The Checkup: School Lunches in Philly Actually Cost $1.39

Plus—a couple wins a "wrongful birth" suit, and white rice might be tied diabetes.

• I stumbled on to an interesting Q&A on the Notebook blog last week, in which the Food Services Division of the Philly school district answers questions from parents. Sandwiched among the factoids—that the district serves about 110,000 lunches a week, for example, and that only about a third of schools are equipped with full kitchens—is this: the allotted budget for each child’s lunch is $2.73 total, with just $1.39 going to the actual food (the rest covers labor and administrative costs). Of the $1.39, 25 cents is for milk, 20 cents is for fruit and 20 to 50 cents is for protein. Fascinating, no? It’s no wonder healthy, fresh options are so hard to come by.

• A jury in Portland awarded a couple nearly $3 million in a “wrongful birth” lawsuit. Yes, wrongful birth—not death. Why? Because their kid was born with Down syndrome, and the doctors missed the diagnosis before birth. So they sued—and won.

• Researchers may have landed on a link between white rice and Type 2 diabetes. Time to lay off the Chinese takeout?