This Conversation Currents features Chef Kevin Gillespie, owner of Atlanta restaurant Gunshow, contestant on Bravo's "Top Chef Las Vegas" in 2009, and food activist for various organizations. He shares his journey to becoming a chef, ways to integrate healthy foods in schools, and the role of literacy in nutrition.

Will Summers has been farming since 2007 when he interned for a small community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm in Austin, Texas. His agricultural experience since then has primarily been with nonprofit organizations where he has cultivated vegetables, kept chickens, milked goats, and introduced young people to the wonders of farming and…

For more than 20 years, the Center for Public Policy Priorities (CPPP) has been a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) research organization committed to improving public policies and private practices to better the economic and social conditions of low- and moderate-income Texans. CPPP believes the upcoming reauthorization of the child nutrition…

Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been offering schools more fresh fruits and vegetables through the commodities program. Despite problems in delivering perishable food in good condition, food directors are supporting the program. However, two new free-trade agreements and the Republican-led Congress may change the…

In this article, the author reviews school lunches around Boston. He discusses a significant fact about school lunches today, which is the "free" and "reduced" lunch program. The most promising developments he saw came from two opposite directions: (1) from food conglomerates reformulating snack foods to eliminate transfats,…

This resource guide puts forth 15 ideas for actions in food stamp and other child nutrition programs that states, schools, and cities can implement to feed more hungry low-income residents, especially children, and provide a direct federal economic stimulus for the state and its businesses. The guide asserts that states risk accelerating a…

Gives a brief report on an experimental program that provided good tasting nutritious food to students during school breaks as an alternative to cafeteria school lunches. Describes program planning, how and where the food supplies were purchased, and how the program gained general acceptance. Includes a sample menu. (AEM)

During the school year, the School Lunch Program provides one-third to one-half of the nutrients low-income children consume every day. However, the rate of participation by eligible children in the Summer Food Service Program is only 15.5 percent of the target population. Created by Congress in 1968, the Summer Food Service Program is designed to…

This study, which was conducted by a national consumer advocacy organization, examined the nutritional adequacy of the diets of elementary school children. The study also examined the nutritional adequacy of meals served in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The study determined that: (1) children consume too much fat, cholesterol, and…

Changing the National School Lunch Program to eliminate funding to the full-price meal would affect the entire program, leading to a drastic increase in the price of these meals, a decrease in program participants, and a loss of the health emphasis of the program. (MLF)

Explains why privately-run lunch programs are providing better nutritional value at less cost than state-run programs. Several examples are provided of schools where lunch program privatization has increased participation and cafeteria discipline, improved nutritional and food quality, and has done so with financial efficiency. (GR)

Prepared for joint hearings on the impact of the proposed budget cuts on programs affecting children, these background materials describe the main programs which serve children in five general areas. These areas are health services for mothers and children, child nutrition programs, aid to families with dependent children, day care and other child…

Problems facing vocational education and child nutrition programs if proposed funding cuts take effect were detailed by vocational educators and nutrition specialists at a regional hearing of the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary and Vocational Education in Ashland, Kentucky, March 13, and Lexington,…