School Lunches - Sandy,UT

The entire class cannot bring anything with peanuts because of one little kid? Wow! That is an allergy that takes over huh? Have you considered another class or asking the parent of this child what she prepares? I have never heard of the whole class having to be affected by one allergy this way.

Needless to say, sorry about the rant, there are a ton of things you can do for lunches. My kids always love the veggies with a dip, deli sandwiches, any fruit or fruit cup, baked chips, and those little pudding cups for a treat. I don't think any of those have peanut content in them.

Good luck!

There are a lot of great web sites out there. If you google cold lunch they will pop up. I send my kids with jelly and butter roll-ups. I flatten the bread with a rolling pin, spread a layer of butter and a layer o jelly and roll it up, or I will use cookie cutters to cut out shape or Mini bagels with cream cheese and turkey,or tortilla roll ups. Then they have fruit (in the winter I buy fruit cups). I either send them with carrots and ranch (in a plastic container) or I heat up frozen endamame--my kids love endamame! The endamame will last a couple of days. I have also bought the mini cucumbers from Costco and sent that with a cup of ranch. Then I send a small bag of either sun chips, pretzels, or veggie sticks, and a string cheese stick. Whatever your son will eat at home try figuring out a way to put that in his lunch. My son loves hot dogs, so I send a cut up hot dog in a thermos with him. He says it is still hot at lunch! You can also send cheese and crackers. One hint I got, is I cut up apples and put them in a shallow plastic container and pour a apple juice over them. It keeps the apples from turning brown, and doesn't make the apples taste funny AND my kids can drink the juice! I would invest in a good thermos, some good small plastic containers (make sure you tell him not to throw them away ) and the zoo pals plasticware--it just makes their lunch fun. I wash and re-use these and replace them approx. every 3 months. I hope this helps! ALso ask him what other kids have, that he might want. The teachers might be able to give you ideas as well.

It is really not to hard to do. My son has a peanut allergy and the kids at his school have been doing this for a few years and they have all figured it out. I know it is daunting at first, but here are a few ideas. Jelly and butter sandwiches (I think they are awful, but all my kids like them); sliced turky or ham with cheese on bread, a roll, or tortilla; home made lunchables (crackers (wheat thins, Ritz plain, saltines), cheese slices, meat); left over pizza warmed up and kept in a thermos; lasagne, spaghetti, mac & cheese or buttered noodles in a thermos; chicken nuggets in a thermos, fun cheese with crackers (like Babybel, string cheese or individual cheddar). I always include a fruit or veggie (applesauce cup, fruit cup, apple, apricot, a few small carrots with ranch dressing, grapes, apple).

Thank you for seeking out ways to help keep the allergic child safe. Parents like you make parents like me less stressed out about our disabled kids! Good luck.

You can always get Soy butter or almond butter or cashew butter, and make 'pbj's' out of that. We use soy butter here for the same reason. You could do tuna fish sandwiches, or get cold cuts and do a sandwich... or even mini pizza bagels or leftovers from the night before.

To go with the main entree or sandwich, I often cut up fresh veggies like red or yellow peppers, carrots, etc. Include ranch dressing if your son likes that. I usually include fruits (for a little one, maybe do a half apple or banana, or a clementine or some cut up pineapple...) Maybe throw in a cookie or trail mix or other little treat too.

I think the important thing (besides the foods being healthy) is to vary the foods so they don't get totally sick of the same thing, although I'm pretty sure my daughter may actually turn into a PBJ because she wants them so often.

A nut free butter - sunbutter. Similar fat and protein (and taste) to peanut butter, and I've not heard of anyone having a sunflower seed allergy. Almond and soy might be an issue for some other kids. It's not cheap, but I've even been finding a couple of varieties at Super Target. Cheese quesadillas are usually a bit hit in our house, and they keep decently well for a few hours out of the fridge.

Have you thought about trying almond butter in place of peanut butter?

I just replaced soy nut butter for anything that used peanut butter. I was delighted when my kids started liking some other proteins, too, like hard-boiled eggs. Morningstar Farms makes a non-meat chicken nugget that is room temperature by the time he eats it; he loves those. Good luck.

I've got 2 peanut-allergic boys. Thankfully they have injestion allergies & I can still have pb in the house-the other 2 would starve w/o their PB&J! Nutella doesn't have any peanut in it, it spreads like pb & BONUS it tastes like chocolate (chocolate hazelnut spread). It's really good w/strawberry jelly (poor man's chocolate covered strawberries). You can do fruit, some brands of desserts at Walmart (Mrs Freshleys, some Hostess) are peanut-safe. String cheese, veggies & dip, graham crackers w/cream cheese... the only cookies I've found in the cookie aisle that's safe are Keebler Fudge-Strip cookies, but my peanut-allergy boys can eat Oreos w/no problems too. Find out from the school what kind of allergy it is-injestion, contact, inhalation-if it's inhalation it's more important that you're careful because you packing your PB&J sandwich for lunch & then making his tuna salad sandwich w/o washing your hands first could possibly cause a reaction w/the peanut-allergy kid. I'd stick to fruits-let him pick out new fruits to try at the store, veggies if he'll eat them, graham-based stuff (graham crackers, teddy grahams, graham sticks w/some sort of dip) & dairy (cheese, yogurt)

what about doing nutella, almond butter or sunbutter (sunflower seeds) instead of peanut butter for a sandwich? there are some great alternatives out there. which would be nice for days when you don't have time or energy to do something more for lunch than the PBJ but go with SubstitueBJ. lol.
my kids take leftovers from the week for lunches but they are old enough to use the microwave at their school (HS)

I send the same things that we would normally eat at home, were she here.
-slices of veggies: cukes, tomato, carrots.
-1/2 a bagel w/ cream cheese.
-slices of turkey, sometimes with bread (though since she doesn't like bread....)
-Kashi bar or some such.
-Yogurt drink, chocolate milk or juice box.
-Rice krispie treat or bag of cookies
-Pudding cup, applesauce cup.
-Cut up fruit: apple, pineapple, mandarin organges, rasberries, blue berries, etc.

That's what we've been eating the last couple weeks, I pick n choose form the above. And I let her talk to me about what she wants, after all some days they want more veggies and fruit, some days more turkey. Just depends on what they're hungry for...kinda like us ;-)

We were running low on groceries the other day so I gave my 5yr old mini bagels with strawberry cream cheese in place of his usual sandwich. Its the first time his lunchbox came home empty. He likes having a fruit cup or a pudding cup, and then some veggies or crackers as well