Meal Programs

California may run out of money again this year to supplement school meals, in part because more struggling families are taking part in the free or reduced-price school lunch programs, the state's superintendent of public instruction said Tuesday.

Arlene Ciolino started the day with 75 minutes of aerobics, followed by 1 1/2 hours of yoga. So by noon she was hungry. She stowed her blue exercise mat, doffed her white sweatshirt and bellied up to the salad bar. First came a layer of crisp romaine lettuce, then a scoop of chicken salad, a drizzle of Caesar dressing, a few croutons and a dusting of parmesan. A whole-wheat roll rounded out the meal. It was light and health-conscious, just like Ciolino, a slender 67-year-old retired bookkeeper.

Two years ago, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver expressed horror at the Turkey Twizzlers being served in Britain's school cafeterias and equated many school lunches with a four-letter word for the ultimate byproduct of all meals. He vowed to help lead students down the road to healthful eating. The Pied Piper, it turns out, he was not.

Gloria Kim did not see the carjacker coming. On a recent morning just before 4 a.m., Kim was gathering bottles of water and kettles of homemade soup to load into her pickup truck to feed the homeless, as she does each day. She heard the rumble of an engine, turned around and saw a man sitting in the driver's seat of her truck. "No, no, no!" she shouted, running toward the man. She tried to open the door but he sped away. "I prayed immediately," said Kim, 65, a frail woman with white hair.

ON Sept. 16, 1912, the very first issue of USC's Daily Southern Californian (now known as the Daily Trojan) declared on page 3: "Cafeteria Improved." The primary advancement was "shiny new devises for keeping eatables hot," and the article was unsigned, possibly to save the writer from a big razzing by classmates. Students, after all, have always complained about food. They griped in the Middle Ages and they griped in Colonial days.

Peanut butter potentially contaminated with salmonella bacteria was included in school lunch programs and emergency meal kits sent to Kentucky after last week's ice storm, officials said Thursday. Nearly 168,000 emergency meal kits sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the state had been recalled more than two weeks earlier because some contained peanut butter that could have been contaminated, federal officials told the Associated Press.

Lunches used to arrive piping hot five days a week at Lodema Gartman's doorstep. But now the 74-year-old shut-in gets a stack of frozen meals once a week -- and she's not happy. "I liked the hot meals better," the rail-thin Ventura resident said recently, picking at a microwaved entree of beef stroganoff, green beans and cauliflower. "They tasted better and they were always hot." Citing budget constraints, Ventura County on April 1 will cease operation of its $1.

The shelves are almost bare at the Seventh-day Adventist Church food pantry in South-Central Los Angeles. As Thanksgiving approaches, instead of the 400 bags containing a turkey, canned vegetables, milk and other staples typically handed out for the holiday, the charity will be hard-pressed to find provisions for 100 families -- and most will not get a turkey. "I've been doing this for 10 years, and this is the worst I've seen it," said Margaret Carson, community service director.

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday unanimously adopted a proposal aimed at improving the nutritional value of school meals by reducing sodium and sugar and limiting fat content in campus menus. The plan is part of the district's ongoing effort to improve the health of its students. In recent years, the Board of Education has also banned the sale of junk food and soda on campuses.

The Berkeley Food and Housing Project will shut down its Quarter Meal program, which has served dinner to homeless people for more than 30 years, because of the city's high living-wage ordinance. Under that ordinance, agencies that receive city funding are required to pay their employees a living wage set well above the federal minimum wage. The mandated wage hike and rising workers' compensation premiums and employee medical benefits have saddled the agency with $110,000 in expenses.