What's in your kids' school lunchboxes?

[TwoMisfits]

Kudos to you! I haven’t been able to get my husband to eat salad. He hates mayo/sour cream and he doesn’t eat anything with vinegar except ketchup. So no dressings for him. The only raw vegetable he’ll eat is a carrot and even that happens rarely. Cooking for the past 40 years has not been fun. He rarely wants to go out to eat either. I look forward to vacations so I don’t have to cook.

Does he have an allergy to pollen? I have a male friend who has a severe pollen allergy and can't have any fruits/veg raw. He hated salad as a kid b/c his mouth always stung and got itchy, and thought that's how everyone felt eating salad. He learned as an adult, and now eats lots of fruit and veg - all cooked.

 

[luvnwdwgal]

Does he have an allergy to pollen? I have a male friend who has a severe pollen allergy and can't have any fruits/veg raw. He hated salad as a kid b/c his mouth always stung and got itchy, and thought that's how everyone felt eating salad. He learned as an adult, and now eats lots of fruit and veg - all cooked.

Nope, just a picky eater like his dad was.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

My daughter doesn't like to buy lunch at school. She says it doesn't taste good and takes too long to get the food and leaves no time to eat. Some of the things I pack are: chicken caesar wraps, fried rice, pot stickers with white rice, sub sandwich with oil and vinegar packed on the side, different pastas, soup, salad, and this year going to make paninis in the morning to pack.

 

[unrequited23]

My oldest says the same thing as the PP about buying hot lunch--no time. Even when he packs his lunch he only has 15 minutes to eat his lunch. The challenge is a nutritious but filling meal that doesn't require too much chewing. Our default is a pb sandwich on whole wheat, an applesauce pouch, a few carrot sticks and a fiber one brownie/100 calorie cookie pack with water.

It's challenging in the younger grades when the kids have loose teeth/missing teeth. My friend confessed that it took her a month to realize why her daughter wasn't eating an apple at lunch...she was missing her two top and two bottom teeth.

 

[DisneyHardin]

My oldest says the same thing as the PP about buying hot lunch--no time.

Back when I was in High School (eek - 25 years ago), I took my lunch every day because of the time thing. Our HS was fairly small, about 500 students, but we only had 2 lunch periods. That meant that 250 kids went to lunch at the same time and the line for food would be out the door of the cafeteria. In order to have more than 5 minutes to eat, I had to take a lunch.

 

[slo]

My DD18 is senior now and she eats a whole sandwich, baby carrots, applesauce or a yogurt and water.

She elearned last year, so I didn’t have to pack a lunch - I need to get back in the groove of doing this again.

 

[bookgirl]

The only lunches I pack are my own LOL. I am bad about eating at my desk and I hate having to go out. I also dislike using the shared microwave.

I'm pretty basic, so a sandwich (pb or cheese/meat) and chips. Third item is usually a fruit or raw veggies. If it's not that lunch then it's soup in a thermos with chips/crackers or raw veggies on the side.

I usually keep a variety of granola bars or treats in my desk so I supplement from there if I want more.

I will say the one thing that I do that is not usual is that I actual prefer doing a rollup type sandwich in a tortilla. Not wrapped like a burrito, but flat ingredients and rolled up tight. Bread can change texture or get soggy by lunch and a tortilla doesn't.

 

[crazylady]

My kids enjoyed the free lunches last year at school because they are too lazy to pack their lunches. I'm sure they'll so the same this coming year.

I spoiled them a bit this summer by prepping some things for lunches and buying more grab and go stuff for them to choose from for their camp lunches. Some of the things they could could choose from were: applesauce, grapes I prebagged for them, yogurt (they are into Greek yogurt with mixins right now), nut and cheese packs, carrots (I prebagged these too)

I set it all up in the outside refrigerator so they could just grab what they wanted and add it to their sandwich or uncrushable. Of course the first day my youngest took one of everything .

 

[aristocatz]

Planning menus so we can go shopping. We've got our tried and true options and the reality of keeping some lunchables in the fridge for when you need them... but I'm always looking for ideas. Our kids are not adventurous eaters, so it's pretty pointless to try most things, but sometimes there's a combination or method that is interesting! Our daughter does like things the boys do not, like hummus and grape tomatoes, but I like to try to keep it simple by packing the same thing for each of them.

One of my favorites? Giving kids the power to make their own stuff, which saves me time and effort. Pizza rollups! Pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni, etc.. in a tortilla, and nuke it. Pizza rollup! lol. They love making these things.

What's in your lunchbox?

We are pretty simple & old school: PB& J or PB&F are pretty standard in our house. Sometimes we get fancy with turkey or ham sandwiches lol. Sometimes my youngest chooses cheese & crackers or yogurt. We typically also have a crunchy (popcorn, pirates booty, pretzels, cheez-its) & fruit is often berries or apple. They typically have cookies or a rice krispy treat for dessert.