Bettina Elias Siegel is a mom of two and a nationally recognized writer and advocate on issues relating to children and food policy. She is also the author of the new book, Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World (Oxford University Press, November, 2019).
A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, Bettina practiced intellectual property, advertising, and food law in New York City for almost a decade before turning to a career in freelance writing. In early 2010, she became interested in improving the food in her children’s school district, Houston ISD, and soon after launched The Lunch Tray, a blog about all things related to “kids and food, in school and out.”
Bettina’s writing on children and food has since appeared in many other outlets, including the New York Times, the Guardian, the Houston Chronicle, and Civil Eats. She also appears frequently on national and local television and radio, including Today, The Doctors, ABC World News Tonight, and Anderson, and she has been featured or quoted in a wide variety of publications, including the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Parents, Texas Monthly, and Politico. In 2015, Family Circle named Bettina one of the country’s “20 Most Influential Moms, In 2015, Family Circle named Bettina one of the country’s “20 Most Influential Moms, and in 2020, she was named one of “20 Heroines Revolutionizing Food Activism to Improve the Planet” by Food Tank.
Bettina has also spearheaded three victorious Change.org petition campaigns relating to school children and food, making her one of the most successful petitioners in the organization’s history:
- The first, in 2012, quickly garnered over 250,000 signatures and led the USDA to change its policy on “lean, finely textured beef” (popularly referred to as “pink slime”) in school food ground beef.
- The second, launched with a fellow advocate in 2014, sought to keep chicken processed in China out of school meals. It also went viral, garnering almost 330,000 signatures and resulting in victory.
- Siegel launched her third petition in late 2015 after breaking an exclusive story on The Lunch Tray regarding a highly misleading “nutrition education” video which McDonald’s hoped to show in schools. The petition garnered 90,000 signatures, was covered on the front page of the Washington Post, Today and The Doctors, leading McDonald’s to scrap its plans for the initiative.
Bettina is the author and illustrator of Mr. Zee’s Apple Factory, a free 12-minute rhyming video to teach young children about highly processed food, which has received over 52,000 views and has become a valued resource for teachers’ nutrition education curricula. She’s also the author of the free 50-page e-book, The Lunch Tray’s Guide to Getting Junk Food Out of Your Child’s Classroom, which has been downloaded by thousands of parents and is now in its second edition. (Download a free copy here.)
Bettina lives in Houston with her husband and two children, and may be found on Twitter @thelunchtray.