength, said Palm Beach is getting its own dinner once more. Taste of the Nation dine-arounds were held in the ’90s, then combined with Broward County for several years, and now return. “We’ve been doing this for 26 years in over 40 cities nationwide. The Taste of the Nation came back to Palm Beach County because we finally had field staff on the ground.”

It was difficult to run a large dinner such as this from the national Washington, DC headquarters, she said. An earlier attempt a few years ago to bring it back didn’t succeed as hoped; chefs here find it difficult to participate in charity dinners during season.

A bigger venue needed

The event will be held in the Cohen Pavilion at the Kravis Center, and more than 600 people are expected to attend. “We’re already sold out of VIP tickets,” she said.

The list of restaurants participating includes: 32 East, 3800 Ocean, 51 Supper Club & Lounge, Atlantic Ocean Club, BB Kings Blues Bar, Buddha Sky Bar, Cabo Flats Cantina & Tequila Bar, Cafe Boulud, Cafe Chardonnay, Casa D’Angelo, Chops Lobster Bar, City Cellar Win Bar & Grill, City Fish Market, Dada, Echo at The Breakers, Gazebo Cafe, Guanabanas, Hollywood Cupcake, I Heart Olive Oil, Ironwood Grille at PGA, Jupiter Island Grill, Kubo Asiatic Cuisine, The Leopard Lounge, Michelle Bernstein at The Omphoy, Oceanside Market, Sundy House, Talay Thai Cuisine, The Restaurant at the Four Seasons, The Sugar Monkey, The Wave Kitchen & Bar, and Whole Foods Market.

Wines and spirits also were donated, and a number of items have been given from local businesses for the silent auction as well.

Chef Dean Max

Part of the VIP event is a “mystery throwdown chef’s competition” between Bell and Chef Dean Max of 3800 Ocean.

Child hunger relief benefits

The event benefits the No Kid Hungry campaign in Florida. Using their collective efforts, SOS helps Florida receive money not only from the event, but they’re able to obtain matching grant money as well to be applied to programs such as the Boys and Girls Club “Rise and Shine” breakfast program, and to help provide free or reduced-cost lunches for schoolkids around the state.

“We can help raise awareness to the cause,” Vatske said. “All foods and auction items are donated. I’m the only paid staff member  – the rest are all volunteers.” Even the leftover foods from the event are not wasted – through the United Way, refrigerated trucks are sent to pick up useable leftovers and deliver them to local food kitchens and food banks, she said.

Back to Palm Beach County

In the early ’90s, Steve Gerson, a restaurateur in Boca Raton and Jupiter at the time, hosted early SOS Taste of the Nation dine-arounds in Palm Beach County at Conrad’s of Boca, and then at Three Palms in Jupiter. Frank Eucalitto, chef/owner of Cafe Chardonnay in Palm Beach Gardens, and Bob Artley, food and beverage manager of The Breakers at the time, also were instrumental in working with the program.

Taste of the Nation moved around to several locations, including PGA National Resort and The Breakers, and raised awareness and thousands of dollars for local food banks and hunger relief programs before its run ended in the late ’90s when volunteers moved on. Some local chefs continued their participation by joining with Broward County’s Taste of the Nation dinner (it’s June 2 this year).

Chef Bell takes up mantle

Chef Bell was instrumental in bringing back the larger event to Palm Beach County. Through Cafe Boulud, he began hosting the touring dinner, “A Tasteful Pursuit,” a pricey dinner party featuring six chefs for a six-course meal. “We quickly became one of the highest fundraising stops on the tour, and each year, brought in a different group of visiting chefs,” he said.

In 2009, Bell, a four-time James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef, Southeast, was awarded a National Leadership Award from Share Our Strength for his involvement, and was one of a small team of chefs who went to Capitol Hill to lobby for the renewal of the Childhood Reauthorization Bill.

The irony of hosting a $80-a-plate dine-around isn’t lost on him as a Palm Beach chef. “After cooking all season for those that have the means to eat out every day of the year, it is important to remember that less than a mile away are many, many children that are not even able to consistently receive even a full meal a day!”

Tickets to the event are $80 in advance; $100 at the door; a 10 percent discount is available online and only in advance by using the code PBREST at *checkout only on the web site (no discounts are accepted at the door).

Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation Palm Beach

• When: 6-9 p.m., Weds., April 13
• Where: Kravis Center’s Cohen Pavilion, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
• Tickets: $80 in advance online, $100 at door. (VIP tickets are sold out)
• Information and to buy tickets online*: www.strengthflorida.org/TOTNPB.html

McDonald's Happy Meal tied to the Bee Movie

The New York City Council is about to take up a bill that would ban toys from fast-food offerings.

They’re talking about taking the happy out of the Happy Meal, for many kids, the free toy is, after all, the reason they order what they do when they go to a fast-food spot.

Or is it?

The toys are intended for kids ages 3 to 8, basically. Few of those kids walk into a McDonald’s or drive through a Sonic on their own and ask for a burger and fries with their free toy.

No – they’re strong-arming someone, usually an adult in tow.

Not Big Apple’s First Ban

New York’s big on deciding how and what diners should do and not do in restaurants (smoke, read nutrition on every menu), and ingredients they can use or not (trans fat, foie gras are but two that come to mind). Smokers affected the enjoyment of  meals for others, so banning smoking indoors was seen as a public service, more or less. The rest – still up for debate.

Wendy's Kids Meal

It’s a lot grayer an area when foods or in this case, toys that seemingly harm no one, are totally banned.

They’re not the first city to do this, however. San Francisco’s board of supervisors voted in November 2010 to ban toys with meals that have certain high levels of fat, sugar and calories. The ban takes effect this December. Restaurants or fast-food companies can include a toy with a meal if the food and drink combined contain fewer than 600 calories and if less than 35 percent of the calories come from fat. Also, all meals for kids that contain toys must offer fruits and vegetables as part of the meal.

Childhood health at stake

In both major cities, the reasoning for the toy ban is to attack a growing problem of childhood obesity. If you make fast foods unattractive to kids, would they eat so much of it?

Since not all fast food and certainly not all so-called junk food comes with toys, this is going to single out certain companies.

Toys aren’t new food lures

100 Years of Disney from McDonald's

The first McDonald’s Happy Meal came out in 1979. However, food chains were giving out paper crowns and hats and masks – fake tattoos, all kinds of favors long before Happy Meals.

Fast food companies don’t have a lock on kid-lure, either. CrackerJacks advertise their toy prize inside, bubblegum is wrapped in a free comic, cereal boxes touted decoder rings in trade for box tops, and even banks  hand out lollipops through their drive-thrus. There’s the grocery store-layout artist who has got down pat the way to get kids to throw more foods in the adult-driven cart is to put bright colors on low shelves -  they’re in it to win kids and by default, the kids’ parents.

Parent or child

Legislating diet isn’t new, either – thought the USDA has for decades put out some sort of “suggestion” for correct foods for our diets – despite it being one-size-fits-all, and it subsidizes farmers who produce milk, wheat and sugar. Draw your own conclusions.

Will it prevent childhood obesity?

Raising awareness of the childhood obesity rates isn’t being argued by most. Pediatricians, politicians and parents are on the same page. The road forks widely when it comes to solutions. Schools continue to see funding cuts and phys ed seems to be a lost cause. School lunch programs have little to work with. Nutrition isn’t on any curricular. There’s little adult education for it, either.

Most will argue it’s personal choice – but really, is a child equipped to choose, especially when there’s a toy, however minor, tipping the scales?

Comments are welcome below.