The ‘Agony’ of Packing School Lunches – and Strategies to Making it Bearable

The last two years have been an eye-opener when it comes to school lunch meal prep for my son.

Two things I have learned from this experience are:

1. I dread making his lunch for school, and
2. I’m not very good at it. 

Now I have another challenge!

My daughter is going to Junior Kindergarten this year. My head is spinning on how I will prepare two lunches over the course of a week (woe is me!). There are some other barriers too:

• First, they don’t like the same things. 
• Second, in the last two years my son seemed to leave most of his lunch uneaten and it bothers me that food is going to waste. I expect that will happen with both of them this year.
• Third, I can’t seem to find the time. I’m always rushing to get it done.

Given school is starting soon (or maybe it already has for some), I thought I’d conduct some research on ways to help me overcome the three challenges I mentioned. 

Can I just say that I was astonished at how school lunch packing is such an “art”.  There are so many great ideas out there. I was so naïve! I’m not sure why I didn’t research this sooner. I could have saved on time in the evenings (yay for more adult time!) and felt less stress related to the whole process.

Some ideas I’ve seen (but not yet tried) are:

Stock up – What I like about this is you can have your boxed/packaged stuff all ready to go – whether that’s nut free granola bars, or yogurt, etc.  There’s no parsing it up, or cutting it or wrapping it. Also, stocking up means you can select items that both kids will like or even customize based on their preference. I also interpret this solution as meaning that you have your basics ready for a few days.  For example, you have all your grapes and carrots bagged for the week. It means having some dedicated time to do it but once it’s done it’s just a matter of throwing it into their lunch boxes.

Plan – Do it for the week, or heck…even the month. All I can say is… Amazing!  There’s lot of great meal planners out there that provide excellence lunch ideas. In this way it’s all planned out and you’re not hightailing it around the kitchen looking for stuff. Or worse, putting unhealthy food choices in your kids’ lunch because you ran out of carrots and apples last week. It takes time to plan, but with all the help out there I think once you do it once, it gets better.  You will have your “go to” places for lunch ideas. 

Give options – You might have seen the trend in creating the “bento box” lunch where you give your kids lots of options on what to eat.  It’s small amounts of a variety of foods that they can nibble on all day.  It means having lots of food choices available but if anything goes to waste it’s not a huge amount. To take this food choice option a step further you can also create a school lunch station. Think boxes with different genres of food items and your kids go to each box and pick what they want. I think you’ll need some space to do this, but it looks to be a great solution. It’s like they have their own buffet! 

Involve them – For example, you decide that popcorn, pretzels or carrots are staples for the next few days and they help to count it all out and bag it for you. Or, you take your kids grocery shopping with you and they pick out key food items. It gives you a chance to validate the food choices they like and empower them by engaging them in the process. Other potential benefits – it can be a way to spend time together; it provides good training for when they can actually pack their own lunch; and, it’s a great opportunity to teach them about healthy food options. On the down side, it may take extra time and they might lose interest in the middle of it!

Make it fun – There are many ways to do this. For example, you can create an award system.  They eat all their lunch, they get something special.  Or maybe it gives you a chance to play with them – making food into shapes or including silly pictures. Or, if they can read, including jokes or sweet messages. For example, “We’re going on a little road trip tonight…” which will get them excited about what happens after school. Or, “What’s your favorite activity today…” to prepare them for some conversation at the dinner table.

Now, with this all being said, I have yet to try these ideas out. I’ve postulated on some of the pros and cons of each and took a stab at summarizing the options below (green is good – yellow is ok – red is more about love). In looking at it this way though, I have a feeling that no solution is the best; that’s it more the combination of each of them that will provide the most satisfying end result. And that is really dependent on your style and house “culture”. 

Postulations:

Do you have any preferences?  If you’re new, maybe you can try some of these and let me know how it went. What other ideas can I try?

I’ll provide an update on my progress once school has started here in Canada.

Here’s to less stress, extra time, healthy eating, less food waste and happy kids! 

Wish me luck!

Unfolding Tip:

There’s nothing wrong with asking for help or trying out other people’s strategies. Don’t reinvent the wheel – there’s a genius out there for everything.