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School starts next Tuesday for my boys, which means I have 3 days to figure out what the heck to pack in their lunches every day. Disney FamilyFun contacted me about posting these tips for bumping up the nutritional value of a packed lunch while still including foods kids love. I’d love for you to leave a comment with recipes or suggestions for brown bag lunches, especially if you are feeding a teenage boy like I am. I’m not sure one lunchbox is going to be enough food for him to be full! Here are five healthy tips:
• Use A Bento Box: Japanese-style bento boxes and their nesting compartments are perfect for kid-size nibbles. Best of all, when your child pops the lid, the entire spread is at her fingertips, which puts the carrots on par with the PB&J and grapes for super-easy grazing. note: I found a Laptop Lunch system, new in the bag on eBay for $27.99 two days ago!
• Sneak In Extra Veggies: If the produce in your kid’s lunch is making the return trip home, consider hiding it. Add finely grated carrots to tuna and chicken salad, swap lettuce for nutrient-dense baby spinach, or try Horizon’s new Little Blends yogurts, which offer surprisingly tasty fruits and vegetable combos, such as Strawberry-Carrot and Banana-Sweet Potato. note: I know it’s not environmentally friendly, but when you send yogurt in a cup, send a disposable spoon. I lost a lot of silverware when Ryan was in kindergarten before I gave in and bought plastic 
• Add (More) Whole Grains: Pack whole wheat pretzels instead of other salty snacks. Or take a cue from nutritionist Barbara Storper, author of Janey Junkfood’s Fresh Adventure!, and make a checkerboard sandwich. Use one slice of whole wheat bread and one of white, then cut the sandwich into quarters and rearrange the squares to create the checkerboard pattern. note: whole grain Triscuits and Wheat Thins are a great alternative to chips!
• Offer Nutritious Snacks: Apples not making the grade? Try freeze-dried fruit, such as Brothers-All-Natural or Crispy Green. Another option from chef and school-lunch reformer Ann Cooper: homemade gorp. Kids can choose the ingredients, then mix up their own combinations each night before school. note: I reviewed Funky Monkey Freeze Dried Fruit Snacks and Today’s Farm Freeze Dried Fruit Snacks on my food blog MomCooks.
• Serve Low-Sugar Drinks: In lieu of traditional juice boxes, pack a juice-and-water blend, such as R.W. Knudsen Family Organic Sensible Sippers, or fill a thermos with flavored water (make your own or try a store-bought variety – just be on the lookout for artificial sweeteners). note: my kids like the Capri Sun 25% less sugar juice boxes.
Check out Disney FamilyFun’s Back to School A+ Lunches & Snacks page for recipes for sandwiches, sides, snacks, and more. And please leave tips, recipes, suggestions and links of your own in your comment! I can use all the help I can get
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I'm Elizabeth, a 40-something Michigan wife and mother of three. I created Table for Five in 2005 as a way to connect with other Moms, and I've been blogging ever since. Please click the About tab at the top of the page to read more about me and my family! email: table4five@gmail.com
Twitter: bcmom
Great tips. I’ve been thinking I need to have some more good things around here for lunches. My son packs his own, but he needs things to choose from. Something he likes to take is salad, so if I’ve got salad in the fridge, that’s what he usually takes – along with some cheese and crackers to go with. And he always takes milk for lunch, in reusable containers.
One important thing for teenage boys is to be sure you have something to snack on when they get home because, no matter how much lunch you pack, they’ll be hungry when they get home.
Glad you found some laptop lunchboxes. I’m still trying to sell mine on craigslist, I just haven’t tried super hard yet. *sigh* Darned exhaustion and hormones and layoffs.
Have you also flipped through… VeganLunchbox.com? Free recipes complete with photos on the blog. And honestly, I liked the blog better than the book, but that’s just me.
Freeze dried fruit is probably less expensive when you buy the giant canisters online vs. the teeny individual packages at Costco or whatnot. You can just package up servings in your own little (reusable?) containers as need be. Or just dry your own fruit – won’t be exactly like freeze-dried, but hey, ’tis the season (peaches are finishing up here, early pears and apples are starting to come on). Or make your own juice – if you can get your hands on good grapes or apples, you can make your own juices/cider if you’re creative (or managed to finagle a cider press out of an old coworker…
). Juice/cider will typically freeze well if you’re not into canning.
Another fun thing I remember my mom doing when I was in elementary school was using the thermos. She’d put a very warm hot dog in boiling water in the thermos, and viola, I had a hot dog for lunch. Or chicken noodle soup. Or spaghetti. Or whatever. Oh, how I remember the hot dogs… (we didn’t have too much money, nor much totally-from-scratch cooking, so to us, hot dogs for a school lunch were quite a treat). There’s lots of filling things you could do with a small/medium thermos on hand – meatball subs, hearty minestrone, potato-something soup (our latest favorites are potato-bacon soup and clam chowder – just not together), that kind of thing. Especially as the weather gets colder and the kids are slogging through snow.
One thing I may suggest, although I don’t pack lunches, is to do a bunch of your prep on Saturday or Sunday so you’re not scrambling every morning. Like get baby carrots (cheapest at Costco in the 3 or 5lb bags!) all packaged/portioned up, muffins all made up or thawed out from a previous baking bend (once-a-month mom has a bunch of neato freezer meals that may possibly be up your alley), sandwich fixin’s ready, possibly a menu already planned out that the kids helped put together, etc. But I’m not a morning person in the least, I do better at 2am, honestly. And protein. I’m dreading have so many teenagers in the house, but protein to fill them up, definitely.
Thank you for these helpful tips. I am happy when my children happy and for me it is very important what they eat.
Great tips! Even from other replies too! I needed new ideas for my teen. Thank you.