Child nutrition has become a top priority at Fridley Public Schools in Minnesota. In 2017, Fridley was selected as a program recipient for Chef Ann Foundation’s School Food Support Initiative (SFSI) (now, Get Schools Cooking) program based on their commitment to improving the quality and nutrition of school food served throughout...Read more

As recently as the late 70s, school cafeterias functioned like real kitchens cooking real food.  Lunch ladies knew how to prepare food from scratch, and lunch was a true break in the school day. Fast forward to today and it’s a whole different story. Ovens stripped from cafeterias and replaced...Read more

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...Read more

Few cities can lay claim to a pepper. Pueblo, Colorado not only boasts its own pepper, it also claims that the Pueblo green chile pepper is the best green chile in the country! The same pride that the city shows in its chile can be seen in its schools. Whether...Read more

Interested in bringing school breakfast to YOUR school? Apply for our Healthy Breakfast for Kids grant here: http://www.chefannfoundation.org/get-involved/our-grants/I have been working as a chef for over three decades and in school food for over one.  As a chef I cooked or oversaw the cooking of tens of thousands of...Read more

Interested in bringing school breakfast to YOUR school? Apply for our Healthy Breakfast for Kids grant here: http://www.chefannfoundation.org/get-involved/our-grants/I have been working as a chef for over three decades and in school food for over one.  As a chef I cooked or oversaw the cooking of tens of thousands of...Read more

Cooking from Scratch in Schools—The Greatest Food Service Challenge of Our TimeOur Executive Director, Beth Collins has a great article published in the August issue of Prevent Obesity about changing the way food is cooked in our schools. Below is an excerpt from the article: School District Food Service Departments are...Read more

By Chef Ann Cooper & Chef Beth CollinsWhy are potatoes and the proposed meal patterns for school breakfast and lunch making headlines in Colorado?In August Senator Udall and Susan Collins (R-ME) sent a letter to the Senate agricultural appropriators urging them to add language to the FY2012 spending bill that states: ​None of the...Read more

Reposted with permissionBy: Ed BruskeThe Dairy Industry widely touts the nation’s pediatricians as supporting sugary chocolate milk for children. But when I went looking for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy on flavored milk in school, what I found was hardly a sweeping endorsement. Instead, the group representing some 60,000 of...Read more

Reposted with permission from: Maria's Farm Country KitchenBy guest blogger Ann CooperOur children’s health and our nation’s school food did not change for the worse overnight, but we can’t put the brakes on the damage it is doing fast enough. Read on for my Recipe for Success for school lunches. A strong...Read more

Reposted with permission by: Ed Bruske AKA The Slow CookWhen I worked in Berkeley's central school kitchen a year ago, one of the things that impressed me most was something I'd never heard of before: breakfast served in the classroom. Every morning at the crack of dawn we'd start loading plastic bins....Read more

Reposted with permission. By Ed Bruske AKA The Slow CookParents can breathe a little easier now that a group of experts in the most authoritative assessment yet [PDF] has found that kids are not suffering a “calcium crisis” as the dairy industry might have us believe. Still, with school districts all over the...Read more