This report responds to the requirement of PL 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals. Under direct certification, children are determined eligible for free school meals without the need for household applications by using data from other means-tested programs. 

The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program aims to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among students in the nation’s poorest elementary schools by providing free fresh fruits and vegetables to students outside of regular school meals. The results presented in this interim report, for the 2010-2011 school year, focus on the total quantity of fruits and vegetables consumed and total energy intake (also referred to as total caloric intake), allowing the assessment of whether any additional fruit and vegetable consumption was in addition to or in place of other foods consumed.

This study describes some of the choices state agencies made as they exercised the flexibility offered during the implementation and describes the resulting food packages.

This is a report of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine, Food and Nutrition Board, which was commissioned by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. It is available here by permission. It may also be obtained through the Institute of Medicine website. This is the final version of the report. An earlier, prepublication version was made available in November 2010, but should no longer be used. This final version includes some important corrections.

This is a report of the National Academies' Institute of Medicine (Food and Nutrition Board), published here by permission. This report seeks to evaluate the use of various dietary assessment tools and to make recommendations for their use in identifying individuals who are at dietary risk.

Research conducted in the early 1990s indicated that school meals, on balance, were failing to meet certain key nutritional goals. In light of these findings, the USDA launched a far-reaching reform of the school meals programs, a reform aimed at upgrading the nutritional content of school meals. Several elements of this reform are collectively referred to as the School Meals Initiative for Healthy Children (SMI). The status of this initiative, together with an examination of selected operational issues of these programs, are the principal subjects of this report.

Fruit and vegetable consumption is an important component of a balanced diet consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Food Guide Pyramid. FNS promotes the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, in all forms – fresh, frozen, canned, dried and juices, through its nutrition assistance programs.

This report fulfills a request to USDA from the Appropriations Committee Directives, FY 2002. As requested, this report compares the availability of fruits and vegetables in schools with and without salad bars using data from the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study, Part II, which were collected during the school year 1998-99. SNDA-II data enables us to examine the choice and variety of foods offered at salad bars, but not the quantity in a typical serving or the amount consumed.

This study was conducted within RAND's Center for the Study of Food and Nutrition Policy as part of RAND's Child Nutrition Analysis Project with the United States "Nutritional Monitoring Data". This document reports on the study of state nutritional monitoring data and should be of benefit to those interested in the operations of child nutrition programs.

This report summarizes the results from the state census conducted by FNS. Data for the census were collected during fiscal year 2001. The study examines how states are currently using or planning to use computer matching strategies for error reduction in the Food Stamp Program.