Blogs

It’s award season! USDA is excited to highlight summer meal sponsors who go above and beyond to ensure children receive nutritious, appetizing meals.

The next meeting of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee will be held on Jan. 19, 2024, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET.

Registration is now open. HHS and USDA invite the public to participate in this important event by registering in advance to view the livestream.

A key part of our work to end hunger, improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and reduce diet-related diseases is focusing on historically under-served areas, like rural and Tribal communities. Alaska, for instance, faces unique challenges.

USDA FNS Administrator and regional FNS leadership visited New Mexico to recognize several FNS nutrition assistance programs in action and learn how FNS can support their work. New Mexico is one of the first states to offer healthy meals to all children, ensuring more kids have access to the meals they need to thrive at school and beyond.

Connecting Kids to Meals, known as CKM, is a nonprofit agency in Toledo, Ohio, that provides healthy meals at no cost to at-risk kids in low-income and underserved areas of Northwest Ohio. With a nearly 20-year history of feeding hungry kids, the critical work of CKM becomes more important every day.

USDA FNS is working hard to get more eligible families connected to WIC by making it easier to enroll.

School breakfast programs are critical in building a healthier future for America’s children. But currently, only half of the children who eat school lunch also get their breakfast at school. 

The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture encourage public participation in the committee’s review process.

The HHS and USDA will host the second full meeting of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on May 10, 2023. The meeting will be livestreamed for public viewing.

Over the course of three days in MI, Stacy Dean, Deputy Under Secretary for FNS, spoke at "The State of Our Plate" convening, met with school food service professionals, and attended a summit for healthcare professionals, insurers, federal, state, and local government officials.

Greeley-Evans School District 6 in northern Colorado was honored and excited to welcome Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to Maplewood Elementary School on March 22. The Secretary and visitors were able to see just one school of more than 30 in District 6 that provide essential health and nutrition programs to more than 22,000 students every day.

Federal nutrition programs do more than give kids food to eat. They teach children about the importance of nutrition and help them develop healthy habits.

The School Breakfast Program is one of the most nutritious and tasty meals children eat each day.

USDA’s summer meal programs – the Summer Food Service Program and Seamless Summer Option – reduce food and nutrition insecurity and help ensure kids are healthy and ready to learn when they return to school in the fall.

The HHS and USDA are excited to announce the members of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee! The Committee will review the current body of nutrition science and make recommendations to help guide HHS and USDA as they develop the 10th edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Increasing transparency and encouraging competition around WIC formula contracts may seem purely bureaucratic, but it’s actually a vital step toward ensuring babies can get the formula they need. 

The Omaha Nation WIC program recognizes the importance of incorporating Indigenous foods and traditional cooking practices into the WIC experience to form a holistic approach to nutrition education. Recently, they have taken extra steps to spotlight foods indigenous to their community, as well as dishes and cooking methods traditionally used by the Umóⁿhoⁿ people.

October is Farm to School Month! The USDA Farm to School Program helps schools incorporate local foods into meal programs and supports local food and agriculture education through grants, research, and technical assistance. Less plate waste may be a benefit for schools implementing farm to school.

On August 14-19, a leadership team traveled to Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianna Islands to meet with the territories’ leadership, superintendents and commissioners, that administer USDA food assistance programs. They discussed the challenges of transitioning back to pre-pandemic operations, how USDA could assist, and lessons learned.