school-lunch

13 chefs will go head-to-head to make the best tasting, most healthful school lunch for students.

Earlier this week, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue issued a proclamation that relaxes the nutritional guidelines for schools set during the Obama Administration. According to a statement from Perdue on the USDA website (complete with a photo of him enjoying a traditional noontime tray of chicken nuggets), kids hate the whole grain buns, bread, pizza crust and pasta that have been…

Finnish students are among the the highest-performing test-takers in the world. Is their school lunch program part of the formula?

High school students in Chicago — members of the newly named generation the Founders — are fed up with being fed poorly and not enough at school. So much so that a group at Roosevelt High School, a public school in the northwest region of the city, are boycotting the sad plates of plasticky pizza…

We all remember the questionable food we were served at school. Today’s kids have it way better — they're given a variety of options of fruits and vegetables (instead of, you know, canned whatever).According to a recent USDA survey evaluating “Farm to School” initiatives, more than 10,000 school districts purchased nearly $600 million in food produced locally in the 2013-14…

Chef Bill Telepan was attending parent-teacher conferences at his daughter’s school in 2008 when he was first introduced Wellness in the Schools, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring healthy eating and environmental awareness for public-school students. Founder Nancy Easton was a parent at the school and a part of its wellness committee, which on that night was…

[embedImage=https://www.foodrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/tumblr_nexkdpMAAo1sc7gnzo1_r2_1280.jpg] [embedImage=https://www.foodrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/tumblr_nexkdpMAAo1sc7gnzo6_r1_1280.jpg] Leave it to SweetGreen, every salad lover's personal heaven, to highlight the faults in American public-school lunch. It's not hard to actually be kind of jealous of the typical French third-grader's cafeteria tray, as I've mentioned before. While the chain's foray into school lunch around the world is most definitely styled for the camera, it's…

Here's what I watch when there's nothing on Comedy Central: Fox & Friends. It's funny! I mean, until it stops being funny, which is right around the time Mr. Texas Agriculture Commissioner accosts the most friendly and inoffensive step mankind has taken towards becoming healthier and more environmentally responsible: Meatless Monday. Cue cartoon bluebirds with…

It's been said over and over: elementary school lunches may be the closest you can get to prison food without actually ending up behind bars. Soggy peas and carrots, mystery meat, you know. Limp tater tots that had no better use than ammo in the rare but hugely satisfying food fight. But I also remember…

Eatiquette is a special lunch program which provides students with fresh, cooked-from-scratch meals served family-style, supported by Vetri Foundation For Children. Several public schools in Philadelphia are benefitting from the effects of more nutritious food in a setting that supports healthier dining habits. Take a look inside an Eatiquette lunchroom, where, thanks to Marc Vetri…

Before Trader Joe's corn syrup-less Bunny Gummy Tummies and Friends (that's a real thing by the way), there were the unabashedly nutrition-less school lunches of my childhood — when Teddy Grahams were the same thing as graham crackers and lunch meat could consist of up to like, four animals and some mutant corn. Nope, this…

While the school lunch debate usually pertains to the state of food in public schools, I would like to timidly raise my hand and make a quiet and unremarkable suggestion so that the angry mob of super-outspoken "I have the numbers right here" activists doesn't trample me. I think private schools should serve as a…

I cannot tell a lunch-related lie: my mom used to buy me Lunchables all the time, partially because of the pleading and partially (I'm sure) because of the convenience. And she usually packed me lunch, almost always with a note. Lunchables were just so awesome, I had to have them — the meat was SO…

I'm in the Test Kitchen today whipping up awesome stuff for Food Republic, which I only do because of my wildly talented mom, a chef. Momma-K was a master of the school lunch, knowing full well how gross and not-nutritious the food would be if she'd just given me a buck fifty and taken the…

When it became known that I would be going to boarding school, instead of high school with my friends, two main sets of questions arose. My friends: "What did you do?" My parents' friends: "What will she eat?" Coming from a family where stock is thicker than blood, this was more cause for concern than…

I really, truly loved bologna sandwiches when I was a kid. More than chicken fingers. More than pizza. More than anything else you couldn't slather with mustard and take for lunch. I loved the uniform texture and smoky saltiness of it, and the fact that bologna had three meanings: Kosher beef, deli-style pork blend, or…

Guess what French schoolkids eat for lunch? Pas du pizza. Pas du hot dog. Pas des frites. They actually eat a lot better than most of us will eat at dinner. Why? The government mandates it. Today for lunch in, say, Saint-Cloud (a tony Paris suburb), children ages 4-12 will be served a five-course meal…

Cafeteria chefs have been getting a bad rap ever since the term “mystery meat” was coined, but in tonight’s episode of Chopped four lunch ladies will prove that school food doesn’t have to be a source of terror. Unlike venerated celebrity chefs, these women face difficult daily challenges to keep all of their students healthy…

To continue Marc Murphy Week, we caught up with one of the chef's favorite kitchen professionals and educators—Chef Bobo of the Calhoun School. Murphy's two children attend the school, where he is a member of the Board of Trustees. It is a rare thing to find a school lunch that isn’t comprised of congealed pasta…

Last weekend, I took my beloved mother out to dinner at the very good Brooklyn restaurant Saul, an un-trendy place that really lives up to its credo of "utilizing artisanal and seasonal ingredients to create fine food served in a casual and comfortable atmosphere." At some point, I think maybe as I was extolling the…

Over at GOOD, they talk to molecular chef Homaro Cantu about how miracle berries can help chemo patients and developing nations. Marion Nestle examines the FDA's new proposed rules on on calorie labeling in restaurants and vending machines. Grist on the need for more medium-sized farms. The Atlantic covers the legislative war between politicians and…