Improving school lunch? That probably wouldn’t take much. One of our readers used the Suggest a Story link to tip us off to a program right here in Portland that’s working to improve the quality and methods used for lunches in the Portland Public Schools. The program is called Reading, Writing, and Radicchio. Instead of using prepackaged frozen lunches, the focus is on using fresh ingredients to prepare meals from scratch. Initial response from both the children and the community has been positive.

Now they’re sharing what they’ve learned. Though a public series of events, the goal is to spread the knowledge with the community. Find out more at their website.

As a footnote, if you’re like me, and your first thought was “What the hell is radicchio?”, it only proves that apparently we do in fact need some food education. Radicchio is a leafy vegetable.