A Neglectful Blogger’s Link Round-Up

by Bettina Elias Siegel on May 23, 2013

I know I’m not supposed to be blogging daily anymore (to preserve my health and sanity), but it just doesn’t feel right not to share with you some of the many interesting articles and links that come across my screen at a rapid clip each day.  Lately, though, I’ve been playing catch-up on life – [...]

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An Update on Mr. Zee!

by Bettina Elias Siegel on May 22, 2013

Last week I released on YouTube a rhyming children’s video, “Mr. Zee’s Apple Factory,” which I wrote and illustrated to help teach young kids to think more critically about processed food and Big Food’s advertising.  (More on what motivated me to do so here.) When you’re one person going up against Big Food’s almost $2 [...]

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You Say You Want a Revolution . . .

by Bettina Elias Siegel on May 17, 2013

You guys, I feel like I’m walking on air today . . . On a personal level, today marks my 15th year of wedded bliss with Mr. TLT  – now also known to the world as the evil “Mr. Zee!” It also happens to be the birthday of one of my food heroes, Janet Poppendieck, [...]

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In March, 2011 I was honored to be chosen as one of the winners of a Slate magazine anti-childhood-obesity crowd-sourcing contest.  My submission, entitled “Legislate, Educate and Inoculate to Create Food-Savvy Kids,” argued that we need to fight the problem on three fronts:  legislation to curb the food industry’s rampant advertising to children; widespread nutrition [...]

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Back in July, 2011 I told you about Kids Live Well, a program created by the National Restaurant Association to improve the often-dismal offerings on most chain restaurant children’s menus. But in late March of this year, the Center for Science in the Public Interest issued a damning report which found that 97% of the restaurant [...]

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It’s one of those weeks when the school food news is coming in so fast, I can’t keep up!   Here’s a quick round-up of articles of interest: A Fourth-Grader Goes Undercover in the Cafeteria – Are His Findings Accurate? Many of you have already seen on TLT’s Facebook page today’s New York Times blog account of a [...]

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Does Childhood Hunger Justify Food in the Classroom?

May 8, 2013

A reader named Sheri left a thought-provoking comment on yesterday’s post in which I asked TLT’ers to chime in on a parent’s question about eliminating food in the classroom.  Sheri pointed out that many kids come from food insecure households and therefore my desire to eliminate all food from the classroom (articulated most succinctly in [...]

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Can We Crowd-Source A Reader Question re Food in the Classroom?

May 7, 2013

Between my recent laptop crash and this mysterious “Lunch-Tray-third-anniversary-project” I keep alluding to on Facebook, I’m falling woefully behind on various promised posts.  One such post is the answer to a question left on TLT’s Facebook page by a reader named Allison who is concerned with junk food in her child’s classroom.  Since I’m pressed [...]

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Two New Books Worth Checking Out: Bite This! and The Pantry Principle

May 6, 2013

One of the nicest perks of writing this blog is being contacted by authors to read and review their books.  I can’t always get to everyone’s book — my nightstand stack is about to fall over! — but I do love sharing what I’ve read with you here. Today I want to tell you about [...]

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The Too-Short School Lunch Period: What Can Parents Do?

May 1, 2013

One of The Lunch Tray’s most popular guest posts ever, entitled “The Incredible Shrinking Lunch Period,” was written back in 2011 by Chris Liebig, a law professor who also blogs about Iowa City schools.  In that post, Chris described the ridiculously short period of time allotted for lunch in his district and unfortunately he couldn’t end the piece [...]

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