Last week Charley started staying at schools for lunch. This has always been a challenge for me because I like to watch over when he eats because far too often he is just too eager to get onto the next thing and often food is the first thing to be raced through. Then I had an idea as I was working through what foods to actually put in his lunch box to entice him to finish up.
(How did my lil dude get to be so grown up anyway?)
So whilst browsing Tesco for some healthy but fun snacks I decided that I can do this pretty easily, cheap and more attractive and with less wastage at the end of it. As i'm into recycling and careful about what goes out to the rubbish collectors I decided to join team with a few ideas.
Today he had cooked pasta with diced ham slices, carrot sticks, cheese string, cheese dipper, cheese biscuits, square cut sandwiches with honey roast ham and chopped apple. Homemade carrot cake in the form of a cupcake and orange barley water.
This is tomorrow's lunchbox, he has a variety of his favourite foods, its fun and attractive and still healthy. Win/Win.
Broken down we have:
Circle cut sandwiches (chocolate spread cos even kids need some junk stuff!)
Penguin chocolate bar (which he probably wont eat)
Orange segments
Notice the container? It came along with raspberries in from Tesco! Perfect size for these little goodies and it has a lid!
Chopped melon/pineapple/cherries/peaches.
Next comes diced cheddar cheese and chopped cucumber.
Again, notice the container, this one held blueberries and again has a lid.
A pate tub is ideal for a select amount of cheesy biscuits, reusable tub and no rubbish in the lunchbox.
Charley gets so excited when he sees me doing his lunchbox, he knows he has his favourite snacks in there and will often try and plead with me to have a 'teeny tiny bit just to make sure it tastes ok' Nice try son! :)
The best thing about a packed lunch isnt just the control I have on knowing what he's eating but its in the preparation with Charley to be sure he's going to eat what he actually likes. No more bags of Walkers and half eaten yoghurts splattered through the lunch bag, no more excessive rubbish and wasted foods...whatever he doesn't eat (which isn't a lot) he will nibble on as we walk home from school!
Mission successful :)
~*~Debs~*~
