THE NEGOTIATOR
A born wheeler-dealer, this young’un uses lunchtime as just another opportunity to trade up. And this kid’s got the tools to come out on top: colorful fruit, crunchy chicken fingers, and supertasty cookies.
Baked Cracker-Crusted Chicken Fingers with a choice of honey-mustard, barbecue, or buttermilk dipping sauce; Pineapple and Grape Kebabs; string cheese; and Oatmeal–Chocolate Chip Cookies
THE PICKY EATER
So finicky is this little one that he won’t let any foods on the same plate touch each other. Play it safe with familiar classics that, with a few twists, can still be interesting.
Smushed Turkey and Cheese Sandwich; Ladybugs on a Raft; goldfish or other nonthreatening yet relatively healthy crackers; and Easy Vanilla Pudding
THE ADVENTURER
This kid has yet to meet a spice or veggie she didn’t like. Push her palate to new levels with this Asian-influenced lunch.
Kid-Friendly Fried Rice; Tropical Snack Mix; exotic fruit such as Asian pears, dragon fruit, or lychees; and Zen Bars
See more kid-friendly recipes!
This is a silly article, and I fail to see much value in it. My biggest criticism is that the Negotiator is going to fail: kids are not going to trade anything considered valuable to their peers for grape and pineapple skewers or what look like baked chicken fingers.
The Negotiator has the oatmeal choco chip cookies, but those are generally a non-negotiable item. The chicken fingers would be a high value item as well. As a parent of two kids I can say that they would eat approximately 50% of the above and nothing out of the Adventurer series and they're not half as picky as most kids.
It's a nice wish list of lunch items, at least from a parent's perspective trying to provide worthwhile food options. I find the real challenge is working 9 hours a day, driving to kid's/grown up events throughout the week and finding time to make a lunch with what's on hand and that doesn't take up too much time. I'd like to see something in the way of the week long bean/chicken recipes (http://www.chow.com/stories/11543) but geared towards kids that don't have microwave access.
Just wondering - did the author of this article try making these lunches and others like them every day for one month? Or two months? Or six months? These recipes sound like ideas thought up by people who don't have kids - or who really don't make these kind of lunches for their kids on an every-day basis. I have a feeling most parents wouldn't be able to keep up with the cost and the tediousness of this chore.
The bottom photo (with the lychees) uses the same bento box that I use for my kid. I think it's called "laptop lunches" or something close to that. I really like it-- you can pack a lot of different foods into those containers and then chuck the empties in the dishwasher at night.
Oh, and also, I can make my kid's lunch (though it isn't generally a culinary masterpiece) in less than 10 minutes in the evening. Basically, grab the bento box, make a sandwich or some faux-lunchables (cheese/crackers/meat cut out with a cookie cutter), or some simple salad, then fruit in another container, some goldfish in the third and grape tomatoes or carrots in the last one.
Once you get into the habit of making lunches, it's pretty easy and fast to put something together.
I agree with gdavis. My children are grown now, but when they were in school, I took a few minutes each night to put things together. I would add a note of love, written on their napkin, every day. Their friends were always eager to see what their lunch contained, including the note. I doubt schools today will allow skewered foods, but these are all good ideas. Maybe my kids were used to eating a more diverse diet. Who wants a boring lunch? If you will take a few minutes after grocery shopping to cut fruit and veggies and bag crackers or chips for the week, it will be an easy weeknight or morning throw-together.
bahahahaha! I am a full time student and single mom. I have one incredibly picky kid and one who will eat anything. Every night I make their sandwiches (and cut them out with seasonal shapes) and let them pick out their juice box, snack, fruit, and treat. They know they get 1 thing off of the each of the lower shelves and they go in and fill up their little containers themselves. This way since they are picking out everything, I know they are eating it. The picky kid picks out almost the identical thing everyday and the other kid mixes it up. Everyone is happy.
The lady bugs on a raft would never look like that when the container was opened at lunch. It would be a sticky peanut buttery mess.
exactly!!!!
I think that I see a lot of excuses!
I also work full time and manage to make healthy, interesting meals for my son. It makes me so sad to walk into his lunchroom and see kids polishing off Lunchables! One day I actually had another mom say "PFTT I wish *I* had that kind of time" ... well you do! You just choose to use it some other way!
Involving your children in meals (not just lunches) - from picking out fruits/veggies at the store to taking a little extra time so they can help cook- goes a long way to avoiding picky eating and having them eat what you send! Vencogirl, RLTRLDY and gdavis all have a great ideas! Instead of thinking of healthful eating as some kind of burden, treat it as a special thing you share with your child - and they'll begin to see it that way too!
Once school gets into swing I make things ahead of time and freeze them. Then I share them between my lunch, his lunch and my husbands lunch. I've been out of the habit over the summer but I can't wait to get back to it! His teachers are always impressed by the presentation of his lunches as well as the variety of foods he eats without thinking twice! One day his teacher (jokingly) tried to trade his lunch b/c he was eating pepper shrimp and she had leftovers.
i gotta say, my 3 yr old was the envy of her preschool today with english muffin pizza. We had made them the night before with leftover spaghetti sauce and I realized they would be GREAT in her lunch. My son won't take them in his lunch because he will only eat them heated up so they don't work for him.
I have to say that I would never skewer anything I put in my kids lunch...(1) I am too lazy, (2) the fruit would start to turn brown where it was skewered and (3) honestly, the kids would use the skewers as weapons, thus precipitating a visit to the vice prinicipals office, me having to miss an important class, go to the school, explain why I packed a weapon in my kids lunch....And besides--look at that picture, the skewers DON'T EVEN FIT IN THE CONTAINER!
I think the article is more about the idea side of the lunches than the practical side. It's meant to inspire a different way ot thinking about what gets packed for lunch (not just for kids).
I don't see what's wrong with making more for dinner, then riffing on the leftovers for lunch. Made too much spaghetti sauce? Everyone gets sloppy joes for lunch tomorrow!
I make lunches like this for my 5yo kindergartener, who will be starting 1st grade in a couple of weeks. I use various bento boxes, and make fruit kabobs with grapes and cheese cubes or pineapple (and no, they don't turn brown). I cut our sandwiches with cookie cutters, etc. It takes me a few extra minutes to do these things, but he loves them! I try and do some of it the night before, like the fruit skewers, and then do the perishable/hot foods the morning of. He's a very adventurous eater, and would probably love that Asian laptop lunch -- in fact, I've sent fried rice for lunch several times. His teachers always comment how great it is that I take the time to pack fresh/homecooked foods as they see so many kids who bring Lunchables or even McDonalds hamburgers for lunch!
On a side note -- where can I find that green container in the first picture? I love that the dip container is in the center so I wouldn't have to use a seaprate container!
I have a salad container that has a dressing compartment in the middle that looks similar to that. When you use it for salad, you put the dressing into the middle (which has a lid) and when you are ready, you take the inner lid off, put the main lid back on and shake it up and voila, tossed salad. I'm not sure where I got it tho...not tupperware, it may have been through one of the school fund raiser things...
boogiebaby they have those at Bed Bath and Beyond.
And rusty_s is it really necessary to insult me?
Skewers would not be allowed in most schools. Wraps are always a great choice; you can stuff them with anything and you do not need a million plastic containers.
JohnE--my kid loves pad see ewe, stir fry, and saag paneer. I'm going to try the rice at home.
I'm going to try the skewers for his fruit. When I send whole fruit, he eats around the equator, doesn't finish, so the rest is brown and mushy by the time I see it again--lots of waste. He tells me he'd like it chopped, often doesn't eat that either, but it's not in the best of shape after sitting around all day either.
Chicken (or fish) fingers/nuggets/sticks, sandwiches, and dips are all on my guy's no-go list. I don't know if he'd eat wraps--I don't like them, don't think he's had much encounter with them.
vencogirl, your lunch packing plan sounds like you've got it together on many fronts--nutrition, time management, instilling responsibility--great!
zsecley, I don't see why people are often uptight re: leftovers. They save time, money, and resources (not throwing food away).
Re: love notes in the lunch box--I started that when my son was learning to read. Coming up with a new way to say "I love you! Do your best!" every durn day got to be a real challenge to my creativity, but if I tried to quit he'd tell me he wanted them again, and I couldn't see denying his request for love and mental stimulation (they weren't doing reading yet).
And just to be devil's advocate--if the negotiator lives up to his/her name, those basics will morph into a second-grader's fantasy lunch.
I was under the impression that a lot of schools were banning peanut products these days, due to the number of allergies that are popping up. Or do they just have "peanut-free" tables in the cafeterias? Those ladybugs and their little raft might not even be allowed in some schools. Parents? Do you have any experience with the peanut product ban? I'm curious.
it depends on the school--and they will let you know ahead of time. My daughter's pre school is peanut free even though they don't currently have any children with peanut allergies. My son's elementary school has a designated area of the cafeteria that is peanut free. I happen to be allergic to peanuts (and tree nuts too for that matter) and I use sunflower seed butter for myself. A lot of the children at the preschool use various nut butters instead of peanut butter (almond butter is quite popular as is Nutella)
My son goes to a nut-free school (supposedly all nuts are a no-go, not just peanuts, but I saw another parent doling out almond "Nut Thins" on Monday).
It's a bit frustrating b/c it rules out so many crackers/bars and milk/protein alternatives, but I understand. Small children aren't the tidiest of eaters and if they get nutty goodness all over their hands it's going to find it's way to another child!
Like vencogirl we use sunflower butter or chocolate soy butter (to replace Nutella). The rafts could easily be made nut free with either of those choices or by using cream cheese instead of "butters"... then you could call them "clouds" or something.
chocolate soy butter? where do you get it? Since I'm allergic to tree nuts too, I can't do Nutella. And at my daugher's preschool (the peanut banning one) they are allowed tree nuts because it's apparently not as common an allergy (I'm just special I guess to be allergic to both...). They use cream cheese on celery there like you suggested--it would never have occurred to me otherwise.
Chocolate soy nut butter does sound good! I currently live in Turkey and it's not a nut allergy-friendly place at all. Hazelnuts, pistachios and walnuts are everywhere! If you're just allergic to peanuts, though, you'd be okay, as peanuts and peanut butter aren't quite as common. Peanuts are put in with the mixed nuts and seeds, but peanut butter isn't very common. I can find it in some stores, but it's rather expensive.
I have to add a little disclaimer that my husband and I don't really like the chocolate soy butter very well but our son LOVES it! We get ours at the natural food co-op here but I have seen the non-chocolate version at the regular grocery as well. It's a brand called "I.M. Healthy" and it looks like it should come in a set of kids pretend food! You might ask at the grocery store if they can order it for you - I dunno if places still do that or not?!
oh, thanks for the disclaimer! our local grocery stores will special order stuff for you. but I could check at Whole Foods too. But maybe I'm better off without it...it's not like I NEED another source of chocolate/sugar/fat in my diet....I have to say that I do miss peanut butter and tree nuts. I haven't made peanut butter cookies since I found out about my allergies.
Hariscruff, I was fine when I just had the peanut allergy but when the tree nut allergy kicked it in I really started having problems. I used to just avoid Thai food (lot of peanuts in use at Thai restaurants) but now I have to avoid so much more. Especially at any sort of ethnic restaurant! If there is any sort of language barrier I can get into all sorts of trouble. And everyone seems to be using chopped nuts as garnish these days!
I can't imagine not being able to eat any kind of nuts! I'm pretty good at justifying things... like the chocolate soy butter has only 8% of you DV of saturated fat but it has 12% of your fiber and 6g of protein! And with only 7 ingredients I'd say it's still a pretty good "deal." I used it in place of peanut butter in some monster breakfast cookies that I made. They have tons of other nuts in them so they're still not school friendly but it was a nice addition to those! I just don't like eating it as a sandwich like my son does (and like I love to do with nutella).
It was an adjustment when I had to give up peanuts and tree nuts. Instead of growing out of my allergies as some people, I've grown INTO them--the older I get, the more food allergies I've developed. Kind of tough because I'll think something is fine (like peanuts) and then it becomes an allergen to me. (and I have some weird food allergies--bananas and avocados--whose ever heard of people being allergic to them!?) I miss shellfish and berries the most I think. And brownies with nuts....
why is this tagged "entertaining"?
As a kid, one of my favorite things was soup in a Thermos. I'm now a teacher, and I regularly make soup on the weekend and bring it in my Thermos throughout the week. My other standbys are salads (everything but the kitchen sink, really: lettuce, grated beet, grated carrot, cucumber, tomato, sprouts, chickpeas, seeds and homemade dressing), some vegetable and grain combo (like steamed veggies on brown rice, or curried veggies on basmati rice) and especially-for-lunch pasta. As I type, I'm making pasta (pantacce, kind of like a cut-up lasagne noodle) with "creamy tomato" sauce (actually slow-roast tomatoed pureed with cannellini beans) and roasted veggies (gotta use up my cauliflower and broccoli). That will feed me until Friday!
My school is peanut-free but not nut-free; however this is a rather unspoken rule as I've just heard it in passing from students and never seen it written anywhere or been told that by administration. Skewers like the one in the picture would be fine, but not super-sharp ones like you'd use for a kebab.
I'm now doing a 6:00 am bootcamp class before school, and I also keep a big container of Liberte Mediterranean yogurt (lemon) in the fridge at work, with a little container of granola in my classroom. When I get to school, I fill a teacup with the yogurt and then sprinkle the granola on top when I get to my room. Then, I try to wolf it down before the bell!
Just a note: If you look closely at the first picture, the fruit isn't on skewers...it's on popsicle sticks (or something similar) with rounded edges that wouldn't make good "weapons."