School cafeterias serve 30 million meals daily, yet tight budgets, rigid procurement rules, and aging equipment make nutritious school meals harder to deliver than most people realize. Foodservice directors work with roughly $4.70 per free lunch to cover food, labor, and operations. The result? Processed foods win on cost while fiber-rich options lose. These barriers are real, but so are the solutions.

Nutrition science shows that long-term health is shaped by overall dietary patterns, food environments, and consistent access to nutrient-dense foods, not calories alone. In schools, that science matters at scale. With nearly 30 million lunches served each day, cafeterias have the power to translate evidence into healthier habits through menus that emphasize fiber-rich, minimally processed, culturally relevant foods students will actually eat.

The "Fibermaxxing" trend is exploding across TikTok as students discover what the research has long shown: fiber supports better digestion, sustained fullness, and long-term health. With the vast majority of U.S. youth not eating enough vegetables or fiber, this trend represents a golden opportunity for school nutrition programs to meet students where they are. Why Fibermaxxing Aligns Perfectly With School Nutrition On TikTok, “fibermaxxing” usually means piling on high-fibe

Most people know fiber helps with digestion, but its benefits go much further. This article explains how fiber supports steady energy, heart health, blood sugar control, and long‑term disease prevention. And offers simple, family‑friendly ways to add more fiber at home, in schools, and across community menus.

Every school day, countless trays of healthy food end up in the trash. Yet across the country, schools are finding creative ways to reduce waste and improve nutrition. From share tables and composting to smarter menus and student choice, small changes are making a big difference in how school meals nourish both students and the planet.

Millions of children rely on school meals and nutrition programs. Learn why kids need to eat during government shutdown and what can be done to help.

Discover fiber-rich kids lunches and healthy school lunches packed with high-fiber foods for kids to boost energy, focus, and long-term health every day.

As consumption of ultra-processed foods rises, there's a concerning trend emerging – a decline in the intake of dietary fiber.

If you're looking to nurture your gut microbiome and promote a thriving internal ecosystem, there's a simple strategy: focus on fiber

This is the second installment in a series about how food industry meddling biases nutrition science research to its advantage....

This is the first installment in a series about how food industry meddling biases nutrition science research to its advantage and at the ex

If there’s one thing I can count on, it’s that popular media will continue to circulate feel-good distortions of the nutrition science...

This morning as I was going through my daily nutrition Google Alerts, one story caught my eye. It was about a school district that won a...

Big Food is robbing our children of their future—our future—right in front of our eyes. And it must change now.

In Part One of this series, I shared the top two reasons I’ve come to believe nutrition and public health advocacy are more effective...

In this two-part series, I’m sharing five reasons I’ve come to believe we can’t educate our way out of the current diet-related disease...

At Balanced, our central ask of school districts is that they enrich their menus by adding nutrient-dense plant-based proteins and...

This week, the EAT- Lancet Commission released its first report outlining a set of universal, evidence-based benchmarks for the global food system, which it describes as urgently requiring a “radical transformation.” According to the report, an international effort to meet these targets is needed to effectively combat both crises of health and climate, which are intrinsically linked through food production and consumption. In fact, the report names food “the single strongest

The hardest job of a nutrition advocate is getting people to appreciate the full gravity of our nation’s truly grim health crises. Not...

In December of 2018, TIME magazine published an article titled "Are Eggs Healthy? Here's What the Experts Say." Unfortunately, what the...