Fast Food in Schools, and Some Other Cafeteria Numbers From 2008
After sampling my way through the School Nutrition Association's food expo earlier this month, I picked up a copy of the organization's annual survey of school cafeterias. I just got around to leafing through it, and some of the numbers jumped out at me. The most shocking piece of the report ...
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July 26, 2009
School Lunch and Obesity
The newest study out of the USDA's Economic Research Service focuses on school meals and obesity. The findings? Students who eat school lunch are just as likely to be overweight as students who do not. For both groups, the numbers are shocking. The researchers found that a whopping 40 percent of ...
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July 17, 2009
School Lunch for the Obamas (And How We Can Make Public School Meals Just as Good)
Ever wonder what the Obama daughters eat for school lunch? It's a far cry from the packaged burritos and the slices of frozen pizza served in most public school cafeterias. Students at Sidwell Friends eat lemon herb baked chicken, tuscan white bean soup, local arugula and herb salad and shrimp ...
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July 11, 2009
A School Lunch Non-Profit?
Thomas Kim, the chief financial officer of Baltimore's health department, suggests over on the Audacious Ideas blog that non-profit organizations could be the solution for school food. "A non-profit organization would hire staff to utilize the cooking kitchens already in place in schools, and reinvest all revenue back into the quality and ...
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July 7, 2009
Tray Trends: Bubble-Gum-Flavored Apples, and Other Sights at the SNA Food Show
Imagine if Las Vegas built a Costco-themed hotel with a particular emphasis on chicken nugget samples and then filled the building with lunch ladies. That's the best way I can describe the School Nutrition Association's annual food expo, which is taking place right now in Vegas' Mandalay Bay Convention Center. ...
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June 30, 2009
Inside the Soquel Cafeteria: From Homemade Turkey to Burritos in a Bag
Cathy Giannini has been working in the cafeteria in Soquel, California for 21 years. In the world of child nutrition, that's not unusually long (I've spoken with directors who have been working for over 40 years). Still, the changes she has seen throughout her career are striking. When Giannini started out, ...
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June 29, 2009
News From the School Lunch Campaign Trail
[Debra Eschmeyer, a Kellogg Food and Society Fellow and the marketing and media director of the National Farm to School Network, joins us here for a guest post on what's going on in the school food advocacy world] By Deba Eschmeyer — The current Child Nutrition Act expires September 30, 2009, meaning it’s ...
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June 24, 2009
A Sampler of School Lunch Loopholes
As Congress gears up for this year's child nutrition reauthorization, there has been a lot of discussion about the loopholes in the National School Lunch Program. For the most part, though, those discussions have focused on the laughably outdated list of "foods of minimal nutritional value" and the junk food that cafeterias ...
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June 22, 2009
What Makes Students Buy Lunch? The Newest USDA Study Takes a Look
You would think that students eligible for free meals would show up in the lunch line every day. If they don't have to pay, they should be guaranteed customers for school cafeterias, right? Not exactly. Meal program directors say a good number of those students still bring lunch from home, and ...
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June 20, 2009
Michelle Obama Gets Even More Direct About Healthy Eating
Michelle Obama held the White House's first garden harvest party yesterday, and this time the event was more than just a photo op with fresh veggies. While the First Lady has spoken several times about the importance of nutritious food and healthy school lunches, this was the first time she ...
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June 17, 2009
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