School Lunches & Snacks -

Packing school lunches is a great way to continue to feed your children with nutrient dense food even while they’re away at school, but there are some challenges to overcome. Each of your children will likely be in a different place related to their favorite foods, how much time they have for lunch, and how important it is for them to eat similarly to their peers. We have come up with a few ideas to support you and your family in eating nutritional lunches.

First, making food has to fit into your lifestyle. A lot of these recipes are quick and easy, or can be made in bulk. We also have included some fun recipes, including some that hopefully make your child feel like they’re getting a special treat!

Second, getting your kids involved will go a long way in adding to their excitement about eating their lunch. We’ve made a meal planner that you can fill out with your kids at the beginning of each week, in order to get them involved in choosing healthy foods that help grow their bodies. You can download this free planner here or at the bottom of this page. Planning is only part of it. We also encourage getting your kids involved in cooking food, and putting together their lunchboxes.

When putting together the lunchboxes, you will need to be balancing sending healthy foods with your child’s preferences and the time available for them to eat. One hint is to make sure to cut your child’s food into bite size pieces, allowing and ensuring they will have the best chance to finish their food. Consider using fun cookie cutters or cutting their food into different shapes to make it more appealing. It’s also best to send their food at the appropriate temperature for consumption. For example, warm up the food before placing it in a thermos. Don’t worry, it’s safe to keep food at that temperature until lunch.

Finally, emphasize the right foods! There can be a lot of confusion, as words like “healthy,” “unhealthy,” “organic,” “bad” and “good” food all get thrown around. I have found it best to define foods as feeding, fun and fake. If you haven’t yet, watch our YouTube video about this.

Our planner has categories for each of these important feeding foods. You will see that it has sections for choosing your protein, fat, and ferment. This will help your child make good choices about the balance of their lunchbox, as well as teaching them more about how to care for their body. There’s also a section for fun foods so your child can enjoy a balanced lunchbox. And remember, a balanced lunchbox does not have to be a brand new recipe every day. You can reuse different elements, like having hamburger three days a week, and chicken the other two, but change everything else to allow for variety while not exhausting you! There’s a lot of ways to make lunch fun without having to have a huge variety.

Protein Ideas:

Meat
Fish
Eggs
Cultured Dairy
Cheese

Fat Ideas:

Butter / Ghee
Lard
Tallow
Sour Cream
Cream

Ferment Ideas:

Fermented Garlic
Sauerkraut Varieties
Ginger Carrots
Rainbow Ferment
Fermented Cucumbers
Jun / Kombucha

We know you can do this! We hope this helps add healthy habits into your routine! And always remember, every good thing you do for your body helps your body. So if you only change one healthy habit, and you only did it one time, you have done more good for your body than if you never did it at all! So it’s always worth adding in whatever healthy habits you can, there will always be a benefit!