My daughter started out getting hot lunch everyday, and had the choice of hotfood of the day or peanut butter jelly sandwhich with sides. She picked peanut butter jelly sandwhich about 75% of the time. And my daughter is not a picky eater. Then about half way through the year she begged daily to bring a lunch from home she thought that was cooler.
Like I said my daughter is totally not a picky eater but weirdly didn't ever want to eat hot lunch. I'm glad I made her in the beginning of the year though because she got used to how to go through line and do it all by herself as well as using her 4 digit electronic pin #.
My daughter was in all day kindergarten last year and I was a volunteer at lunch. So I saw how lunch went alot. Most kids enjoyed their hot lunch and scarfed it down. Then there was a a few that picked at their lunches no matter what it was and didn't eat anything and would throw they're unopened food away that mom sent.
As far as being hungry at the end of the day we had a huge problem with that. My daughter would eat breakfast at school at 9:30am, have morning snack at around 10:30am, and lunch at 11:50am and would come home just starving and crabby. I really wished they would have had their snack time at the end of the day. I guess it's state law or mandatory that all kindergarteners have "milk" time and the teachers would collect money to give them crackers or something to help get them to drink their milk.
We're in district 191 and I never had a problem with the lunch menu and found it to be pretty darn healthy or the same foods we eat at home with a variety. My daughter always had fresh fruit, the choice of salad bar or PB J sandwhich, my daughter's favorite was the little baggie of raw carrots, she munched on those almost daily.