More than half of American school children, roughly 30 million, rely on free or reduce-priced school lunches. In California alone, that number is 59 percent of children who qualify, according to the California Department of Education. Research has shown that providing free school meals for everyone has multiple benefits including higher attendance, decreased food insecurity and improved health. On this inspiring episode of the Baby Steps Nutrition Podcast, Argavan speaks with the one-and-only Chef Jason Hull, Executive Chef and Co-Director of the Culinary Farm at a school in Marin County, California. His motto is simple, “school lunches should be real, local food”. Chef Jason’s focus is on kids’ health and is deeply committed to providing nutritious school lunches with local and organic ingredients. Argavan and Chef Jason discuss the impact of school lunches on learning and behavior, how the pandemic affected children’s access to school meals and how we should strive for a free, federally funded national school food program for all children. You don’t want to miss this!
Mentioned in this Episode:
Healthy Kids Collaborative
Back to the Roots gardening kits
Babylon Micro-Farms
School Lunch Hero Day
For more on Jason Hull, you can follow him on Instagram @chefjasonhull, on Facebook @JasonHull, on Twitter @jhull42 and LinkedIn @JasonHull.
For more on Argavan Nilforoush, be sure to follow her on Instagram @babystepsnutrition, on Facebook: Baby Steps Nutrition page, on Twitter @argavanRDN, on LinkedIn @ArgavanNilforoush and through her website www.babystepsnutrition.com.