My friend Sally Kuzemchak at Real Mom Nutrition recently shared her top 10 most-read posts from last year (it’s a great list, by the way – check it out), and that had me wondering: what Lunch Tray posts were you reading most often in 2015? I couldn’t even hazard a guess, so this morning I checked my Google Analytics and here they are, in reverse order …. The Lunch Tray’s Top 10 Posts of 2015!
10. The Chicago School Food Boycott: My Thoughts In this post, published just three weeks ago, I told you how some kids at Roosevelt High in Chicago have said “enough is enough” to what they believe is terrible school food.
9. It’s Official: Texas Lifts Ban on Deep-Fat Fryers in Schools Ah yes, my old friend Sid Miller…. He’s the Texas Agriculture Commissioner who’s hell-bent on taking my state back to the nutritional Dark Ages. Good times.
8.Gatorade G-Force Infiltrates Schools Under Guise of “Hydration Education” Read how Gatorade employs a sales force dedicated to winning over every “point of sweat” — the company’s own term for the high schools it aggressively targets.
7. A School Nutrition Director Asks Me, “Can’t We All Get Along?’ In the midst of the ongoing battles over school food nutritional standards, a thoughtful school nutrition director thinks I’ve become too divisive, and I respond. I received a lot of nice feedback about this post, in which people said they really appreciated our ability to talk about some contentious issues in a polite, respectful way.
6. Is It Any Wonder We’re Confused? I’m gratified and surprised that this post made the list! It shows that you, too, often feel frustrated and confused by food industry health-washing, especially at stores like Whole Foods.
5. My Appearance re: McDonald’s “540 Meals” on The Doctors Talk Show Continued thanks to the TLT readership for supporting me through terrifying life experiences like this one: going head-to-head with a McDonald’s rep on national TV, in front of a live studio audience – and I didn’t even know anyone from McDonald’s was coming on the show until the night before the taping. Yikes.
4. “Cupcake Amnesty:” Childhood Obesity and the Political Divide Hey, look! It’s my friend Sid Miller again! This post describes how Mr. Miller, in his very first act in office, declared “amnesty for cupcakes across the state of Texas.” It also offers my thoughts on how childhood obesity prevention policies have, unfortunately, become such a partisan political issue in this country.
3. Don’t Call Me a “Sanctimommy:” The Latest Salvo in the Mommy Food Wars So, a writer named Jenny Splitter wrote in Salon that a mother is a “sanctimommy” if she’s overly worried about feeding her children GMOs, conventionally grown foods or sugar, and I disagreed. (And then my comments section was flooded by pro- and anti-GMO activists and I had to call a cease-fire.)
2. My New 40-Page eBook on Getting Junk Food Out of Your Child’s Classroom I LOVE that this is my second-most-read post of the year, because that means lots of you have downloaded my free guide to address this knotty problem! I sincerely hope the guide’s been useful to you.
And now the moment we’ve all be waiting for. The Number One Most-Read Lunch Tray post of 2015 was . . . . [drumroll] . . . .
1. Why I’m Fed Up With Those Photos of School Lunches Around the World Remember those crazy-viral photos from the salad chain Sweetgreen, purporting to show school meals around the world? You know, the ones with America’s horrible lunch getting slammed by Italy’s local fish on a bed of arugula and Greece’s chicken on lemon orzo? After having about 500 friends and readers send me those photos, implicitly asking me, “Hey, what’s up with America’s horrible school meals?,” I finally snapped and wrote this post.
This was such a fun little trip down memory lane, I plan to do it again every year! Thanks to Sally for inspiring me to do it, and thanks to you all for another great year of blogging.
Do you love The Lunch Tray? ♥♥♥ Follow TLT on Facebook and Twitter! You can also subscribe to Lunch Tray posts, and be sure to download my FREE 40-page guide, “How to Get Junk Food Out of Your Child’s Classroom.”
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Bettina Elias Siegel
Midge Elias says
This list was fun. Do it again next year!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you! I will!