Holy School lunches!

[covertlycrunchy]

I feel totally unprepared for this, my DD starts school for the first time this week and I just don't know what to pack her lunch with. Nuts and peanuts are not allowed and we don't do grains too much. I'm thinking lots of soups?? But anything else?

[akmeg]

carrot sticks, boiled eggs, homemade mini muffins (with almond or coconut flour if you don't do grains), fruit, yogurt, applesauce

I'm struggling with lunches this year as well, so i don't really have that many great replies, but I'll be watching this thread! One thing that I'm sooooo excited about is my dd's new laptop lunch! It's making it so much easier to pack her lunch. I can put random little things in the containers, which she loves. She calls it mixed up lunch. She loves the little dip container for her carrot sticks. And I love that there's no garbage afterwards, I just wash it out every night. Definitely worth what we paid, although I see you're in UK, not sure how much it would cost to ship.

[Millie Ivy]

any rec's for hot lunches? We've been doing room temp bento style boxes which are great, but my ds esp says "I just like your fresh hot food, mom!!!"

Any great container recommendations, other than a thermos?

[dogmom327]

My friend does cubed up meat (like turkey, chicken, beef, etc.) for her kids lunches.

[missbrett]

There is a blog I found called Lunches Fit For a Kid. It is not TF, but many of her ideas can be TF-ized. There are a lot of ideas in this blog.

http://lunchfitforakid.blogspot.com/

[pedi08]

Oh I was looking for something similar! Should have looked at this post before.

[1jooj]

We do ww breads, so my kids like butter and honey on bread. Today, I sent chickpeas with a squeeze of lemon, cumin and evoo. I also pack raw goat milk in a simple bottle. We do yogurt with fruit and honey...chopped salads...boiled eggs...ds had fresh fava beans from the garden this week. I also dehydrated some homemade applesauce into fruit leather. Not perfect, but waaaaaay better than what's on the food line.

Each of my kids also has a nice thermos for leftovers. They love hot food in winter, and I love making soups.

[Feb2003]

we're grain free and dairy free. the school has a heat up possibility, but it's a microwave (which we avoid) so all our lunches sit in an insulated bag with a freezer pack for 4 hours and are then consumed.

here are the lunches I sent this week:

Monday
leftover braciole, carrots, 1/2 banana

Tuesday
ham cubes*, broccoli**, plum
*I buy the slab of Neiman Ranch ham from Whole Foods for dicing
**honestly, my kids like it partially frozen or thawed...no seasoning, fat, etc so I go with that and just pack it frozen (it thaws enough by lunch)

Wednesday
hot dogs* with natural ketchup to dip, bell pepper, kiwi
*we love the US Wellness hot dogs!

Thursday
leftover pork chop (cut up), frozen mango chunks (thaws by lunch), celery

Friday
avocado-turkey rolls*, Bubbies pickle, carrots, kiwi
*sliced avocado and a tiny pinch of sea salt rolled up in (nitrate free, organic) deli sliced turkey {these were less fragile and more substantial with 2 slices of turkey and thicker avocado slices...we add the salt b/c the boys think the turkey is plain}

We'll be repeating a lot of these because they were easy and full of things our boys like. I pack a separate snack for 10am when the rest of their class has goldfish, saltines, etc and it's been another fruit most of the week, but today they requested a protein snack so I sent a salted, peeled boiled egg (and requested room in the tiny classroom fridge so it wouldn't get too 'stinky').

[Feb2003]

Originally Posted by Millie Ivy

Any great container recommendations, other than a thermos?

You know, I haven't done hot stuff, but we do use stainless steel containers so I'd probably fashion some sort of insulation around one and send that. If I needed it to be water tight I'd invest in a thermos that's stainless on the inside. Millie Ivy, we got our stainless containers at Taj Mahal Indian imports along 75 in Dallas (North of 635, but I can't remember which exit).

I'm curious how long a thermos can really keep the food hot...maybe I should buy one and experiment on the counter here...

[organicmidwestmama]

ants on a log with sunbutter rather then pb, and raisins.
apple sandwiches- slices of apple cut horizontally, with cream cheese or cheddar in the middle, maybe some sprouts, or sunbutter and honey in the middle.

[blueridgewoman]

My daughter goes to preschool, so unfortunately those bento boxes are still too hard for her to open, but I send her to school with usually some selections from:

ham, beef, or turkey meat, cubed, diced, sliced, whatever
olives (esp kalamata- she's a huge fan)
cucumber with a bit of salt
carrot sticks with hummus
chopped green peppers (sweet, obviously)
cherry tomatoes
greek yogurt
cottage cheese
cheese stick
hardboiled eggs
apple
berries
homemade soup in a thermos (though it's been too hot so far, it's a plan)

We're a nut free school as well, and they also specify that anything made on equipment that even processes nuts is not allowed. Honestly, I found that overwhelming at first but then I realized that if I just avoided processed food, which we do in general anyway, it would be fine. Sure enough, it's been completely easy.

[Feb2003]

I wanted to add that I wrote out three lists of things the boys like to make things easier when I'm packing lunches and drawing a mental blank as to what to put in there: main protein, veg, fruit. We then pick one thing from each list.

Examples from our main protein list:
leftover meat
chicken/salmon/egg salad
hot dog
salami*
hard boiled egg
ham (deli ham sliced or chunked, typically at home to keep options open and save money)
deli turkey
avocado

Examples from our veg list:
broccoli (I put frozen broccoli in there and it thaws by lunch...yes mine like this)
green beans (see above!)
carrots (we like to cut big carrots b/c we think they have more flavor than 'baby carrots,' but those are an option...)
Bubbies pickle (we love these brined/lacto-fermented pickles!!)
bell pepper slices
celery (only b/c mine are older and can eat this now)

Examples from our fruit list:
frozen fruit (that isn't too watery when thawed: peaches, mangos, pineapple)
fresh fruit (kiwi, apple, peach, mango, pineapple, grapes, plum, pluot, apricot, etc)
fruit puree (less common for us...apple, apple apricot, apple blueberry, etc)

*We just got some more salami and we all love it so that'll be in lunches next week. (It's another US Wellness grass fed beef product that we love.)

Fruit is easy right now...what's hard is explaining that I want them to "save" some fruit for lunches and not just eat it all since it's here.

[1jooj]

Another thing for me to add is that I try to get my kids to eat a really hearty breakfast (usually eggs, oatmeal or yogurt and warmed raw milk with honey). They both have snack time in class, they usually have a glass of milk when the get off the bus, and we have a pretty big dinner. Not only is there little time to eat at school for lunch, but the environment is loud and distracting--mine don't even like to eat in this situation. So, I don't worry too much about packing "enough" lunch. They're both healthy heights and weights and developmentally right on track, so I try to let go of the pressure to pack a really great lunch every day. Some days, it's downright lame, but that's OK.

[_ktg_]

DS just started school last week and we've been trying to figure out this lunch thing. I see a lot of great ideas here and I think we're going to keep it simple & small since I just found out DS is also eating the "universal free breakfast" at school too.

Today was our first go at a smaller, snack style lunch:

rice cake (not exactly TF, but ) with peanut butter & honey
small orange
Cheese
water to drink

This is still a lot of food for him, but he also gets a huge protien filled breakfast before he leaves in the morning.