Study: School Lunches More Nutritious Than Home-Brought Lunches

School lunches are more nutritious than home-packed lunches, according to the results of a study published in the November-December issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education & Behavior. Researchers compared more than 750 school meals with more than 560 packed meals given to pre-K and kindergarten students in three schools and analyzed them for nutritional value over five days. The packed lunches had more calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, vitamin C and iron than the school lunches, along with less protein, sodium, fiber, vitamin A and calcium. The school lunches had about 512 calories on average and the packed meals about 608.