When trained chefs prepare school lunches, kids actually eat their vegetables

Getting kids to eat healthier foods could be as simple as changing the way they're prepared.

A new study from researchers at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health randomly assigned trained chefs to schools in low-income urban school districts. The researchers studied the habits of more than 2,600 third- and fourth-graders at the schools with trained chefs and the ones without chefs, and found that kids ate more fruits and vegetables at the schools where trained chefs worked with cafeteria employees.

The researchers measured success by "plate waste," the food left after children finished eating lunch. The benefits extended further than the kids' health, too — the schools where children actually ate the food they were served saved money, because the chefs utilized foods more efficiently.

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Some of the trained chefs' menu options included sautéed broccoli with garlic or vegetable soup, rather than "hideous piles of indistinguishable greens," The Washington Post reports. Simple changes in menu preparations could have a huge impact, since 30 million children receive daily meals at school.