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BANG FOR THE BITE
20% of American kids up to age 5 drink regular apple juice daily, despite the fact that apples are high in chemical residues. Keep 'em healthy with organic options.
COCKTAIL FACT
Under Italian law, all schools must serve organic food to kids up to age 10. (Like we needed added incentive to procreate in Florence).
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home › tip library › Healthy School Lunches
Do your kid's school lunches make the grade?
The Bite
Send the kids to class with healthy lunches and sustainable snacks to sharpen their young minds while teaching a valuable lesson on eco-friendly living.The Benefits
- A is for Apple (whole fruit). Wean kids off juice drinks that often only have about 10% real juice, are loaded with sugar, and contain no fiber. Choose 100% juice or include whole fruit in your kids' lunchbox.
- B is for Butter (organic nut butters, that is). Take a healthy new spin on an old favorite with organic nut butter on whole grain bread.
- C is for Conscious about Waste. Replace juice boxes altogether with refillable bottles, store foods in reusable containers (if you think your kids will bring them back), and buy lunch staples like yogurt in bulk.
- D is for Vegetables. (Well, D does sound like V). Add healthy veggies to sandwiches or include veggie sticks as a snack.
Personally Speaking
As a kid, Ideal Bite team member Sara found sliced bread totally repugnant, so this tip brings back awful memories of opening up her lunchbox to PB&J on white day after day after day... Now she LOVES Maranatha Nut Butters on whole grain.Wanna Try?
- R.W. Knudsen Juice Boxes - their razzleberry rules. 100% organic ($20/27 juice boxes).
- Crofter's Organic Fruit Spreads - once you get past the scary image of the girl on their site, check their recommended recipes ($3).
- Maranatha Nut Butters - in 5 tasty flavors ($4).
- Arrowhead Mills Organic Creamy Valencia Peanut Butter - made from small and sweet Valencia peanuts ($5).
- Two Angry Moms - join up in the call for healthier school lunches.
- Ideal Bite's Lead-Based Lunchboxes Tip - no, we are not advocating for more lead. Read the tip for the down low.
- Ideal Bite's Top 10 Foods to Buy Organic - find out which organic foods offer the biggest bang for the bite.
Aug 16,2006
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All editorial suggestions in this tip are the result of testing and a preference for the tip topic. No advertiser has paid to have its company referenced in the tip. For more information, please read our Editorial Policy.
Carrot Sticks Don’t Fly -we know
My mom was (is) a great mom… she packed our lunches everyday. There was often a PB&J on wheat, and a piece of fruit, and for desert, a fruit roll up. I of course would consider myself incredibly lucky if someone would give me a bite of their cookie or Twinkie even.
Anyway, as you Biters have noted, we don’t have children, and so I will leave it up to you to use this forum to submit your own best options for packing a healthy lunch for little Tommy or Jane. And I must say – my hat’s off to you – there are soooo many temptations for kids to eat CRAP these days! Sparkly things, vending machines, and frankenfood that probably sings…
Off to “sample” more of those all natural iced animal crackers for part two of this tip topic… Jen
Biter Comments...
Hi there,
Today is my first day on the ideabite list, so perhaps you have covered this, but I wanted to make a comment about packing kids' lunches. Although, I am not as "perky" as I once was, I do still have some kid tentendies. One of them is that I like to go to work with a packed lunch. You don't have to have kids to think about how difficult it is to pack a healthy lunch and to try to avoid shiny lunch packaging. It might be worth talking about how Big Kids would think about taking their lunches to work, and what quick, healthy choices there might be out there for folks who don't have a lot of time in the morning. One tip I have is to pack it the night before. Trader Joes has a lot of organic, healthy, pre-packaged, snack-like items. Nuts, dries fruit, fuit leather, organic yoghurt and other dairy products. I am from the SF Bay Area, and there are a ton of Farmers Markets as well as Berkeley Bowl, Whole Foods, etc. I am trying to fight the war against processed foods and high-fructose corn syrup. It's a challenge, but it starts at home. Hats off to you and all of the people who make this site possible.
~Nova
For the Preschool crowd, I've found an easy switch is trading those ubiquitous fish crackers for Annie's Cheddar Bunnies and swap out the bear graham crackers for Bunny Grahams, also from Annie's. They have no trans fats and are made with organic wheat. The kids that come to playgroup can't seem to tell the difference except the bunny shape.
Get the kids a thermal lunch jar. Tiger and Zojirushi are two brands.
Because the hot food stays hot for 5 hrs and the cold for 7, it opens the door for stuff beyond the ubiquitous sandwich in kiddie lunches.
Or my own.
Jen - you mentioned fruit roll ups. When I was a kid we made everything from scratch. I loved making fruit roll ups with my mom (and really need to get the recipe from her!)
We also made our own yogurt and got nut-butters from my uncle's commune (East Wind). Homemade oatmeal raisin cookies were a yummy addition to lunch box!
I hate (really) all the vending machines filled with crap that are at schools now. People wonder why the incidece of ADD/ADHD is so high? grr. There is a school for "troubled kids" in I think Wisconsin? that only feeds the kids organic good foods. They are now more well behaved and /happy/ than the kids at the schools they were kicked out of. (can't find the article right now)
Hey... on the subject of toothpaste.. I LOVE Kiss My Face Triple Action toothpaste with aloe and they also have a "whitening" one. It's a nice gel formula and tastes yummy.. (my husband even likes it ) and works great !
I love the idea of trading in juice boxes for a reusable container.
When it comes to that old comfort food peanut butter,though, there is new fangled conflict. We had to sign a contract saying that we would not bring anything with peanuts to school because of the danger it poses to kids with allergies. Even though there is a peanut free table in the lunchroom, they take this extra precaution and I can't blame them for being cautious. I understand that this is a growing practice in schools throughout the country. It makes me sad to pull the plug on peanut butter, though. It's not like you can really substitute it with other nuts because who is going to give a 6 year old the authority to argue that it is really made from another nut and risk another kid's life? So we look for something else with protiens that can take being in a lunch bag without decomposing too fast. Anyone have any suggestions?
I love Lara Bars for a snack...nothing but healthy ingredients. Chopped dates is the base. I buy them at Kroger's, the health food store, or Drug Emporium, if any of these happen to be in your town. They are the size of a small candy bar, portable, and very filling. They also satisfy that "sweet tooth" without sugars other than those in fruits. I usually pay about $1.79 per bar. Kids (and adults) will love them.
www.larabar.com
Re: a good substitute for peanut butter sandwiches: my daughter's daycare serves cream cheese and jelly sandwiches in place of PB & jelly. They love it.
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: lisa | August 16, 2006 at 10:04 AM