Free Republic

School is out for the summer, but youth can still return to some area schools for free lunch in the coming months. The federally-funded Summer Food Service Program provides free lunches for children 18 and younger, with the goal of making sure low-income students who receive free or reduced-price meals during the school year still have nutritious food to eat in the summer. Summer lunch programs are open to children of any income level, from any school district. “The main reason we do it is because the economy in our area is not the greatest,” said Terry Fuller, director of...

For the first time in the history of the school lunch program, all children in Baltimore are created equal.. Beginning this week, every student in the city, regardless of income level, is being offered free breakfast and lunch under a federal program that allows school districts to eliminate a decades-old meal-subsidy structure for students in high-poverty schools. Baltimore is among a handful of districts in Maryland taking advantage of the opportunity that was opened to schools nationwide last year. Maryland schools are able to adopt the program under state legislation passed this year in the General Assembly. Del. Keith Haynes,...

BEDFORD, KY (WAVE) – Several parents are fired up after hearing a student's hot lunch was dumped in the trash in front of her classmates because her lunch account was past due. Parents claim Bedford Elementary School did something it preaches against: In their words, "bullying" the child, not to mention wasting food to embarrass her. On May 20 an elementary school lunch was packed with a hidden punch a child never saw coming. "Someone came and took her lunch while she was sitting there with her friends and everybody else," said the girl's aunt, Leslie Chilton, who also happens...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is pushing back against a campaign criticizing First Lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules by showing one picture of a somewhat appetizing child’s lunch. “They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in the digital age we have ample opportunity to document and broadcast every moment, meeting and meal,” wrote Deborah Kane, the national director of the USDA Farm to School Program, in a blog post Thursday. “We have all seen those unappetizing photos of food served at school that quickly go viral,” she said. “A lonesome whole wheat bun atop a sad...

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) says a bill will be introduced in the House that will “put a salad bar in every single school in the United States of America.” Speaking at the Religious Action Center’s “Consultation on Conscience” event last month, Ryan told the Washington D.C. audience about efforts that will help “begin to end poverty.” […] “It starts to paint the picture of the kind of system that we want,” Ryan continued. “Now, we have a lot of school districts in Ohio and across the country, 70, 80, 90 percent of the kids in the school will be Medicaid—free...

All children, regardless of their circumstances, deserve safe, nourishing and delicious school meals.One of the best ways to help district nutrition programs as they transition to healthier food is to buy school lunch for your children. When I talk with parents about school food, many are so disappointed in the options their schools provide that they’ve simply opted out. They pack their children’s lunches every day, giving up on their school’s nutrition program as a lost cause. I understand and support parents who insist their children eat healthfully and responsibly. My dream is a nation in which all food –...

ROGERSVILLE, Tenn. – Meat dating to the year of President Obama’s first inauguration was served to students in some Hawkins County, Tennessee schools last week. Hawkins County Commissioner Michael Herrell was alerted after a cafeteria worker sent him a photo of the pork roast they used for school meals was from 2009. The 6-year-old meat had been frozen and then was thawed for meal preparation, according to WCYB. Herrell said the photo was taken at Joseph Rogers Primary School where the staff decided not to serve the meat. However, it was served at other schools.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The number of breakfasts served in the nation's schools has doubled in the last two decades, a surge driven largely by a change in how districts deliver the food. Instead of providing low-income students free or reduced-price meals in the cafeteria, they're increasingly serving all children in the classroom. Food policy advocates say the change increases equity, however, it's fueled a backlash from parents and teachers. They contend that it takes up class time that should be devoted to learning and wastes food by serving it to kids who don't want or need it....

He says it’s in compliance with the federal lunch rules championed by First Lady Michelle Obama. “The meal in this photo and other meals served by Portsmouth Public Schools meet nutritional and USDA requirements,” according to the food service coordinator. An unscientific poll by WAVY found 92.3 percent of respondents (10,138 people) did not believe the lunch was “acceptable.”

Here is Lady M, encouraging little children to develop and submit their very own “healthy lunch” recipe in order to win an invite to her Children’s State Dinner.Apparently she is unaware of a new pandemic sweeping the country that could be as serious as the obesity epidemic: orthorexia-nervosa. I’m deathly serious, it’s a real thing:  A new type of eating disorder is emerging where people are becoming obsessed with eating to improve their health. Victims of this 'health food eating disorder' may exhibit the following symptoms: may be 'plunged into gloom' by eating a piece of bread may become anxious...

RIO RANCHO, N.M. – There’s one group of young eaters who like Michelle Obama’s school lunch program: pigs. New Mexico’s Galloping Grace Youth Ranch is accepting fruits and vegetables thrown away by students at several elementary schools in the Rio Rancho area and collects some five tons per week. Speaking of the pigs, goats and chickens gobbling up the students’ castaways, Wade says, “If you think about it, it’s a fresh salad bar every day. Fruits and vegetables and they love it.” To underscore the point, he’s talking about the farm animals, not the school children. The goats prefer romaine...

PALMETTO -- Gripping a squirt bottle of hand sanitizer in her gloved hands, school food bus driver Debra Valdez called to four children shyly making their way toward the brightly colored school bus with mom pushing the youngest one forward. "Y'all ready to eat?" Valdez asked with a smile. The four children were the first of more than 70 students who ate a free lunch Tuesday courtesy of the Manatee County School District Food and Nutrition Services Department. The district retrofitted a school bus last summer to feed students and brought the program back for spring break this week. The...

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) has unveiled legislation to establish a program, so schools and food banks can offer meals to low-income students on weekends and holidays. Titus's bill would create a five-year pilot program for providing food to students eligible for free or reduced lunch during the week, when school is out. The Nevada Democrat noted the measure comes at the same time as many schools are out for spring break. Students who rely on meals provided during the school day for sustenance consequently might not have enough to eat. "Vacation from school should never mean hunger for children. This...

Guess What Makes The Cut As A 'Smart Snack' In Schools? Hot Cheetos Flamin' Hot Cheetos might conjure a lot of descriptors: spicy, crunchy, unnaturally fiery red. But it's a good bet that "healthy" didn't exactly spring to mind. Yet it turns out that those fiery Cheetos beloved by school children (some kids even made an epic rap paean to Hot Cheetos a few years ago) actually qualify as a "Smart Snack" under revised federal nutrition guidelines for schools. The Obama administration rolled out the new guidelines last year in a bid to limit the amount of junk food kids...

BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. -- Thousands of students have now stopped buying lunch each week in County cafeterias. The district says it all started when schools were forced to implement the USDA's Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. It was part of first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative to get kids to eat healthier. All of a sudden, kids are pitching pounds of food in the garbage. "I like vegetables too, like I like spinach and potatoes - great - but they just don't have any flavor at all," freshman Aislinn French said. Hundreds of kids have now dropped out of...

After a second grader complained to First Lady Michelle Obama that she “ruined” Taco Tuesday with her healthy lunch rules, Trip Klibert has accepted the White House’s consolation: Bo and Sunny trading cards and a note from Mrs. Obama that said you’ll get used to it.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) is introducing legislation to relax the rules for healthy school lunches. At the School Nutrition Association’s (SNA) 2015 Legislative Action Conference at the JW Marriott Monday, Hoeven announced the Healthy School Meals Flexibility Act to give schools more flexibility in complying with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations when it comes to whole grains and sodium levels. The bill would allow schools to revert back to 2012 standards, which require at least half of all grains served in school breakfast and school lunch to be whole grain rich. The standard now is for 100 percent...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michelle Obama said Thursday that the U.S. has undergone a “culture change” in the five years since she started raising awareness about childhood obesity, but as she celebrated achievements on multiple fronts the first lady also warned that the progress is “incredibly fragile.” That’s because special interests “whose first priority is not our kids’ health” are “waiting for us to get complacent or bored and move on to the next trendy issue,” Mrs. Obama said at an annual health summit. She cited the fight over a recent child nutrition law as an example.

One “poor ugly soul” posted his visual reaction to Twitter. He’s holding a parody drawing of the famous Obama “Hope” propaganda poster from 2008. Except in this one, the student is holding a “Thanks Michelle Obama” sign in one hand and a fistful of vegetables in the other. Below it is the #thanksmichelleobama hashtag that has become synonymous with skimpy school lunches.

Mouthwatering photos of school lunches served around the world reveal even children in Ukraine, Estonia and Greece are treated to delectable meals each day. School children in America, meanwhile, aren't nearly so lucky. Whereas a kid in France might be treated to a juicy steak and a hunk of brie, the richest country in the world's youths are more likely to receive unidentified meat served alongside little more than a starch like white pasta, fries or a roll. The contrasts between America's school meals and those in far less fortunate economies are stark and suggest Michelle Obama's push for more...