Lunches packed at home are generally not as nutritious as school lunches, a new study shows.
Researchers compared more than 750 school meals with more than 560 packed meals given to pre-K and kindergarten students in three schools, analyzing them for nutritional value over five days.
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“We found that packed lunches were of less nutritional quality than school lunches,” said lead researcher Alisha Farris, a Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Tech University.
The packed lunches had more fat, and included more desserts and sugary drinks than the school lunches did, the researchers found.
As a whole, the packed lunches overall had more calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, vitamin C and iron than school lunches. In addition, meals brought from home generally had less protein, sodium, fiber, vitamin A and calcium than school lunches, according to the study.
“There was a spectrum,” Farris said. “There were some really healthy packed lunches. But overall, they were pretty unhealthy.’
via School Lunches More Nutritious Than Home-Packed Lunches | Everyday Health.