5 Steps to Easy School Lunches

Making school lunches isn’t territory I’ve entered yet and something I’m not looking forward to ever doing since my default lunch of peanut butter sandwiches is verbotten in NYC schools and that’s practically all I ever had for lunch when I was a kid. Man, did my mom have it easy. Barbara Lincoln — our Pixie go to nutritionist — has some very simple ideas on how to make what I think of as semi-drudgery a little easier. Regardless of your personality type, you’ll find at least one of her ideas useful.

Barbara Lincoln, Classic Freedom (ESFJ):

With summer coming to a close, I thought I’d devote this week to discussing (in about five steps) how to pack a healthy lunch for school (or work; my husband is a lucky man). Before this summer, I had never packed a meal for my daughter. Her preschool ended in time for me to feed her a hot lunch at home. I’m not one of those moms that brings dinner to the playground. However, this summer she went to a day camp where children brought their lunch. I was super excited (I am after all, a nutrition geek). I bought organic cheese, whole grain bread, hummus, carrots, and ripe summer fruit. Needless to say, for the first week, the whole lunch came back uneaten. To the counselor’s credit, she sent the children home with all of the uneaten food (which provided tremendous feedback).

Five steps to packing a healthy lunch:

  1. Elicit help from the person you are packing for. My husband recently told me he was tired of eating Salmon more than a couple of times a week and that he has no good way of heating up soup in the office. I find that if my daughter picks out the food that she wants from our refrigerator she is more likely to eat it.
  2. Find out if there are any dietary or allergy restrictions. My daughter’s camp has a no nut policy which even rules out soy nut butter which can be mistaken for peanut butter.
  3. Aim for balance. From a nutritional standpoint I always think protein, carbohydrate and healthy fat. For a toddler this looks like cheese and crackers and grapes (sliced of course), or yogurt, graham crackers and carrot or celery sticks (can you tell that my daughter won’t eat a sandwich?). For my husband this means salmon (but more likely sea bass), quinoa or brown rice and broccoli (leftovers from dinner the night before anyone?), or a multi grain bagel with smoked salmon, low fat cream cheese and tomato and baby carrots.
  4. Be creative. Think favorite breakfast foods… Oatmeal made with milk and fruit and a couple of hard boiled eggs or leftover multi grain pancakes (I swear I spend my entire weekend in the kitchen) with fruit and yogurt, make excellent lunch options.
  5. Be flexible. Rotate with the seasons and the temperature. When it is 90 degrees outside, salads, yogurt and fresh fruit might be perfect. When it is very cold outside, eating comfort foods like macaroni and cheese and quinoa with vegetables might do the trick.