School Lunch Basics

As I go into year four of making school lunches (four years??  seriously?!?!?), I am planning ahead to make this process as easy as possible.  When Caleigh started kindergarten, we were not eating by design.  I was making all of her lunches from scratch (nothing processed) but there were grains in her lunch often.  When we started to eat by design, this was one of challenges I had in switching over to healthier eating.  It was easy to throw a sandwich into her lunch.  What would I send now to keep her happy and full?

I break school lunches into the same categories we would eat any other time of day.  I aways pack a protein, a vegetable (or two), a fruit, and a fat.  What helps is using a laptop lunch box.  It has separate compartments that are made of a hard BPA-free plastic.  It keeps things in tact, clean, and prevents them from mixing together.

I also go to Etsy and buy reusable snack bags to get rid of the Ziploc plastic that is taking over landfills.   They are made of cotton and nylon and are super cute.  Kids love them as do teachers because of the less waste produced.

Fun, right?

Last week, I sat down with the kids and we made a list of foods that they were excited to eat in each of the categories (protein, veggies, fruits, fats).  Here is what they came up with:

Proteins

• all-natural cold cuts (ham, turkey, roast beef, chicken)
• pork
• chicken strips
• beef strips (Caleigh only)
• hard-boiled eggs
• salmon (Blake only)
• sunflower butter
• bacon
• beef jerky
• grass-fed, all-natural salami
• beef (bean-free) chili

Vegetables (the list is short, but the important thing is that they will eat them)

• carrots
• snap peas
• broccoli
• cucumber

Fruits

• banana
• apples
• oranges
• grapes
• blueberries
• apple sauce
• peaches

Fats

• avocado
• seeds
• coconut
• full fat Greek yogurt

Treats

• nut-free homemade granola bars
• dark chocolate bark (homemade)
• by design muffins (I’ll post recipes in the coming weeks)
• by design cookie treats
• nut-free trail mix (choc chips, seeds, coconut, dried fruit)
• fruit leathers

* A note on treats.  These aren’t every day but I would say we pack treats three times a week.  Kids are easily swayed and influenced by their peers.  I find these treats help them feel akin to the rest of their classmates PLUS they are much more likely to eat the whole foods when they know they have something to look forward to.

Then each week we choose foods from the above lists to pack lunches before going grocery shopping.  The kids decide each school night what they want the next day and they understand that they have to fill each compartment with a by design food.  There are literally HUNDREDS of combinations so while some parents think that eating by design can get boring, I argue the opposite.

Easy peasy.  Honestly.  It’s not hard.  They kids are involved each step of the way so if the foods come back from school, we can have a discussion as to why they chose not to eat it.  It will then become their after-school snack or we make changes in the future so that other healthy choices are eaten.

Tomorrow….I start putting some recipes together and some ideas on how to combine some of the above food choices!