Nora LaTorre on why school lunch is the biggest lever for children's health

Schools are the largest restaurant chain in America, bigger than Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's combined. Nearly 100,000 locations, 30 million kids, and roughly 7 billion meals a year. Right now, the lion’s share of the calories served through this system are ultra-processed at a time when there’s growing concern about chronic diseases among children.Nora LaTorre is the CEO of Eat Real, a nonprofit that's transforming school meals scale — certifying school districts against doctor-developed standards and helping food service leaders pivot to fresher, more local, more scratch-cooked food. Since 2019, the organization has grown from one district in one state to more than a million kids across 21 states. This expansion has put LaTorre and her organization at the center of an active debate about what the future of school meals should look like in the U.S.Highlights:– How Eat Real's certification model works and what the two-year journey looks like for school districts– Why better food means more kids eat school lunch (which means more revenue)– The story behind California's AB 1264, which passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support– LaTorre’s take on how federal preemption is a serious threat to food policy progress– What the MAHA moment means for school food– What parents can do to support change at their local school– The infrastructure gap: transforming school food nationally could require tens of billions in kitchen investmentWhere to find Nora LaTorre:Eat RealParent resources at eatreal.org/parentsFollow Nora on Instagram (@nourishedwithnora) and LinkedInMentioned in this episode:AB 1264 — California's school food billStay in touch:Sign up for Helena’s must-read weekly newsletter: Food Fix.Follow American Dish on Instagram and YouTube.Send ideas and feedback to [email protected] out Forked, the food politics podcast Helena co-hosts with the Food & Environment Reporting Network.Credits: This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz. Original music by David Bottemiller.