--- title: School Lunch Solution: Get Chefs Involved description: With so many children getting about half of their daily calories from school meals, it’s critical that school cafeterias provider healthier options. The latest research suggests one way to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables canonical: https://time.com/3752931/school-lunches-nutrition/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-23T17:20:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:19.132Z article:section: Health og:title: Here’s One Way to Improve School Lunches og:description: With so many children getting about half of their daily calories from school meals, it’s critical that school cafeterias provider healthier options. The latest research suggests one way to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables og:url: https://time.com/3752931/school-lunches-nutrition/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf3ec3f85350fa4ba/69878492428a9e32ffcc7bc3/200145885-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4788 og:image:height: 2693 og:image:alt: 200145885-002 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here’s One Way to Improve School Lunches twitter:description: With so many children getting about half of their daily calories from school meals, it’s critical that school cafeterias provider healthier options. The latest research suggests one way to get kids to eat more fruits and vegetables twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf3ec3f85350fa4ba/69878492428a9e32ffcc7bc3/200145885-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here’s One Way to Improve School Lunches > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. 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It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=df5b4d82-16c5-485a-ac62-0b16ad8fe484&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Alice Waters on Edible Education [Watch (HLS stream): Alice Waters on Edible Education](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BRkbfoQ5.m3u8) (4:14)  _Published 2014-04-24. Alice Waters, chef and activist, talks about her project The Edible Schoolyard_  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Mar 23, 2015 5:20 PM UTC  For many children, half their daily calories come from school lunch For many children, half their daily calories come from school lunch Yellow Dog Productions—Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Mar 23, 2015 5:20 PM UTC If everyone had a personal chef, we’d all eat better. And if every school had a chef overseeing its recipes and menus, then kids would eat better too, right? That’s the idea behind the latest [study published in](//archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.3805) _JAMA Pediatrics_. With 32 million children in the U.S. eating school lunches—some of those at schools where pizza is considered a vegetable—there’s a movement to bring healthy food to the school cafeteria. But could a chef really make a difference? **MORE:** [Here’s What School Lunches Around the World Look Like](http://time.com/3722357/school-lunches-around-world/) The answer, as Juliana Cohen from the Harvard School of Public Health and her colleagues found out, is a resounding yes. The [First Lady’s Chefs Move to Schools program](http://www.chefsmovetoschools.org/) and the [Smarter Lunchrooms](http://smarterlunchrooms.org/) movement have pushed two new ways of bringing healthier fare to students: by hiring chefs to work in school cafeterias, and by something they called a “smart café” system: strategically placing healthy foods like fruits and vegetables more prominently in lunch lines. To test each strategy, as well as the two methods together, Cohen went to 14 schools in low-income Massachusetts urban areas and watched what 2,638 students in 3rd grade through 8th grade put on their trays and ate during lunch for seven months. Some schools were randomly assigned for the first three months to work with a chef to develop and modify recipes, some simply focused on the placement of healthy food, and some did both. The scientists studied what was left on the students’ plates as a way to determine what and how much of their food the students were eating. **MORE:** [Michelle Obama Bites Back at Critics of Her Healthy School Lunch Standards](http://time.com/120611/michelle-obama-school-lunches/) At the chef schools, the chances that the students selected fruit from the lunch line increased threefold compared to schools without a chef’s influence, and the odds that they actually tried some of the fruit increased by 17%. Researchers saw similar boosts with vegetables; students in the chef schools were nearly three times as likely to choose veggies, and 16% more likely to actually eat them. When the researchers looked at the schools that used both the chefs and the smart café strategies, the results were more mixed. Interestingly, the combination did not significantly affect the chances that students would grab fruits, but it dramatically increased the odds that children would pick up vegetables, compared to schools without either intervention. “We were quite surprised to see that when we looked at the combined smart café and chefs, there was no additional benefit beyond the impact of the chef,” says Cohen, a research associate in the department of nutrition. “Really it’s the impact of the chef that is driving the increase in consumption. We also saw that chef schools also increased selection as well, so there is a double benefit in these schools.” What the results highlight is that smart architecture and strategic placing of healthier foods in more prominent positions isn’t enough to get kids to eat them. But having a chef prepare school lunch does the trick. **MORE:** [Lunch Brought From Home is Unhealthier Than Cafeteria Food](http://time.com/3602757/school-lunch-cafeteria-food/) At the schools assigned to use a chef, the chefs tested new recipes and gave out samples for students to try, as well as encouraged them to try new things, presumably those containing more vegetables and fruits. “Knowing that the chef inspired the recipes can change the mentality around cafeteria food,” says Cohen. “And having the chefs there showed the kids that the school cared about them, and cared about what they were feeding them.” **MORE:** [Most Schools Still Don’t Meet Federal Nutrition Standards](http://time.com/3588057/obesity-school-lunch/) Cohen doesn’t see hiring full time chefs as a realistic or practical option for most school districts, but does suggest having several districts pool their resources to share a chef for training and nutrition education. At the schools in the study, some saw cost savings because the chefs not only revamped menus but helped staff with inventory control and more efficient use of their supplies. “They will gain long-lasting skills,” she says, noting that once they are trained, cafeteria staff could come up with their own additions and modifications to menus over time. There won’t be a single easy fix to improving school lunches, and each school may need to find its own solution, but if Cohen’s study proves one thing, it’s that when it comes to getting kids to eat something — anything — taste is key. Even if it’s nutritious, if it tastes good too, students will eat it. ## Transcript [ SOUND ] Edible education is an idea whose time has come. It's a way of teaching. It has to do with the growing of food and the way that we nourish ourselves. [ MUSIC ] In the mid' 80s and early' 90s, we were really in a fast- food culture, it was also the vice of fast, cheap and easy that had really taken over. Tonight, McDonald is making my family dinner because there's no way I can tell these big brown eyes mommy doesn't have time. And we need to teach children how to nourish themselves. And we need to edible educate every child in America. When I went to the edible school- yard, I was flowered. What I loved most was, the collaboration. The urgency of working together and making things work, of the children taking what they were planting and cutting down and gathering, and bringing it into the kitchen and cooking along with the chef. I also loved the way the chickens walked around [ LAUGH ] and visited everyone. This isn't just a garden in a school, I've never thought of it that way. I always thought about it as a complete [ INAUDIBLE ] that had the cafeteria at the centre. They could learn the value, the cooperation that happens when children cook together. They are having a master chef competition. Each table becomes a team, and they compete with the other two tables in the kitchen to plan a menu, execute the menu, and then present it. They're working independently with no help from any teachers or volunteers. And they are selecting their own vegetables, and timing themselves, and organizing themselves. We need to understand the traditional foods that were so nourishing to people, and we have to learn how to make these things tasty. And it actually tastes good like, it's sweet and spicy, and really nice. When they first saw food like chick peas, [ SOUND ] they didn't want to taste it. You know, the unknown doesn't always look like it's smiling at you, I love to see the children really cooking. I love the way they learned to cut like a chef. They learned to, try food. Honestly the sausage stuff if really good. I used some of the recipes that they can own and if I really like it, then I start trying to cook it. Learning how to cook, learning how to grow food. Everyone needs to know these things, because they're they're essential for our survival. We know about the health issues of fast food, we know about poverty, we know about hunger in America. This is something that there really needs to be taught in a very different way. Children will not immediately change their diets because someone has told them that it would be better to do so. I'm not wanting to tell children what to eat, I'm wanting to win them over. We need to live on the planet together. 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