What does the Latest USDA Appointment Mean for School Lunch? More Chicken Nuggets
By Ann Cooper, with Kate Adamick and Beth Collins — We’ve been asked numerous times over the past few months what we think about Obama's Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. At the onset, we were critical. Vilsack had supported many agribusiness practices that we abhor, such as promoting GMOs in the ...
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April 15, 2009
Plenty of Regulations, But are They the Right Ones?
By Nancy Borowski and Ann Cooper — School cafeterias have to comply with a slew of USDA regulations. In fact, we spend an inordinate amount of time striving to follow guidelines as opposed to actually feeding children. So what exactly are those government regulations? And do they adequately ensure that students eat the healthy ...
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April 6, 2009
Another Senate Hearing on Child Nutrition
By Deborah Lehmann — The fight over a la carte foods is back, but this time around there's some good news. The Senate Committe on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry held a hearing this morning with a focus on foods sold outside of the National School Lunch Program — in vending machines, snack bars ...
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March 31, 2009
The Fight Over A La Carte Foods, This Time in England
By Deborah Lehmann — Americans aren't the only ones arguing about a la carte foods in schools. The UK has issued nutrition standards for secondary schools that ban individually sold food items, and school food service providers say it will jeapordize programs. In a conference today in London, the Local Authority Caterers ...
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March 25, 2009
The Distorted School Lunch Food Pyramid
By Deborah Lehmann — The USDA might as well issue two food pyramids — one for the National School Lunch Program and another for all other Americans. Here's how the guidelines for school meals compare to the current USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Look at the numbers for meat/beans, and then ...
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February 27, 2009
The Food Lobby and Child Nutrition
The American News Project takes a look at school lunch lobbying in a new YouTube video, which captures an Institute of Medicine hearing on nutrition standards. The USDA has asked the IOM to suggest evidence-based revisions to the National School Lunch Program nutrition regulations. But at the hearing in the ...
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February 22, 2009
What’s the state of American school lunch?
By Deborah Lehmann — School food has gotten better, but cafeterias have a long way to go. That’s the message in a supplement to this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The special section discusses the findings of the Third School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study, which collected data ...
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February 13, 2009
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