When you are evaluating preschools, meals are easy to overlook. But your child will eat hundreds of meals at their preschool over the course of a year. The quality of those meals matters for their health, their energy, their ability to focus, and the eating habits they develop during these formative years.
If a preschool mentions that it is “CACFP-enrolled,” that is worth understanding.
What CACFP Stands For
CACFP is the Child and Adult Care Food Program, a federal program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). It provides reimbursement to child care centers and family day care homes that serve nutritious meals to enrolled children.
More importantly for parents, CACFP sets specific nutrition standards that participating sites must follow. These are not suggestions or aspirational guidelines. They are auditable requirements.
What CACFP Requires
Under the current CACFP meal patterns (updated in 2017 to align with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans), participating preschools must:
- Serve meals that include specific components: a protein or meat alternate, grains (with an emphasis on whole grains), vegetables, fruits, and milk
- Limit added sugars (breakfast cereals, for example, cannot exceed 6 grams of sugar per dry ounce)
- Limit juice to one serving per day
- Serve age-appropriate portion sizes (different for 1-2 year olds vs. 3-5 year olds)
- Offer a variety of vegetable subgroups throughout the week (dark green, red and orange, beans/peas/lentils, starchy, and other vegetables)
These standards are designed to build healthy eating patterns from an early age, not just fill children’s stomachs.
What CACFP Meals Actually Look Like
A typical day at a CACFP-enrolled preschool might include:
Breakfast: Whole grain toast with fruit and milk, or oatmeal with banana slices.
Lunch: Grilled chicken with rice, steamed vegetables, fruit, and milk. Or baked fish with whole grain pasta, a side salad, and melon slices.
Afternoon snack: Apple slices with cheese, or whole grain crackers with hummus.
The specifics vary by site, since CACFP sets the nutritional framework while each preschool designs its own menus within that framework.
Why It Matters
Not every preschool participates in CACFP. Centers that do have made a commitment to meeting a specific, federally defined standard for children’s nutrition, and they are subject to regular monitoring and audits to ensure compliance.
For parents, a CACFP enrollment is a concrete, verifiable indicator of meal quality. It means the school’s meals have been evaluated against real nutritional criteria, not just described as “healthy” or “nutritious” in marketing language.
How to Check If a Preschool Is CACFP-Enrolled
You can ask the school directly. CACFP participation is not a secret; enrolled sites are required to post a nondiscrimination statement and make their participation known. You can also check with your state’s CACFP administering agency (in California, this is the California Department of Social Services).
About Meals at Rosemead Education Center
Rosemead Education Center (REC) in Rosemead, CA is a CACFP-enrolled private preschool. We serve breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack to every student daily, at no extra cost to families. Our kitchen prepares meals on-site, and our menus follow CACFP nutrition standards.
We regularly share photos of our meals on our social media pages so parents can see what their children are eating. We believe transparency about food is part of the trust parents place in us.
Contact us at (626) 572-8201 or visit us at 2662 Walnut Grove Ave, Rosemead, CA 91770.
This article is for general informational purposes. CACFP requirements may be updated periodically by the USDA. For the most current meal pattern requirements, visit the USDA Food and Nutrition Service website.