How to beat lunch box boredom
We aren't even a month into school and I hear so many moms saying they sick and tired of packing lunches. Or maybe their kids are just tired of the same old thing in their lunch box. I get it! You can only eat so many PBJ sandwiches in a lifetime!
As I kid, I was pretty happy to have pretty much the same thing in my lunch everyday. I was blessed to have a mom that made my lunch for me, or we packed it together. I fondly remember honey and peanut butter sandwiches. Then there was the tuna fish phase. I think that was about the time mom returned to the work force because we made a batch on the weekends, assembled sandwiches for the week and then froze the sandwiches. If you have never had slowly thawed (in a school locker for example) soggy tuna fish salad sandwiches on whole wheat... I do not recommend! I'm pretty sure I haven't eaten canned tuna since college because of it!
So how do you know if your kiddo has a case of the lunch box blues? Symptoms may include: sour faces, "forgetting" their lunch box, food trading, and uneaten food returning home. If you see any of these symptoms, you might want to become a boredom buster. I know it would be easy to just let them get hot lunch (and my kids can choose that up to once a week) but lunch time is such a great opportunity to sneak a few more servings of fruits and veggies in that I cannot take this lying down.
Tip 1: Rethink the sandwich or ditch the -wich. Crazy, I know, but lunch doesn't even have to include a sandwich. Try a wrap, pasta with veggies, soup, so many options. Tip 2: Toss in a fruit. I like to take my kids to the produce section a couple times a year and have them pick some new fruits to try. Tip 3: Broccoli for president. Just grab a vegetable, any vegetable. One of my kids loves frozen peas. Another loves pickles. Just roll with it. If it looks like it did when it was growing on the plant, eat it. Tip 4: add some crunch. I know, we all love potato chips, but there are so many options for salty crunchy these days. Tip 5: Include a treat. While we try to eat mostly whole food, plant based, I also think treat foods are a good thing to keep around. What about a square of dark chocolate, an energy bite, healthy gummies? Here is an example to uplevel your lunchbox:
There are so many more ways to help you and your kids enjoy packing a lunch. I love the Lunch Box Planning guide in this Start Strong Kids pdf. It's created by the Healthy Living Revolution that has helped me so much as a mom make a healthy lifestyle easy and fun. You can download your free copy here: