school lunch
USDA: House child-nutrition bill pinches poor, subsidizes well-off students
The child-nutrition bill written by House Republicans "is harmful to children's health," said the USDA in the strongest criticism yet of the bill by the administration. In a statement, the agency said the bill "heaps administrative costs on schools and plans to bury parents in more bureaucratic red tape, all while subsidizing well-off children at the expense of our less fortunate children who need help."
Community eligibility cutback would hit 7,000 schools
In only its second year of availability nationwide, more than 18,000 schools in high-poverty areas are utilizing the Community Eligibility Provision to provide free breakfast and lunch to all of their students, a total of 8.5 million pupils.
Full-fat dairy may protect against Type 2 diabetes
Eating full-fat milk, yogurt and cheese may help protect against Type 2 diabetes, says a study of 3,333 adults published in the journal Circulation.
Vilsack: No rollback on child nutrition
In the face of a proposal to curtail a program allowing free school meals for all children in high-poverty areas, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told lawmakers, "It would be unwise to roll back standards, saddle parents and school administrators with more paperwork or weaken assistance to our most vulnerable children."
House panel would muzzle universal school meal program
The Republican-controlled House Education Committee would reduce access to a program that allows schools in high-poverty areas to offer free meals to all of their students, says the School Nutrition Association.
School-food group asks for 35 cents more per meal
One-third of food-stamp households go to food pantries
USDA data show that 32 percent of households receiving food stamps "still have to visit a food pantry to keep themselves fed," says the NPR blog The Salt.
Obama to seek $12 billion to expand summer food program for kids
President Obama will ask Congress for a long-term expansion of the summer food program so it reaches every child - roughly 22 million at latest count - who gets lunch for free or at reduced price during the school year, the White House announced. At present, only one in six of those low-income schoolchildren is covered by the summer food program.
Child-nutrition bill has momentum after months of squabbling
Fresh from unanimous committee approval of their five-year child nutrition bill, leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee predicted the bill would rocket to Senate passage, and could influence House action as well.
Senate bill may quell child-nutrition squabbles
When the Senate Agriculture Committee votes this week to reauthorize child-nutrition programs costing $22 billion a year, the bipartisan, five-year bill will have the support of the anti-hunger community and school-food operators.
Senate Ag leaders agree on child nutrition update
Ending weeks of back-stage negotiations, Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts and the panel's senior Democrat, Debbie Stabenow, said they agreed on a bipartisan plan to re-authorize child nutrition programs that cost $22 billion a year. School lunch is the largest part of the programs and was one of the largest obstacles to renewal.
Stabenow, Roberts to move child nutrition bill in January
The leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee said they will ask committee approval of a bipartisan bill in January to reauthorize child nutrition programs costing $22 billion a year. School lunch is the largest of the programs.
Breakfast a challenge for small schools, with few participants
The school lunch and breakfast programs "are an important source of basic nutrition for children," write two USDA economists whose analysis indicates that many schools spend more to prepare a breakfast than they see in federal reimbursement. The problem is worst for small schools and districts with comparatively low breakfast participation rates, say economists Michael Ollinger and Joanne Guthrie. Those districts "may struggle to balance nutrition and financial goals," say Ollinger and Guthrie in a report on meal costs and economies of scale for school food programs.
Milk by the bag at school, not by carton
For most U.S. schoolchildren, milk at school comes in a waxy half-pint carton. Golden Hills Elementary School, near Omaha, is trying something different, says Modern Farmer - milk in a bag. School officials say there is less waste with bags than with cartons.
Petition would eliminate processed meat from school lunch
A doctors' group petitioned the USDA for the second time in six years to remove processed meats such as hot dogs from the school lunch program to "create carcinogen-free cafeterias." The 12,000-member Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed the petition a day after a WHO agency declared processed meat a carcinogen and that red meat is probably carcinogenic to humans.
Agreement on child-nutrition programs is near, senators say
Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts said "we're nearly at the finish line" on closed-door negotiations to reauthorize child-nutrition programs that cost $21 billion a year, said Agri-Pulse. At a news conference, Roberts said the legislation would not provide new funding for the nutrition programs, which are headlined by school lunch - "That's just the way it is."
Vilsack asks pediatricians for help on school meals
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack went to the national conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics to enlist its members as defenders of federal child nutrition programs against "a vocal minority" that would weaken them.
McDonald’s pulls link to school nutrition “infomercial” – The Lunch Tray
The No 1 fast food company, McDonald's, "has quietly pulled the link" on the Internet to a 20-minute film, "540 Meals: Choices Make a Difference," that was being promoted for nutrition education classes in middle and high schools, says the blog The Lunch Tray. The author of the blog, Bettina Siegel, says the film features "features McDonald's paid brand ambassador John Cisna, an Iowa science teacher who lost weight eating McDonald's for 90 days" and "is little more than an infomercial."
Fewer students in the school lunch line
Over the decade ending in fiscal 2019, before the pandemic, student participation in the school lunch program fell by 7 percent, to an average of 29.6 million meals a day, said a USDA report on the program. In enrollment and cost, school lunch is the nation's second-largest public nutrition program, behind SNAP, and operates in around 100,000 schools.