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Pad Patter: 2/14 - Kids Lunches

amandajane

amandajane

amandajane
Joined
May 21, 2007
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Do you pack lunches for your children for school? Do you pack the same thing each day or change it up? or do they get lunch from school canteen/cafeteria?
 
Kennedy is too young to be in school, but I try really hard to change his lunch from day to day. Some days it is soup, some days leftovers, and other days sandwiches. I try hard to get all of the basic food groups in there. We still are avoiding giving him sweets for the most part, but he eats a lot of fruit.

I'd love to be like the Weelicious lady, but I wouldn't have time for anything else in the whole day. ;)

What are school lunches like in Malaysia?
 
i pack lunches for my girls almost everyday. i don't change it up too much. . . usually some kind of sandwich (meat & cheese or pb&j), chips, drink, fruit and baby carrots. somedays i make quesadillas or soup for their lunch.

would LOVE some new suggestions~
 
I make them eat hot lunch. Am mean mother. But I have 5 kids, I am not packing 5 different lunches (they all eat differently). They have the option of the hot lunch du jour, or PBJ. I think one of them eats the PBJ every single day. :giggle
 
I pack it everyday, but it's mostly the same thing each time though sometimes we will mix up the dessert or some such. :)
 
My mom used to make a bunch of sandwiches on a Sunday and freeze them. They would be soggy and gross when I got to school! On Fridays, the sandwiches had been in the freezer long enough to still be frozen at lunch time! LOL! I was happy when we were old enough to make lunch for ourselves!
 
When my kids went to public school for a year, I did a mix of school lunches and packing lunches. They enjoyed both and got more variety. I did soups, leftover casseroles, or a hot dog in a thermos sometimes, sandwiches, wraps, quesadillas other times. I always threw in a veggie and some sort of fruit as well. I sometimes put a tiny cookie or something in as well - I wouldn't do that except that the school lunches always give them treats, so I didn't want them to prefer to eat hot lunch only because they would get treats that way. I always kept a cleaned baggie of celery and carrots in the fridge, a rubbermaid full of grapes too, so that I could easily pack lunches. Sometimes I would make pasta salad or brocolli slaw, but that definitely didn't happen daily.

Now we homeschool, but we still do similar types of lunches because I like them quick so we don't waste a lot of our day preparing lunch. We save the cooking for dinner. My 2 oldest kids are sometimes in charge of lunch - making sandwiches, quesadillas, hot dogs, grilled cheese (on the foreman grill), etc. Other days we cut up a bunch of cheese and have a big "lunchable" tray full of ham or turkey or chicken deli meat, cheeses, and a box of crackers along with a piece of fruit.
 
My kids take a sandwich, with their choice of filling. My oldest 2 usually make their own unless I need to cut tomatoes and cheese etc and I make it for the younger ones.
But once every week or so I let them get a lunch order from the canteen...today 2 of them chose sushi, and one chose soup. (One is home :) )
 
It's usually a mix... love the convenience of the hot lunches, but I don't love the health of them and some of them are simply yuck! Our school forbids all nut products due to allergies, so PB&J is out. My kids don't like lunch meat, so options are slim. Usually they take a NF vanilla yogurt, fruit option, carrots or cucumber slices, and pretzels or crackers. Sometimes it's cheese and crackers instead of yogurt... sometimes it's hummus and pita chips...
 
Oh my word Angie - that article is crazy - I'd be ****ed if I were that mom!

I let my girls choose between home lunch and hot lunch. There are three options of hotlunch every day in their schools, and I would say they choose hot lunch maybe once or twice a week on average. When we do their lunch it usually consist of a lunch meat, cheese, cracker combo, yogurt, a fruit, and sometimes a veggie.
 
mine is sorta split. she usually will eat home lunch a day or 2 a week and then will eat hot lunch at school the other days. like angie, they either get the meal du jour or a pb/j

if she takes her lunch i usually give her a sandwich, some chips or crackers, a piece of fruit and a little snackie thing (gogurt, applesauce, a snack cake, etc).
 
OMG Angie, that is crazy. I love the way US school cafeterias get away with calling mac and cheese and chicken nuggets healthy!

I pack my kids lunches every day, but am thinking of hot lunch at school for two days a week. The school my kids go to is great and they have an asian set and a western set each day and it changes daily for the whole month. I just need to figure out the ordering system.
 
My kids take sandwiches and there head master is very strict what goes in there so there not allowed crisps.chocolate,sweets and onlyvallowed a small cake which cannot be a donut or chocolate flavoured so my kids take either a ham or cheese sandwich(fin will only eat ham his lunch box must bore him to death),2 small yogurts,a jelly a small cake and a drink of juice (no fizzy allowed),Rhys will have cheese string in his then they do a fruit and veg program there that they take one of each every day
 
That article!! OMG. What if a family is vegetarian? Lactose intolerant? Food allergies? Good grief.

My kids take lunch all the time. I will let them buy two times each month and usually let them pick which day they want (unless we have an emergency like "mom slept through her alarm" or "mom forgot to buy bread for sandwiches". But those things have never happened. Nope.) My oldest HATES peanut butter so the when I give the younger 3 PB I'll just make him a turkey sandwich. 2 of them like tuna, 2 of them don't. 99% of the time I make them a sandwich. I really should start doing the thermos thing - I just can't stand the thought of plopping down $40 for thermoses when my kids lose their lunchboxes like nobody's business. My oldest two aren't even allowed to take lunchboxes anymore - only paper bags. I'll usually throw in crackers, juice, fruit, a granola bar, sometimes dried fruit strips. I'll give a few of them baby carrots but I know if I gave veggies to the other ones they'd just throw them away and wouldn't touch them so no sense in wasting food. I make them eat veggies with dinner so I'm ok with them skipping for lunch ;)

I really need to come up with some other lunch ideas though. If I'm bored with what I'm making I KNOW they're bored with what they're eating! LOL
 
When Sean was in daycare and had to pack, his favorite was sandwich was egg salad. Or like a hard boiled egg, with a yogurt and some fruit. I used egg as his protein often.

And, Karen, I don't know if kids get bored with food. My cousin literally ate PBJ every single day all through elementary school, even on weekends. lol
 
my kids will occassionally eat the cafeteria food. sometimes they actually have decent stuff. their school has done a great job making fresh fruits and salads and healthy choices available for the kids. but i do pack...OFTEN. usually they get whatever i have on hand, so it changes depending on our inventory :giggle
 
and OMG that article! how crazy!

i remember once when we were first looking for daycare for Sebastian... i went to one place, and they had a 5 day menu. they served the same thing every week... monday tuna fish, tuesday egg salad, etc. they said their lunches met the state nutritional standards, and parents were NOT allowed to send in any packed lunches from home. they said they found that the kids would eat what was served if they didn't have another option. but i didn't want my 3-year-old filling up on mayo-based meals every day... so much fat and grossness. every day. i passed on that daycare center, fyi.
 
My Emma is a cold lunch gal; She doesn't care for the cafeteria lunches(And I can't say I don't blame her...). She is 12 and I have lost count of how many lunch boxes/bags she's lost, so this year it's a paper bag for her. Well, and at 12 it's just not cool to have a lunch box or bag! LOL!

As for her lunch, I always make a sandwich(PB; Meat, cheese & lettuce; or egg salad), a fruit, a veggie and a healthy form of munchie(pretzels or crackers). I do mix it up through out the week, cuz I know I get bored eating same ole' thing all the time. Although, I've wanting to find some additional sandwich ideas... any suggestions ladies?
 
How I wish I could send pb&j sandwiches to school with my boys. It's pretty common for most schools in Ontario to forbid any kind of nut/peanut product because of allergies so I actually have to be very careful about what I pack in their lunches. For the most part they get either sandwiches or leftover that they can reheat, a yogurt, a fruit some kind a pieces of cheese or apple sauce and sometimes I'll throw in a cookie or granola bar or something like that. They have pizza day once a week and it has to follow health standards from our board of education. So the pizza has a whole wheat crust, ham instead of pepperoni and low fat cheese. The kids actually like it a lot. :)

p.s. I HATE making lunches! lol!
 
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