The School Lunch Battle
Fall is officially here, even in Phoenix. Finally! My kids have been back at school for several weeks now and I feel like we’re still kind of getting back into the groove. One place where we’re really working to get our act together is school lunches.
We’ve gone back and forth on school lunch versus packed lunch, and we’ve just found that packed lunches make more sense for my family—for a lot of reasons.
Jeff and I like to go grocery shopping together; it’s kind of a date night for us. We stock up on supplies and then take turns making lunches, assembly line style!
While the lunches are essentially the same with a meat, fruit and snack, each of the kids has his or her own special requests. Jack always gets a whole apple in his lunch. Lucy likes her meat in a bag—without any bread. Molly doesn’t want anything to do with lunch meat, so she gets chicken nuggets and ketchup. You get the picture.
Before Packed Lunches
We didn’t always send the kids to school with packed lunches. We used to rely on school lunches to feed the kids. But then a new school with a new lunch program using outside restaurants started driving up the cost. We were spending $5-$7 per kid per day on meals (at school!) from Pei Wei, Barros, Subway, Smoothie King and similar restaurants. With two or three kids eating this way up to 5 days every week, it just got too expensive.
It is a little overwhelming to make 4 lunches every day, but we’ve found that prepping the night before is key. Jeff or I will make lunches while the other one is getting the kids ready for bed. Or I have the older kids prep lunch while I’m cooking dinner.
The Health Factor
Are the packed lunches we send everyday healthier than what the kids would get at school? Probably not much. But there are certainly more opportunities and options to improve when we pack at home. And I have a lot more control over what they eat too. I can pick yogurt that doesn’t have artificial sweeteners or corn syrup. I can choose fresh fruit, rather than something from a can.
Of course, we can always do better, but for now this works for us. And occasionally the kids get a “break” day, where we’re out of lunch options at home so we grab Lunchables on the way to school. The kids get over-the-moon excited on days like that—when they get a Capri Sun and candy in their lunches!
If I really wanted to plan ahead, I could add school lunches into my regular meal planning—where I make extra dinner to pack away for lunches for the kids. I haven’t gone there yet, but it’s something I think about. I’m just not quite ready to tackle that beast yet!
