Lunch boxes and bags

[F-Litz]

Wow Dunloe - that is a great idea! Maia ate school lunches the past two years but this year she's going back to me packing her lunch and I was trying to come up with ideas and you just did it for me!! Thanks!!

It's a fantastic idea. I will have to create a name for it that'll make her giggle.....

we don't have access to refrigeration at school but I got this lunch box last year (when I heard that plastic lunch boxes contained lead!) and I have to find you the link to it... You keep it in the freezer and basically the walls of the lunch box are plastic with freezer juice that gets frozen and they line it with scrubbable cloth. Works like a charm.

So again, thanks for the lunch idea!

Coming back to add one thing.... I learned a few years ago that for fruit and anything that browns, soak them in pineapple juice and they won't get brown. So I cut up apples the night before and put them in a container with pineapple juice and then the next day I drain and dry them off with a paper towel. Works great!


Message was edited by: F-Litz

[AngieD]

I love this topic, even though Kayla will be going into Middle School now and taking a lunch is not cool, I am sure this is helping a lot of people.

Being a pre-school teacher, I agree I hate the yogurt in tubes, pre-packaged fruit cups with the liquid and also string cheese. There were days I could not even get the tops of the fruit or the cheese opened. There are also these juice pouches that the straws were inside and you have to tear it on the side. The kids can never tear it nor could they get the straw up enough to drink out of it.

When Kayla did take a lunch though she used either the tubaware or the zip lock baggies with the zipper. She also said the juice boxes that are square were a lot easier for her to do and water bottles that have the sport top.

Angie

[F-Litz]

http://www.fridge-to-go.com/

you store it in the freezer and the sides of it freeze and keep your lunch cold...no need for refrigeration at all

[brandonsmom]

Francine,
Another trick is to actually freeze her juice box, by lunch time, they are thawed and nice and cold and htey keep their lunch cold till lunch. I have told so many people about this an now they all do it. When other kids are complaining about their warm drink, my kids even tell them how to freeze the juice box.....

GAYLE

[dunloe]

I am definitely having fun here.

Gayle, your idea about freezing the juice box is absolutely totally BRILLIANT.

dunloe

[dunloe]

Oh! An alternative to the 8ths idea.

Take one-half of a torilla shell, and apply a line of your paste in the center of the shell. Then pick up the rounded end, and gather the paste into a roll firmly. Once you have formed the roll, press down on it to make it firm. You will have a long cylinder. Cut that into one inch pieces/sections. As though you were baking biscuits, tuck the peice on their sides on the bottom of your tupperware. You don't want the sections to shift too much, so that when your child opens his/her tupperware, he/she will just grab -- hopefully greedily -- one colorful roll at a time. And if you have the time you can experiment with how you build the rolls to make them really attractive when you set them on their sides.....

Want to make oatmeal more desirable to your kids, add tapioca to it!

dunloe

[dunloe]

"So I cut up apples the night before and put them in a container with pineapple juice and then the next day I drain and dry them off with a paper towel. Works great!"

And that is another fantastic idea. For some very strange reason my daughter loves tart and sour foods. To prevent browning of her apples, I have cut and twisted a lemon over the apples and left the lemon on top of the apples. I am not lying, my daughter's classmates would not only await her apple/pear/peach/carrot sections but the chance to get one of the lemon sections. And her teacher came to be thrilled with this becuase much talk of nutrition ensued.

TAKE ANY OPPORTUNITY YOU CAN TO BUILD YOUR CHILD's SELF-ESTEEM!

dunloe

[marieke]

I am 31 and STILL freeze my juice box when I bring food with me!
Marieke (31, LOBPI)

[Tanya in NY]

Loving this post since Amber is entering kindergarten in September (right after we return from camp!) and Casey is entering 7th grade.

I LOVE the freezing of the juice box idea. Never thought of it, but I'm going to do it now.

I'm foreseeing lots of ziplock baggies as Amber is able to pull the zipper open on them (not the kind you have to pinch together).

Tanya in NY
Amber's Mom, ROBPI, 4 1/2 years old

[kksmommy]

Ooooh dunloe, I love the idea you had for lunches. As we are not anywhere near school age (Kayla is not even a year yet) I am already stuggling to find healthy meals for her. My way of thinking is that kids will eat what you give them. Currently we are limited to what she can feed herself (because she can't use silverware) and I am growing tired of the bland babyfood. I am going to add the lunch idea to some of her meals and any other recipes you (or anyone else has) will be most appreciated.
Thanks,
Ashley, Kaylas Mom, 8 mos. ROBPI