Timing the Vegetables

The Journal of Preventive Medicine (via TreeHugger) says that in elementary school, Kids will eat more veggies if you let them play first : TreeHugger

Moving recess to before lunch increased consumption of fruits and vegetables by "0.16 servings per child", which might sound small, but it represents a 54% increase, which is huge. Pre-lunch recess also increased the number of children eating at least one serving of fruits or vegetables by 10% points.
Another beneficial effect of this simple change was the dramatic reduction in wasted food, by about 40%.

It's the sort of thing that I would class as "worth a try", both for schools and households. Wouldn't you?

Good Fat, Bad Fat, Test Scores

An international comparison suggests that diet has a really major impact on test scores: Breast milk reveals a correlation between dietary fats and academic success -- ScienceDaily

"Looking at those 28 countries, the DHA content of breast milk was the single best predictor of math test performance," Gaulin said. The second best indicator was the amount of omega-6, and its effect is opposite. "Considering the benefits of omega-3 and the detriment of omega-6, we can get pretty darn close to explaining half the difference in scores between countries," he added. When DHA and LA are considered together, he added, they are twice as effective at predicting test scores as either is alone...

The authors seem to think they're talking about cause and effect; both fats are part of normal brain development, 'cos the brain is mostly fat. They might be right. Of course, some of us have been trying to use more omega-3 anyway. I wonder how much it would cost to raise the omega-3 (and lower the omega-6) content of school food.