CleanEats Coalition

The FDA opened a fresh safety review of BHA in February, a preservative on the market since 1961. Here's what it is, who already banned it, and how to check your cafeteria's ingredient lists.

Federal rules cap reduced-price lunch at 40 cents, but that still keeps some kids out of the cafeteria line. Nebraska just passed a pilot to wipe it out. Here's how it works.

Unpaid school meal debt can turn into a stamped hand, a swapped tray, or a cold sandwich. Here is what federal rules require, which states have banned the practice, and how students can find out where their district stands.

California's AB 1264 is the first state law to go after ultra-processed food in school meals. Here is how it defines the term, what it exempts, and the clock your cafeteria should be watching.

A federal law signed in January 2026 lets schools serve whole and 2% milk again. The key word is lets. Here is what changed, what did not, and why the flavored milk on your tray still has a sugar cap.

Federal rules say most grains in school meals must be whole grain-rich. But 'whole grain-rich' only means half whole grain, and a brown color proves nothing. Here is how to read an ingredient list in 30 seconds and what to ask your cafeteria.

In 2015, the World Health Organization's cancer agency put processed meat in its highest risk category. Pepperoni, ham, hot dogs and breakfast sausage are still regular items on school menus. Here is what the label means, what the category does and does not say, and how to find out what your cafeteria is serving.

In 2021, scientists at a California state agency published a review of the research on food dyes and children. Three years later, that review helped convince lawmakers to ban six dyes from every public school cafeteria in the state. Most students have never heard of it. This post walks through what that report actually said, how it turned into a law called AB 2316, what the law covers and what it skips, and what you can take from it to your own school. The report that started

Pick up a box of frozen chicken nuggets, a bag of crackers, or a tub of microwave popcorn and read the ingredients all the way to the end. There's a decent chance you'll find four letters that mean nothing to most people: TBHQ. It's a preservative, it's cheap, and it's completely legal. This post covers what TBHQ is, why food companies love it, what we do and don't know about its health effects, and how you can check whether it's in the food your school serves. You don't need

A single school pizza lunch can carry more than half the sodium a kid is supposed to eat in an entire day. Add a side of canned green beans, a roll, and a cup of dressing, and the tray gets saltier fast. Most students never see a number, because nobody prints it on the menu. There is a federal limit on sodium in school meals, and a tighter one is coming on July 1, 2027. This post covers what the limit is, why salt hides in foods that don't taste salty, and how students can fi

Picture a school lunch tray with a carton of apple juice on it. Now picture the same tray with a whole apple. On paper, under federal meal rules, both can count as a serving of fruit. On your body, they do very different things. This post covers what the rule actually says about juice, why a cup of juice is not the same as a piece of fruit, and what students can do to push their cafeteria toward the real thing. What the Federal Rule Says About Juice Under USDA's school meal s

Here is a strange fact about the white on your food. The same mineral pigment that makes house paint bright and sunscreen opaque has also been used to make candy shells, icing, and creamers look whiter. It is called titanium dioxide, and since 2022 it has been illegal in food across the entire European Union. In the United States, it is still allowed. This post covers why Europe pulled it, why the FDA has not, which states are now going after it in school food, and how you ca

A cup of school yogurt can legally carry 12 grams of added sugar. A bowl of breakfast cereal can carry 6 grams per ounce. A carton of chocolate milk can have 10 grams in every 8 ounces. Those aren't loopholes. Those are the new limits, and they're the first time the federal school meal rules have put a number on added sugar at all. This post breaks down what USDA's added sugar rule actually requires, what changes in July 2027, and what students can do now to make sure your ca

Red No. 3 has been illegal in lipstick and nail polish since 1990. It stayed legal in the frosting on a cupcake for another 35 years. On January 15, 2025, the FDA finally revoked the dye's approval for food. But manufacturers get until January 15, 2027 to comply, and that date is now about three and a half months away. This post covers what the ban actually says, why a deadline is not the same as a clean tray, and three things students can check at school before it arrives. W

Most school food laws start with a date on the calendar. Texas wrote its school lunch law around something less obvious: a contract. SB 314 bans more than a dozen artificial dyes and additives from school meals, but it only kicks in when a district signs or renews a food contract on or after September 1, 2026. That date just passed. This post covers what the law bans, why the contract trigger matters more than the headline, and the three questions any Texas student can ask th

In April 2026, Nebraska's governor signed LB 940, a law that bans six artificial dyes from school meals. Tennessee passed its own version, SB 2423, the same year. Both sound like wins, and they are. But both also carry a start date of August 1, 2027, which means the students who fought for them may graduate before the change ever reaches their trays. This post covers what these laws actually ban, why the timeline is so long, and the one loophole in the fine print that student

In March 2026, a federal judge blocked West Virginia's first-in-the-nation ban on synthetic food dyes, ruling the law too vague to enforce against retailers statewide. Food and beverage lobbyists who'd fought the law for a year finally got the win they wanted, at least on paper. But buried in the ruling was a detail that mattered more than the headline: the injunction never touched what was happening in the state's schools. Since August 1, 2025, West Virginia cafeterias have

In 2012, a ninth grader in Hattiesburg, Mississippi read the ingredient list on a bottle of orange Gatorade and stopped at three words: brominated vegetable oil. She'd seen that same chemical described somewhere else, in a patent for flame-retardant foam. Same compound, different bottle. Sarah Kavanagh started a petition asking PepsiCo to take it out of her favorite drink, and within a year, it was gone from every bottle of Gatorade sold in the U.S. The federal government too

Every August, kitchen tables across the country turn into paperwork stations. Parents dig up pay stubs and W-2s, kids get nagged to turn in the free-and-reduced-lunch form before the deadline taped to the fridge. Two miles away, in the same district, another school skipped that whole ritual months ago. Every student there eats breakfast and lunch free, no form, no pay stub, no colored ticket to hand over at the register. That difference isn't luck, and it isn't a wealthier sc

If your cafeteria menu board ever brags about Jersey tomatoes or a dairy two counties over, that's not marketing. It's a federal procurement rule called geographic preference, and it's the one place in USDA regulations where a school is legally allowed to turn down the cheapest bid because of where the food came from. That rule just got rewritten. USDA published a proposed update on September 9, and the public comment window closes October 9. At the same time, the grant money