Sack Lunch Ideas

Vary the sandwiches - bologna can get boring quickly, but he can also have tuna, chicken, tuna, or ham (especially if its left over from dinner night before). Cheese or no cheese. Even vienna sausages - though I spend a little more and get the Gerber Graduates meat sticks (less junk in them). Instead of sandwiches, you can send any of these in little chunks or mixed with mayonaise and crackers and cheese cubes.
Alternate the fruit with veggies. Apples, grapes, berries he likes, and pears do great in luches. Oranges and bananas aren't so great (trouble peeling oranges bananas get smashed easily). Fresh veggies my kids love are carrot sticks, celery sticks (add peanut butter or cream cheese if he doesn't like them plain), broccoli, cauliflower, and cucumber slices.
If possible, try to use reusable containers for most of the food. He can bring them home and you can wash and reuse instead of throwing baggies and lunch sacks away. I'd get the cheap (ziplock or hefty) ones so that when he does forget to bring them home its not a huge deal.

My son does not like sandwich bread or peanut butter either. Sometimes I do cream cheese and jelly sandwiches which he loves. I will also make my own "lunchables" by rolling up some deli ham around a mozzarella stick and slicing it into inch long bites. I add grapes or some other fruit. He also loves yogurt, nutri-grain bars, and granola bars. Sometimes I will do "breakfast for lunch". Since he likes cheerios mixed with yogurt, I will put some cereal in a Tupperware for him to mix himself at lunchtime. Another thought is to get a thermos and make raviolis, spaghettios or soup that he can take. I hope some of this helps, we were frustrated by the same problem last year. Get creative and have fun.

Hi P.,

Okay, I'm just going with what I remember my parents used to pack me for lunch when I was a kid, since I don't have to pack lunches yet. But I was picky, so they had to get creative. They used to fill a thermos with soup I liked (usually chicken noodle or chicken and stars). They would also make my sandwiches on soda crackers sometimes (I didn't like peanut butter either, so they did jam and butter). If your son likes cereal, you could pack a tupperware bowl with a lid full of his fav. cereal and he could buy an extra milk at school to poor on it. You can also do cheese and crackers, or cheese rolled up in a tortilla (you could do a whole grain tortilla if he likes those), sort of like a cold quesadilla. Sometimes the fun of the lunchable is that you get to assemble it yourself. So, maybe just include the ingredients you might find in a lunchable and put it in separate baggies for him to assemble himself. OH, and sometimes the sandwich is a little more bearable if it is cut out in the shape of something fun using a cookie cutter. Since Halloween is coming up, maybe use your pumpkin cookie cutter on his sandwich to "spice it up."

Good luck!
J.

Hi P.,

Target has cookie cutters for $1 and you can make fun sandwiches that look like bats and pumkins! :) Fun

For awesome lunch ideas, check out these great websites

Check out this link: http://www.laptoplunches.com/
Photos of lunches: http://www.laptoplunches.com/LaptopLunchPhotos.html

My sister introduced me to BENTO BOXES.....this is a fun way to pack lunch....GREAT IDEAS! :)
Bento Boxes - http://decaturmom.com/2008/07/24/decatur-mom-welcomes-coo...

Take caution when sending kiddos to school with lunchables, etc. They are full of preservatives, nitrates (Boars head lunchmeats are nitrate free)(nitrates are not good for anyone, not to mention our precious children) and sodium.
Best of Health,
L. C
###-###-####
www.DenverJuicePlus.com

Upcoming Event: Nutrition Detectives October 4 10:30 am Smoky Hill Library, Bring the kids!

We're in the same boat with the all day school. My son likes hard boiled eggs for variety. We also use a thermos with milk, chocolate milk, or juice. Occasionally, I send soup in Daddy's soup thermos. I also alter the sandwich PB&J, PB& honey. We also experiment with the other parts of lunch for variety: mandarin oranges, jell-o, pudding (my son doesn't like pudding, it turns out), crackers (with PB for dipping or get different flavors like veggie crisps, goldfish, etc). If you want to use an icepack, gogurt is good (my children prefer the flavor of the Albertson's brand) as is cottage cheese and regular yogurt.
Good luck!

Quesadillas are good even when not warm... the tortillas you buy in the refrigerated section at Costco are so much better than tortillas precooked from the grocery store. They take about 1-2 minutes to cook and are restaurant quality.

Well, here's my chance to speak my mind about the nutrition and lunches for kids... lunchables are very high in fat... only the lowest fat options are close to being good for children (and are still on the verge of being too high fat). And hotdogs are really not good, nutritious food... they should be given out like french fries and hamburgers... very seldom.

Well, hope the quesadilla idea was helpful!

I have a lunch theory -- anything they do I can do better. So I look through the grocery store, write down the combinations of lunches my son might like, and do the same thing.

I bought Lock & Lock lunch containers from Heritage Mint (http://www.heritagemint.com/products/H40069.jsp) for bento-style boxes (for instance, separate apples and yogurt dipping compartment.

Our favorite fruits: Clementines, grapes, melon, strawberries, apple slices (dip them in a bowl of water with a few drops of lemon juice to keep them from turning brown.)

Lock & Lock has little round tubs we use for applesauce, yogurt, etc.

More substantial snacks: Ritz-style crackers with sliced cheddar; tuna salad & cucumber squares (cut a normal sandwich into 9 squares.) Black bean/rice/cheddar burrito, rolled tightly and cut into small pieces like sushi. He loves avocado sushi rolls as well; maybe try out a low-pressure situation to see if he likes sushi. Hard-boiled eggs. Mini-bagels with cream cheese. Lightly steamed vegetables (or raw is better, but mine won't go for it) with ranch dressing. Quorn/Morningstar Farm non-chicken nuggets.
Treats: banana bread, carrot cake mini-muffins, Disney animal crackers (in the gigantic tub from Costco -- MUCH cheaper than buying individual packs.) And we always keep some Goldfish around. Good luck!

as a number of moms have mentioned, a thermos provides for many more options. we also send hard boiled eggs, sliced. also, deviled eggs are a good option. consider varying the sandwiches beyond sliced bread. use rolls to make "sub sandwiches". use crackers, pita bread, and tortillas too.

I'v gotten lots of fun lunch ideas from www.laptoplunches, as someone already mentioned, and also www.lunchinabox.net. There are several good books of lunch ideas, too, including "Brown Bag Success," which I got for $5 on Amazon.com and has been useful.
Besides our Laptop Lunches box, I also like the one from www.lunchsense.com, which uses Lock and Lock containers.
I've discovered anything my son can "assemble" himself is a success, since then componants to dot get soggy or squshed and he feels in charge of how it gets put together. Cookie cutters can also make presentation fun--a sandwich might be boring, but a CAR-shaped sandwich could be fun and tasty, you know?
I love packing lunches--leftovers are often useful--and if you have an inspiring container, ideas seem to come.
Good luck!

I pack lunches all most everyday. Cheaper and much healthier, I think. I like to send bagels w/ cream cheese or peanut butter once in a while, also soup in a thermos (small one sold at Target) with some buttered bread. I use the cookie cutter on my little one's sandwhiches...she doesn't llike sandwhiches but LOVES to get a flower sandwhich for lunch, or you can make your own "lunchable" using the cookie cutters on lunch meat,cheese,etc.
Good luck, have fun!

C.

alternatives to sandwiches:
sometimes the shape can change and that helps for example a half a bagel instead of bread. Also, the antisandwich like celery pieces with cream cheese or hummus - no bread! Or crackers and cheese/ sliced turkey stacked up vertically and wrapped in foil. Does he like the stretch island brand fruit leather strips? I don't buy any brand but stretch island or it comes back in the bag at the end of the day.
Rice cake with a slice of cheddar cheese? This is my kind of snack. Good luck. I am currently struggling with a 12 year old vegetarian who takes her lunch to school.

I'll send a little kid thermos with a variety of different meals: buttered noodles, chicken nuggets, sliced hotdogs, soup, cheese quesadillas, wraps, salad with dressing in a seperate container, yogurt, cubed cheese with crackers, I've even seen kids bring sushi, and all sorts of other things,frozen go-gurts(they thaw and are nice and cold by the time it's lunch time) So basically my kids will have a sandwhich once every two weeks with all this variety.