There are few topics more important in this country than the health of our children, and this week on Straight, No Chaser host Katy Keiffer chats with Jessica Donze Black, project director for the Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project at the Pew Health Group, The Pew Charitable Trusts. Together they discuss some of the efforts being made to ensure that all of the food choices available to kids at school are healthy choices. Find out how vending machines can be used for good and why standards like snacks and bake sales need to be re-imagined to achieve food safety at our schools. Learn more about healthy school food here. This program was sponsored by Cain Vineyard & Winery.

“What we want to do is set minimum standards so that all children have access to healthy food choices. We want parents to be comfortable knowing that ALL of the food choices that their children would have at school would be choices [the parents] would be comfortable with.”

“The beverage industry has agreed to stop selling full sugar-sweetened beverages to schools, such as full-sugar soda.”

“New York is a place that has made some significant changes in the school environment and in early childhood development. So far the results are really encouraging.”

— Jessica Donze Black, project director for the Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project on Straight, No Chaser