Requirements for Meal Content and Quality What items must be part of a school lunch or breakfast?
School meals are required to meet specific nutrition standards, and schools have a great deal of flexibility in deciding which menu planning approach will enable them to comply with these standards. (For more information on these standards and the options available to school menu planners, click here.) Do children have to select everything that is offered? By law, children in senior high school must be permitted to decline lunch items they do not intend to eat. The program regulations allow schools to elect to extend this permission to elementary and junior high school children as well. This means that high school children may decline as many as two of the five items in a food-based lunch, and younger children may decline one or two items depending on local policy. If lunches are prepared using Nutrient Standard Menu Planning, children may decline one item other than the entree. (If the meal as planned consists of more than three items, the child may decline up to two items.) For break
