To: Clark County School District Food Service Department's Director Charles Anderson; Clark County School District Food Service Department's Dietician Virginia Beck; and Mayor Oscar Goodman:

We, the parents, teachers, citizens, and taxpayers of the city of Las Vegas and Clark County appreciate your efforts to improve the quality of school food. We know it is a mammoth task, and that you have made many important changes.

But we are not, as we know you are not, satisfied with the way things are. We are shocked and outraged at the explosion of diet-related diseases that have afflicted our country in the last 30 years, and in particular Clark County. We are troubled that the Clark County School District Food Service Department may be unwittingly playing a part in this epidemic.

We recognize that:
34\% of NV students (age 10-17) are overweight or obese.
30-40\% of babies born in 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime.
Our children have a lower life expectancy than we adults do, because of diet-related illnesses they are predicted to develop, and that this is the first time this has happened in modern history.
Even children who dont suffer from a bad diet or develop these diseases are going to be burdened with this crisis, as their taxes and health care resources will need to support and care for the nation of sick and disabled people we are creating.

We, the people of Clark County/Las Vegas, the actual buyers of the school lunches that you serve, ask that you take the next step: ban high fructose corn syrup and Partially Hydrogenated oils from all foods served in the Clark County/Las Vegas Schools.

We recognize that it remains unclear whether HFCS itself launches its own brand of particularly pernicious assault on the body or whether it is simply a main component in our nations overindulgence in processed foods and refined carbohydrates. Either way, we believe HFCS has no place on a childs lunch tray.
Partially Hydrogenated Oil is partially hydrogenated soybean oil. That's a problem, because soybean oil depresses the thyroid--which lowers your energy levels, makes you feel less like exercising, and generally makes you fatter! Unlike butter or virgin coconut oil, hydrogenated oils contain high levels of trans fats. A trans fat is an otherwise normal fatty acid that has been "transmogrified", by high-heat processing of a free oil. In short, trans fats are poisons, just like arsenic or cyanide. They interfere with the metabolic processes of life by taking the place of a natural substance that performs a critical function. And that is the definition of a poison.

Currently, the approved products list for the Clark County School District, has numerous products that have Partially Hydrogenated Oils and HFCS in them. Get these products off the list!

While we as a nation wait for the definitive study that clarifies the nature of HFCSs role in the current health crises, we find the following facts too troubling to ignore:

According to a 2004 study published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, corn syrup was positively associated with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes.
According to a study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, the consumption of fat is not at the root of the diabetes and obesity epidemics. Rather, the drop in fiber consumption and coinciding rise in HFCS consumption is indicated. In other words, taking the fat out of milk and yogurt only to sweeten it with HFCS is a suspect and possibly dangerous practice.
Diabetes is a preventable disease with no cure. It is progressive and often fatal

After closely scrutinizing data from scientific studies and reviews, most European countries have either banned hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils altogether or have instituted future dates for elimination of their use in foods. These government actions concerning the trans fatty acids (hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils) is directly related to studies that link trans fatty acid (hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oil) consumption from processed foods to the development of diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease.

If the Clark County School District is serious about fighting the obesity and diabetes epidemics, it must reduce the amount of sweeteners, particularly in the highly suspect form of HFCS and Partially Hydrogenated Oil.

We demand that you take high fructose corn syrup and Partially Hydrogenated Oils off our childrens lunch trays.
Sincerely,