Some schools might serve lunches with food dyes along with artificial colorings and flavorings such as yellow 5, malic acid, citric acid and red 40. You can ask for a detailed list that includes the foods the cafeteria plans on serving. Most packaged foods contain several colorings or flavorings. The best way to avoid them is to eat whole foods such as fruits and vegetables.
Many school lunch foods also contain preservatives so the food can last longer. Some children may have allergies or reactions to these additives. Many different preservatives are used such as benzoates, bromates, glutamates, nitrates, nitrites and sulfites. Product labels should list everything contained in the food.
Some schools serve a lot of greasy and fatty lunches such as cheeseburgers, lasagna, pizza and other junk foods. Find out what's on the menu ahead of time and decide which types of foods you want to allow your child to eat. You can let him have pizza on the day they serve this food and then pack his lunch the rest of the time to reduce the amount of fat he gets in his diet. Some foods might have lard added, which is especially not good if you live a Kosher lifestyle.
Find out if the school serves food with extra sugar. Some schools might include a dessert with every lunch such as gelatin, cakes or ice cream. Policies can vary greatly. They might only offer dessert on Friday, but your child can still ingest too much sugar if the school serves a lot of soda, teas and sugary beverages or sugar-filled snacks. High fructose corn syrup is an ingredient added to ketchup, mayonnaise and other condiments. Some schools have a strict policy while others are less restrictive.