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Bettina Elias Siegel
about Bettina
Bettina Elias Siegel is a mom of two and a nationally recognized writer and advocate on issues relating to children and food policy.
A former attorney, Bettina practiced intellectual property, advertising, and food law in New York City for almost a decade before turning to a career in freelance writing. In early 2010, she became interested in improving the food in her children’s school district, Houston ISD, and soon after launched The Lunch Tray, a blog about all things related to “kids and food, in school and out.”
Bettina's writing on children and food has since appeared in many other outlets, including the New York Times, the Guardian, the Houston Chronicle, and Civil Eats. Her first book, Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World was released by Oxford University Press in the fall of 2019.
Bettina appears frequently on national and local television and radio, including Today, The Doctors, ABC World News Tonight, CNBC, Anderson, and Andrew Zimmern's MSNBC series, What's Eating
America? She has been featured or quoted in a wide variety of publications, including the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Parents, Texas Monthly, and Politico. In 2015, Family Circle named Bettina one of the country's "20 Most Influential Moms," and in 2020, she was named one of "20 Heroines Revolutionizing Food Activism to Improve the Planet" by Food Tank.
Bettina has also spearheaded three victorious Change.org petition campaigns relating to school children and food, making her one of the most successful petitioners in the organization’s history.
Bettina is the author and illustrator of Mr. Zee's Apple Factory, a free 12-minute rhyming video to teach young children about highly processed food, which has received almost 70,000 views and has become a valued resource for teachers' nutrition education curricula. She's also the author of the free 50-page e-book, The Lunch Tray's Guide to Getting Junk Food Out of Your Child's Classroom, which has been downloaded by thousands of parents and is now in its second edition. (Download a free copy here.)
A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, Bettina lives in Houston with her husband and two children, and may be found on Twitter @Bettina_Siegel
Bettina's media kit is here.
