The People Cooking Your Kids’ Lunch

Cafeteria Confessions · Jul 29, 2026 · 31m

Most conversations about school meals focus on the food itself: what's on the tray, where it comes from, whether kids are eating it. But every one of those meals is made possible by people, many of whom arrive as early as 5 a.m. and are among the only staff who see nearly every student every single day. In this episode of Cafeteria Confessions, we shift the focus to the people cooking your kids' lunch. We sit down with Cathy Carmicheal, a research dietitian at the LSU Pennington Biomedical Research Center who leads Louisiana's Team Nutrition, a USDA-funded initiative that gives schools…