Eating Regular Lunch At School?

[mama2two]

today I brought my daughter a pizza at school for her lunch, I try to bring her something hot at least once a week, because otherwise I tend to send the same thing everyday, and she's really good about it, because she doesn't complain, but I was thinking that there are some things that she could eat on the regular menu, so today while I was there, I talked to the head lunch lady and she wrote down what things my daughter cannot have (wheat, rye, barley and oats) and she said she would give it to the dietition who plans there lunches so that she can say what doesn't have these ingredients, and that she would let me know what she could have. I have been sending her lunches for a year and a half now and I know she would like to eat with the other kids, I know that somedays I will probably still have to send her lunch. Has anyone else ever attempted this and has it worked? I am hopeful, but already having my doubts.

[Lisa]

Here is great information for school age children. Hope this helps.

I know it's hard to turn over your child's health to someone else.

Open Original Shared Link

[missy'smom]

That's a great resource, thanks for posting it!

We receive a copy of the school lunch menu each month. I've look ours over and NONE of the mains are gluten-free. I won't check hot dogs and such because there is such a high risk of CC. Our school(public) allows kids to purchase milk only or side dishes and parents can send in a note specifying limitations on choices and expenses. The food service allows them to purchase sides without the mains and many are veg. and fruit and a few other gluten-free options. If your situation is similar to ours and if there wasn't a problem with CC you could send in a main and let her purchase a side and drink. My kid is happy just to buy milk. He gets comments about his lunch being different but he likes what I send and eats it all up everyday! For some more ideas on packed lunches you can click on the link on my profile to see what we do. His are all room temp. and I work from a stash of mains in the freezer with fresh fruit, rice and veg. added in the am. Good luck finding a happy balance.

[Fiddle-Faddle]

Here is great information for school age children. Hope this helps.

I know it's hard to turn over your child's health to someone else.

Open Original Shared Link

That site lists margarine, vegetable oil, mayonnaise, and OreIda Tater Tots as being UNsafe. I don't believe that is correct. I've never seen gluten listed on any of those items' ingredient lists.

[Amyleigh0007]

I had that concern too and I posted my thoughts in another thread. I thought those items were safe. Has that Dallas ROCK list been updated lately? It doesn't look like it. Anyway.....

I look at the school lunch menu for the next month and make a list of all the foods he is interested in and I think might be safe depending on ingredients (e.g. chicken nuggets are out but nacho cheese sauce might be safe). The cooks will give me the binder they keep that's filled with all the food labels and ingredients. I then check to make sure the food is safe. There are very few foods he can eat but he can always eat the side dishes. They are a fresh fruit and veggie choice and he can have milk. The cooks also know to change their gloves for him and they put him in the front of the line so he gets served first in his class.

[Fiddle-Faddle]

Nacho cheese sauce is usually thickened with flour.

I looked at the ingredients on the big industrial-sized can sold at Sam's Club. (They don't usually make these things from scratch in a school cafeteria.)

[Amyleigh0007]

Nacho cheese sauce is usually thickened with flour.

I looked at the ingredients on the big industrial-sized can sold at Sam's Club. (They don't usually make these things from scratch in a school cafeteria.)

I checked the label in the big binder they gave me and I did not see flour listed. He ate it last week. I really, really hope it was gluten free. Now I am worried.

[sugarsue]

Our school gives us a monthly menu with all the gluten items crossed off to show us what our options are. I carefully check them out though since they are calling two of their breakfast cereals OK which contain malt. This would probably be OK for one of my daughter's but not the other. Mostly I would not assume they know everything about gluten and question anything until you feel comfortable with what is being consumed.

[Darn210]

I tried to pick out a few meals for my daughter. I had picked out the nachos supreme, the hamburger (bunless) and hotdog (bunless) then checked in with the school district's dietician. She verified that my choices were OK and also added that the chef salads would be OK for her. I knew she wouldn't go for a chef salad and the hamburger and hotdog would require a visit to the cafeteria to talk to all the workers about handling her food so I started with the nachos supreme which basically came all prepackaged. She was excited. I was happy that she would feel like all the other kids. They serve nachos supreme once every three weeks . . . good enough!!! . . . Unfortunately, NOT good enough. About four months into the school year, she got off the bus saying she wasn't feeling good and that she had a bad afternoon. Her prediagnosis symptom was acid reflux (with small amounts of regurgitation) and that had been happening all afternoon. I also got an email from her teacher about a half hour later telling me the same thing. Obviously something had not agreed with her so off I went to the cafeteria and discovered that the tortilla chips had wheat in them. I sent an email to the dietician asking if something had changed because this with the first time this had happened and she'd had this meal several times. The dietician took a couple of days to get back to me but what she said surprised me . . . the vendor had changed the product but had not notified them. The dietician had asked the cafeteria manager to send over the "offending" item, and the dietician had no record of it. She then went to the vendor's contract and it was written such that they could substitute a "similar item" at the same cost . . . in other words, it was all about the cost and not the ingredients. She was terribly apologetic that it happened and offered to work with me on a way for my daughter to still eat a hot lunch at school, but I just don't think our school district is set up to handle it and I passed on the offer.

So my warning is this . . . you need to make sure that they have some sort of plan to monitor any product substitutions from the vendors.

Also, after my downer of a story . . . there is a member by the name of cruelshoes (Colleen) that has successfully worked out a hot lunch program for her son, you may want to PM her to get some ideas on how to set things up.

[Darn210]

Alright . . . here is Colleen's post where she told me about her success with hot lunches:

I'm sorry your daughter got ill from the school lunch. That is really annoying because you worked so hard to try to prevent it.

I don't know if it will help you, but we have been able to get a school lunch plan set up for my son with our school district dietician, and it has been working out very well. Their staff is trained that they are not allowed to prepare the lunch if the supplier changes for any reason. I have posted the process we had to go through and the menus that the dietician came up with over here: Open Original Shared Link. My son is actually the first child in the school district to get a celiac-safe lunch from the central kitchen. I almost feel like we are trendsetters.

And here's the whole thread if you wanted to take a look:

https://www.celiac.com/gluten-free/index.ph...c=42497&hl=

[Lisa]

Here is great information for school age children. Hope this helps.

I know it's hard to turn over your child's health to someone else.

Open Original Shared Link

I don't know when this list has been updated, which is the negative side of lists. Product information changes frequently.

The good folks at the Dallas ROCK group compiled this listing, which has been helpful to thousands. If anyone has updates with more current product information, pass it on the them so they can update their list. There is contact information in this link.

This site has other valuable information as well.

[Juliebove]

My daughter has additional food allergies so that complicates things. But mainly, wheat is a problem in the foods served at my daughter's school. I've yet to see a day where she could eat all that was on the menu. However they do have a salad bar available daily and fresh fruit. So if really necessary, she could eat that. Wouldn't be a complete or filling lunch, but it would be better than nothing.

[minton]

As a high school student, I will tell you that while school lunch ladies and the dieticians try their very best to be helpful, when I was first diagnosed and still eating school lunch carefully, I got glutened almost every day. CC is a major issue. I now only get items on the lunch menu if they come in packages with their ingredients list on them. It is a real challenge to be different at lunch, but way better than being sick.