School Lunches, Delivered

In some cases, such as Kiddos Catering in Chicago, restaurants contract with schools to offer lunch delivery. Using a restaurant delivery service adds variety for school lunch options.

Back-to-School: Food deliveries are remaking school lunch

This news story from AP News describes some of the new options for delivered lunches. There are bag lunch subscriptions that deliver to homes and services that deliver to schools. In some cases, school will even allow students to order individual meals online, but the security issues and difficulty tracking down the students can make that a difficult option.

One way to increase veggie intake is to incorporate vegetables into healthy and delicious dessert recipes. Another way to increase veggie intake is to get healthy foods closer to low-income 'food deserts.' A group of teens from Minnesota are growing their own business by doing both.

Teens work to address needs of 'food desert' with vegetable-based desserts

This news story published by NBC talks about a group of 10 teens from a low-income neighborhood in north Minneapolis. They created Green Gardens as a way to raise money for a friend who was hurt in a car accident. Then with some grant money and lots of hard work, these amazing teens have grown the vegetable based bakery into something special.

As students return to school this year, there's a good chance that some of them will be on gluten-free diets. But being gluten-free doesn't automatically make a food healthier. In fact, according to a new study, a lot of gluten-free foods that are specifically marketed for kids fall short on nutrition content.

Gluten-free kids' foods fall short on nutrition

This news story from HealthDay describes the study. Gluten-free foods are often high in sugar (just like their regular gluten-containing counterparts) so it's important for parents who buy gluten-free foods for their kids to know they still need to read the nutrition facts labels when they buy gluten-free alternatives to typical wheat, barley, and rye-containing products.

Late nights = no breakfast and more junk food for kids

This news story from Newswise talks about the new Australian study. The researchers found that late bedtimes were linked to higher junk food intake and a greater likelihood of skipping breakfast. The authors suggest schools promote healthy sleep to their students and offer breakfast options.

Currently, there are over 10,000 chemicals that are considered to be safe when they're consumed in very tiny amounts, but some doctors say that kids are more susceptible to potential health issues because they're smaller.

Pediatricians sound alarm about food additives and children's health

This news story from Today talks about the new policy statement and describes some of the additives that top the list of potentially problematic chemicals: BPA, pthalates, PFCs, perchlorate, artificial food colors, and nitrates.

Although it's not really possible to avoid all of these, and other, food additives, parents can take steps to reduce exposure by choosing fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, not using plastic containers in the microwave, and reducing the use of plastic wrap.

Maybe not so much. As with many topics in nutrition, it's a little complicated. While one serving might be good, depending on the fruit juice, allowing little kids to drink lots of fruit juice will just add lots of calories and sugar to their kids' diets.

Atlanta professor warns parents: Fruit juice's 'healthy halo' is undeserved

This news story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution talks all about fruit juices and how fresh fruits and fruit juices aren't nutritionally equal. Currently the American Academy of Pediatricians suggests kids from 4 to 6 years of age drink no more than 6 ounces of fruit juice per day. They also say kids from one to three shouldn't have more than 4 ounces per day and that babies under one year of age shouldn't drink fruit juice at all.