Fruit and vegetable consumption is an important component of a balanced diet consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid. FNS promotes the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, in all forms – fresh, frozen, canned, dried and juices, through its nutrition assistance programs.
This report describes how the Direction Card system works; the process undertaken by ODJFS and its EBT vendor to design, develop, and test the system; the implementation process and experiences; and the cost of system design, development, and implementation. Volume 2 of this report compares the ongoing administrative costs of system operations and system levels of benefit loss and diversion with those of on-line EBT systems and the Dayton pilot.
This report fulfills a request to USDA from the Appropriations Committee Directives, FY 2002. As requested, this report compares the availability of fruits and vegetables in schools with and without salad bars using data from the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study, Part II, which were collected during the school year 1998-99. SNDA-II data enables us to examine the choice and variety of foods offered at salad bars, but not the quantity in a typical serving or the amount consumed.
This report fulfills the request from Congress in the House Appropriations Committee Report (HR 107-116), which accompanied the Agriculture Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2002.