Busting 3 Big Myths About School Lunches
School meals have come a long way in the past decade. Yet, some myths about government-funded lunch programs are still hanging around like an old lunchbox no one wants to clean out. Let’s clear the air with a look at the top three myths about school lunches—and the surprising truths behind them.
The Academy for GOD has proudly served school meals as part of the USDA school meal program since 2014.
Myth #1: Government-Provided Food Is Low Quality
Picture this: a truck pulls up with “commodity food” written on the side, and out rolls... boxes of fresh produce and familiar brand-name staples you probably have in your own kitchen. That’s right! The fruits and veggies in school lunches aren’t some mysterious, lower-grade option. They're the same apples, oranges, and carrots you can find at your local grocery store.
Government programs partner with schools to deliver top-notch ingredients, no additives in sight. Our school even gets farm-fresh produce, adding a wholesome crunch to every meal. So next time you hear someone cite “government food,” just remind them—those apples are great quality.
Myth #2: Nutritional Standards Are Lax
Once upon a time, school lunches might have been a land of mystery meat and greasy pizza. But in 2010, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act swooped in and completely revamped the game. Think of it as a glow-up for school meals.
This act tightened the reins on fat, sugar, and sodium while rolling out the red carpet for whole grains, fruits, and veggies. Portions got a makeover too—goodbye oversized servings, hello balanced plates! Today, every bite is carefully calculated to meet strict nutritional guidelines. Behind the scenes, schools track every calorie to ensure meals are both tasty and healthy. It’s not just food—it’s science on a tray.
The dining hall is a place of joy and laughter as students share a meal together each day!
Myth #3: Schools Have No Say in Their Menus
False! While schools must follow federal nutritional guidelines, they still have the freedom to get creative with their menus. Want to highlight cultural flavors? Go for it! Interested in introducing students to global cuisines? Yes, please!
At our school, we prioritize scratch-made dishes over heavily processed foods and love exploring flavors from around the world. From savory curries to homemade pasta dishes, our menu is all about blending health, variety, and a touch of adventure. And because we know what our students like, we ensure the meals aren’t just nutritious—they’re also delicious.
The Bottom Line
School lunches are healthier, fresher, and more flexible than ever before. So the next time someone clings to outdated ideas about cafeteria food, serve them the facts. Government-funded lunches are dishing up quality and nutrition, with plenty of room for schools to make them their own. Who’s ready for a taste?
School Meals: A Key to Reducing Chronic Disease
Proper nutrition during childhood and adolescence plays a vital role in shaping lifelong health outcomes. One of the most effective ways to support children’s health is by ensuring they participate in school nutrition programs, which guarantee access to a full serving of fruits and vegetables every school day. Research consistently highlights the positive impact of consuming adequate fruits and vegetables in reducing the risk of chronic diseases.
The Importance of Fruits and Vegetables for Growing Students
Health experts recommend that children aged 8 to 18 consume between 1.5 and 4 cups of vegetables and 1 to 2.5 cups of fruit daily, depending on their age, sex, and weight (1). However, meeting these nutritional goals can be challenging. School meal programs help bridge this gap by offering a diverse selection of fruits and vegetables, enabling students to choose options they enjoy while meeting their daily nutritional needs (2). In fact, students who participate in these programs can receive up to half—or even all—of their daily vegetable requirements during the school day.
This level of access benefits not only the students but also their families. Parents can rest assured knowing their children are getting a significant portion of their daily nutrient intake at school, reducing the pressure to prepare nutritionally complete meals at home. Additionally, the variety of produce offered in school meals exposes students to a broader range of nutrients, fostering better overall health.
How Fruits and Vegetables Combat Chronic Disease
Numerous studies have demonstrated the critical role of fruits and vegetables in preventing chronic illnesses. For instance, consuming adequate amounts is associated with lower risks of cardiovascular diseases and enhanced bone health. Furthermore, certain vegetables, particularly leafy greens, have been shown to offer protective effects against lung cancer. High-fiber foods, which are abundant in fruits and vegetables, also aid in the digestion of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, contributing to obesity prevention and overall metabolic health.
Additional evidence links fruit and vegetable consumption to a reduced risk of various cancers, including intestinal, pancreatic, bowel, thyroid, and lung cancers. These nutrient-rich foods provide essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that support the body’s natural defense systems (3).
Building Lifelong Healthy Habits
Participation in school nutrition programs does more than support physical health—it also serves as an educational tool. By regularly eating balanced meals that include full servings of fruits and vegetables, students learn what a healthy plate should look like. These habits can set the foundation for better dietary choices in adulthood, contributing to long-term disease prevention.
Incorporating school meals into a child’s daily routine is a simple yet powerful step toward improving health outcomes. By ensuring that students consume their recommended servings of fruits and vegetables, school nutrition programs not only reduce the risk of chronic disease but also foster healthier generations to come. Eating school meals is an investment in children’s current and future well-being—a step toward a healthier, brighter future.
(1) https://www.myplate.gov/eat-healthy/vegetables
Three Ways to Give toward Our K-12 Educational Initiatives this Season
We're kicking off our #GreatGain giving campaign this Giving Tuesday with three essential causes: Biblical Education in the Developing World, Global K-12 Education, and Sustainable Christ-Centered Community Building.
We'll hope you'll take a moment to listen to (or read) GOD Int'l founder Gregg Garner as he talks about the heart behind our global K-12 Education cause this year.
The following is a transcript version of the video linked above.
Another opportunity that we have for you this Christmas season is this chance to be able to support our educational initiatives, specifically for kids from kindergarten to what we would have as the equivalent of 12th grade.
Now, how do we do this? There are three different ways that we are participating in the education of this specific demographic.
The first is through our Academy home education program. What this does is it gives to students, no matter where they're at around the world, the opportunity to become remote learners in the classroom.
With Academy students here in Nashville, our classrooms are outfitted in such a way that the technology allows for a student from Uganda to literally sit in the classroom virtually by being on a TV screen, of which then there's this camera that follows the speaker. There's multiple frames on the camera. One is on the teacher, one is on the students. And the student abroad could be heard through the television and participate in the same way that students in the classroom are able to be heard by the student abroad. And it happens all in real time time. We coordinate this with our various regions so that these young people get the type of education that we are offering at the Academy.
If you don't know about what God's done with the Academy for GOD, let me tell you a few things. In the last 12 years, not only have we been one of the more awarded schools in the local Nashville area, everything from best private school, the best elementary school, and best secondary school, we've been blessed to be recognized along these lines. But also now, as a Cognia accredited school, we were recently awarded with Cognia's highest distinction award. And this was an award given to about 50 schools where in the running there was about 2,000 schools. And we are one of those because they saw that the type of education that we're offering is in many ways the future for a lot of educational institutions who are willing to go in this direction. So what we have is a very quality product. In fact, it was so quality that during the time of COVID we launched this internationally because a lot of our young people who were around the world, their schools shut down, even some of them indefinitely. Others for a couple years at a time. In fact, there was a time during COVID that the only kid getting educated in one of our countries was a kid who was a remote learner for the Academy home education curriculum. But during that time, when some of our students got to participate in that and then their schools opened back up, we had to have a meeting with all those students, parents, because they said, can you please keep this going for us?
Because our kids are thriving, they are loving school, they are producing work like we haven't seen them been able to produce. It is such a good experience for them. Is it possible that you could keep it going even though schools have opened up and we had to get together and say, gosh, this is a pretty amazing thing, that they would trade in a virtual experience over and above them actually going to their respective schools. And since that time, it's been a couple years now, not only have we kept the program going, but we've actually graduated several students this year. In fact, we're going to graduate three more students from the academy home education program in East Africa alone.
We are wanting to make this more available to various families and students who are capable of participating in this type of educational curriculum. So the first opportunity you have is to help a scholarship, these international young people into an innovative educational opportunity specifically for junior high and high school.
The second opportunity that we have is with our brick and mortar school. I'm so happy to announce that we have our first international brick and mortar Academy for GOD. And it is located in Uganda. At this point, we've started with just a kindergarten class and we've got about 50 kindergarten kids. But we want to be expanding that a few grades every year. We're going to need your help.
It's not super expensive to be able to do this, but without your help, we're not able to give the quality education that these kids deserve. Now, it's not the same education that they get here at the Academy. Contextually, it doesn't work. It's more similar to what they might get within their relatively proximity institutions. Schools they could have gone to. But the difference is in two things: One, the teachers that we're hiring are legitimately people who care and who are ministerial minded and who recognize what they're doing is not just a job, but a calling. The second thing is that this school has within it a biblical curriculum.
In the same way, at the Academy we focus on these five pillars or these categories of learning. The academic, the social, the emotional, the moral and the spiritual, which permeates all of it. That same philosophy is taking place in Uganda at this Academy, starting with kindergarten. And these kids are going to become biblically literate kids as they go through the program at large. We're really believing and hoping that as we expand a couple grades every year, that we're going to see the fruit of this type of biblical education in that community. Because these kids deserve the best and we want to give them the best. So Your help is going to help us, one, make sure that we've got the right kind of personnel, the right kind of teachers, and so that they're adequately compensated.
Third, that we're able to make sure that our kids have the best supplies to make sure that they're able to fulfill expectations related to classwork. So we're talking about backpacks and uniforms and shoes and all of the stationery that they need to make it happen. Finally, we also want to bring about the kind of training that makes it so that the school is not just like every other school in the area, but it's indeed a school that shares the biblical philosophy that we have here at the Academy.
So in review, first, we've got students who are capable of attending the Academy for GOD, junior high and high school remotely online. And they need help being able to do that. Your money will help us outfit them with an iPad. It'll help us scholarship the experience so that we are effectively stewarding the resources and making sure these guys get the best education. But also at our brick and mortar school, one of many to come, we're able to now fund the operations of that school. And I'm so excited for you to see some of the footage of what's going to be happening over there. It's a real, real powerful, wonderful thing.
Finally, we also have an after school supplemental biblical education program for kids who are between the ages of 10 and 20 years old. And this takes place within the context of various schools in these different countries. So let's say, for example, Kenya. In Kenya we work with over 100 schools. And in these different schools we have these breakout groups. And these breakout groups create several hundred breakout groups. Usually they're about the size of 25. And we have on the ground leaders who then are teaching after school Bible programs. And we need your help to make sure that they have the resources to be able to do this. You see, while these kids are going to public schools, they are learning a bunch of subject matter, but they are not learning the word of God. And in the way that we're able to teach it and the way that our people on the ground are able to teach it. And it's that word of God that is going to open up their minds and get them to become the kind of people that bring about transformation for their communities at large. We need your help to be able to supply that after school educational resource for these communities of kids in these various schools.
So in review one more time, you've got 1) an opportunity to help a scholarship junior high and high school students into the Academy Home Education remote learning program. 2) You can help us to build up our first international brick and Mortar Academy for GOD in Uganda by sponsoring kids going to school their supplies and helping us train teachers and provide teachers and then finally 3) our after school Bible curriculum that is implemented by our different leaders in these various communities who are going to the public schools, breaking them into groups and teaching the Word of God. You have the opportunity to be able to invest in this way and this is going to be great gain for the Kingdom. Thank you so much. We really need your help, so go ahead and give.
Celebrating Educational Excellence: Cognia Names 60 Schools & Systems of Distinction
At the Academy for GOD, we are passionate about promoting academic excellence and fostering environments that support growth for students, teachers, and leaders alike. This commitment aligns perfectly with the work of our accrediting association: Cognia, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to educational improvement, which recently recognized 60 institutions worldwide as “Schools and Systems of Distinction” for the 2023-2024 year. These schools exemplify top-tier education standards, having excelled through Cognia's rigorous Accreditation Engagement Review process.
At the Academy for GOD, we are passionate about promoting academic excellence and fostering environments that support growth for students, teachers, and leaders alike. This commitment aligns perfectly with the work of our accrediting association: Cognia, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to educational improvement, which recently recognized 60 institutions worldwide as “Schools and Systems of Distinction” for the 2023-2024 year. These schools exemplify top-tier education standards, having excelled through Cognia's rigorous Accreditation Engagement Review process.
Academy Administration is presented with The Cognia School of Distinction Award by Head of School, Gregg Garner, during a school assembly in October 2024.
The Academy for GOD applauds the selected institutions for achieving this distinction, highlighting their dedication to high-quality education, continuous improvement, and a positive learning environment. Cognia, whose reach extends across 90 countries and serves 40,000 institutions, provides accreditation and certification based on a globally respected framework. This year’s distinguished list of schools includes 41 individual schools and 11 systems across 23 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and eight international schools in five other countries. These 60 institutions were selected from among nearly 2,000 that participated in Cognia's Accreditation Engagement Review process during the 2023-2024 academic year placing the Academy among the top 3% of all 2,000 schools. Furthermore, the Academy is the only school in our state of Tennessee to be recognized.
Cognia’s review process is designed to maintain and elevate educational quality. This thorough evaluation includes a period of self-assessment by the school, an external review by trained evaluators, and an improvement plan based on evaluation outcomes. Schools meeting the Cognia Performance Standards show strong evidence of quality teaching, a supportive school culture, effective leadership, and engaging instructional environments. Achieving Cognia Accreditation means committing to this excellence over time, with reviews conducted every six years to ensure sustained quality.
"Congratulations to the 2024 Schools and Systems of Distinction for demonstrating excellence in education in meeting the Cognia Performance Standards,” remarked Dr. Mark A. Elgart, Cognia's president and CEO. “These institutions are benchmarks of school quality in their commitment to continuous improvement.” Institutions honored this year have shown exceptional educational practices and a commitment to fostering growth, learning, and success among students.
As an organization that values educational advancement, the Academy for GOD is inspired by these institutions’ achievements. The Cognia award reinforces the importance of quality standards, ongoing evaluation, and improvement to ensure students receive the best education possible.
Cognia’s role in educational improvement highlights the significance of institutional dedication to high standards, and these 2024 Schools of Distinction serve as models of what schools can achieve through continuous improvement efforts. They represent a global vision for education that resonates with our mission at the Academy for GOD. Together, we are moving toward a world where all learners are empowered to succeed, and where education is continuously evolving to meet the needs of tomorrow’s leaders.
For a closer look at this year’s Schools of Distinction and more information on Cognia’s impactful work, visit Cognia's website and explore how these exemplary schools are setting new standards for academic success.
“We Walk by Faith”: The ‘24-25 Academy Theme
Written by Academy for GOD Director of Education, Mr. Craig Duffy
This year’s theme at the Academy for GOD is “ We Walk by Faith”. Although the wording comes from 2 Corinthians 5:6-7 this concept can be found across the Biblical canon. At the Academy, we use themes to direct and focus the student body as well as the faculty who are responsible for facilitating our educational program. The purpose of this communication is to bring you, the parents, family, and stakeholders, an understanding of this theme and a few ways to support the students off campus.
This concept of ‘walking by faith’ is not in a vacuum. Paul is referencing a preexisting greco-roman value, one that permeated the thriving city of Corinth. The Corinthian motto was “We walk by what we see”. This sits in the wider context of the rise of rational Greek philosophy. What can be seen, observed, and tested, (think early empiricism) is considered safe to ground a perspective of reality upon. Though a powerful form of categorizing and evaluating observable natural phenomena, it is limited to the world of human senses. Paul interjects and proposes a more appropriate motto for the believers in Corinth. We walk according to our faith, not according to our sight.
Academy Founder, Mr. Gregg Garner, teaches on 2 Corinthians 5:7 during the first K-12 assembly of the '24-25 school year.
The tension of sight is significantly addressed at many points in scripture. For this brief article I will reference the first and perhaps most popular instance: The dilemma of Eve and her eyes. The story goes that as God walks toward Adam and Eve, he finds that their eyes have been opened and through an education not of his design (Genesis 3:7). By this we understand that Adam and Eve did not inherently have the sight that God intended, that is, man was made with a dependence on God to learn, to be educated.
We can start to understand why Paul would have an issue with the Corithian motto. Our eyes are not enough to formulate the way in which we should live life and decide what is right and wrong. Our sense of sight has to be informed by the word of God, his way, his walk, his instruction. Simply put, God has to be the one to open our eyes so that we can walk within his intended way.
Faith according to Paul in his letter to the Romans “comes by hearing, hearing the word of God”. Hebrews 11:1 says “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is the overriding principle by which the child of God understands and makes decisions within the world they live, and is not based on what can be sensed with our eyes. This is where we partner with God at the Academy.
This year, we aim to direct the focus of our student body on the building of faith. To help them reach conclusions that are based on faith instead of sight. That they can lean into and trust God’s word more than their own senses. That they can trust God more than what they can understand through their own senses and experience. This is a formidable task, it is the work of God. To complete the eyes of humanity. Join us this year as we train the sight of our students into seeing and believing the word of God above all other forms of education and experiences. Ask them open-ended questions about their day and listen for faith in their responses. If you find none, adjust their eyes by opening God’s word together, and help them to walk by faith.
For more biblical teaching on this year’s theme, watch our parent orientation where Academy Founder, Gregg D. Garner, expounds on the idea and how it will impact this school year.