The Lunch Box Blog

Here at The Lunch Box, we believe that every child should have access to healthy and delicious food. This belief doesn’t end with the cafeteria lunch line.  The home is a formative environment for eating healthy. According to the USDA, 16.2 million children struggle with hunger; that’s one out of five kids. The lack of time and limited money are huge obstacles many American families face on a daily basis.

One of the resources we provide through the Lunch Box includes breaking down food service costs for schools across the country. We’ve done the same with the following recipes and list of pantry must-haves.

The goal is to get in a serving of every food group with these quick and affordable recipes for breakfast and snacks. The benefit of making these foods from scratch is avoiding artificial and unknown ingredients, all the while introducing your kids to fun in the kitchen. An added bonus, these recipes can be made ahead of time and refrigerated until needed.

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A little over a month has passed since the USDA announced their proposed guidelines on competitive foods in schools, “Smart Snacks in Schools.” We are half way through the 60 day comment period. The reactions are mixed. Are the guidelines too strict? Not strict enough? Do they take away from cafeterias’ operating budgets? Here is a breakdown of the proposed rules.

·    Reduce snacks to those lower in fat, sugar, and sodium.

·    Food sold in schools must be either a fruit, vegetable, dairy product, “protein food” or a food with 50 percent or more whole grains by primary ingredient or weight or 10% of the daily value of a nutrient cited as a public health concern.

·   Snacks must meet a calorie limit. Beverages will be limited to water, low-calorie milk and 100% juice. High schools will be allowed calorie-free carbonated beverages.

·   All of these rules would apply to all food sold outside the school meal programs, on the school campus, and at any time during the school day.

·   A limited number of fundraisers held during school...

High cost of living thwarts school meal improvements

Reposted with permission by: Dana Woldow

Ever since fixing school food became a trendy issue a few years ago, not a week goes by that I don't get asked The Question. It comes from students, from parents, from school staff, from people I meet at parties who discover I know something about school food. Invariably, the person asking The Question has just read a riveting report on how a school district somewhere is raking in big bucks by serving every student a free breakfast in the classroom, or seen a TV news report on how another district just put salad bars into every elementary school, or listened to an interview with a "miracle worker" who has brought back scratch cooking at schools for less than the cost of processed food. The Question is always, "Why can't San Francisco's schools do this?"

One of the many ways in which school districts differ in their ability to...

What Japan can teach us about school lunch

Reposted with permission by: Dana Woldow

Every so often an article pops up comparing school lunches in America to those served in other countries. To the surprise of no one, our lunches usually fare badly in comparison; this slideshow offers pictures of school lunches in America, and from around the world. How is it that so many other countries are getting school lunch right, while America continues to get it wrong?

A recent article in the Washington Post about school lunch in Japan is a must read for anyone interested in improving school food in the US. Not because the Japanese model presents a quick and...