Skip to content
Grist home
All donations DOUBLED
  • Can Michelle Obama make the math work for better school food?

    Launching her anti-obesity campaign — “Let’s Move” — last week, First Lady Michelle Obama vowed to add 1 million kids to the 31 million already being served daily by federal reimbursable meal programs while cutting back on the foods kids like most — refined grains, potatoes, sugar, salt — and adding things kids like least — vegetables and […]

  • To flourish, school gardens need more than photo ops

    This post originally appeared on Ed Bruske’s Slow Cook blog. ———— Kids from Bancroft School in the White House garden with Michelle Obama. As one of the teachers involved with Michelle Obama and the White House vegetable garden, I’ve been impressed with the sudden surge of public interest in the simple act of children planting […]

  • What’s for breakfast at school today? 13 teaspoons of sugar

    Yesterday I stopped by the cafeteria at my daughter’s school here in the District of Columbia — H.D. Cooke Elementary — and this is what many of the kids were having for breakfast: A package of sugar-glazed cookies called Kellogg’s Crunchmania Cinnamon buns; chocolate- or strawberry-flavored milk; grape juice. A 1.76-ounce packet of Crunchmania contains […]

  • Echoing Michelle Obama, a D.C. pol pushes ‘healthy schools’

    D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) has introduced landmark “Healthy Schools” legislation that integrates nutrition standards, locally produced foods, school gardening, broader access to subsidized meals and increased physical exercise to address obesity and other children’s health issues in the nation’s capitol. I recently submitted questions to Cheh about her bill, resulting in this interview by e-mail. The questions […]

  • Washington Times puts screws to city’s food provider, Chartwells

    By some sort of crazy coincidence, a reporter for the Washington Times was investigating Chartwells, the contracted food provider for D.C. Public Schools, at the same time that I was spending a week in a school kitchen discovering just how bad our school food is. Times reporter Jeffrey Anderson, meanwhile, reveals in a report today that Chartwells […]

  • Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: Hold the fat and please pass the sugar

    Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the second of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]

  • Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: What kids will do to avoid vegetables

    Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the third of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]

  • Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: How foods that don’t occur in nature end up on your kid’s plate

    Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the second of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]

  • Michelle Obama vows to ‘move the ball’ on kids’ diets

    White House flickr streamHer husband got dealt a difficult set of cards in taking over the post-Bush II presidency–and has arguably played them quite badly. He now finds himself in a tight political corner: caught between an emboldened Right, an angry Left, and a shrivelled middle. But Michelle Obama abides, as fabulous and beloved by […]