Today’s “It Takes a Village to Pack a Lunch” entry comes from one of my oldest blogging friends, Brianne DeRosa of Red, Round or Green. Bri and I “met” at a Twitter party way back in 2010 and a few years later we had the chance to meet in person at a family dinner conference in New York. So I can report that she’s just as nice and fun in real life as she is on Red, Round or Green, where, in her own words, she’s just “trying to figure out how to get everybody fed.”
Today Bri discusses how we all start out the new school year with the best of lunch-packing intentions, but how hard it can be to keep that momentum going. In this post she offers her best advice on how to stay organized, on-track and even relatively sane right through that last packed lunch in June. Really! 🙂
* * *
Warding Off the Lunch-Packing Slump
by Brianne DeRosa
Whether you’re an enthusiastic lunch-packer or a weary warrior, there’s a big difference between the way most of us approach lunches in the beginning of any given school year, and the way we approach them once we’ve got a few weeks or months under our belts and there is OH DEAR GOD NO END IN SIGHT. What starts as good intentions, confidence, and careful planning usually devolves into exhaustion and irritation (this phenomenon generally having a direct correlation to the number and ages of the children you’re packing for).
Knowing that the daily care and feeding of our offspring is a challenge we must meet head-on, the lunch-packing prep cycle often looks something like this:
- Step One: Get your game face on. This year, snacks and lunches are going to be AWESOME. And effortless. You laugh in the face of lunch ruts.
- Step Two: Stock up on some stuff. Plan for amazing first-day (or first-week) lunches. Buy or make all the kids’ favorites for snack time. Congratulate self on being so darned organized.
- Step Three: Complete first few days of packing. Rest on laurels. Feel smugly “together.”
- Step Four: Life happens. Kids complain. Coffee goes cold while you scramble for sanity in the mornings. Evenings fill up with activities and homework. Somebody eats all the granola. The turkey goes bad. Your inspiration sags. Lunch packing becomes a drag.
- Step Five: Pray for summer. Only 162 days to go.
I’m kidding, sort of. But I know as well as anyone that no matter how well-organized you get for back-to-school, there’s a certain amount of MAINTAINING that organization that needs to happen in order to ward off a total lunch-packing slump. Here are some of my favorite easy tips to keep the ball rolling after that first-day triumph:
- Be a snack squirrel. Whenever I see fabulous sale prices on items that make good snacks or lunchbox additions, I buy 2 or more of them at a time. One goes into the pantry for general use; the others go into a secret location where the children won’t find them, and I won’t be tempted to use them up unless I really need them. Right now, I’ve got several bags of whole wheat mini-bagels, which were on major sale at Whole Foods for a few weeks in a row, stashed in the chest freezer in the garage. There are two boxes of Annie’s bunny crackers, a box of Trader Joe’s cereal bars, and a couple of packages of unsweetened applesauce cups shelved in the basement. I’ll keep adding to these stashes, little by little, one small purchase at a time — and that way, when I start to feel myself reaching the desperation point, I’ll have a well of reserves I can turn to that will help me pull it all back together.
- Keep a fallback lunch ready to go. The fallback lunch is the one you pack when you’re just too tired or stressed to think about anything. It will not be nutritionally perfect, but it will be better than panic. I recommend putting the ingredients for the fallback lunch in a box or bag and stashing it on the top shelf of the pantry. An example might be a box of your family’s favorite approved mac and cheese, a fruit leather or box of raisins, and a granola bar or similar item. Or you might keep a single-serve pack of crackers, a can of tuna, a cup of applesauce, and trail mix on hand. On a tough lunch-packing day, you can grab the kit and just follow where it leads. Bonus points for adding some fruits and vegetables from the fridge, if you’ve got them.
- Try an “approved add-ins” bin. This is an especially good trick for families with multiple children, and for families that want to foster more independence in lunch-packing (and who among us doesn’t?). In a large bin of your choosing, pack your family’s favorite shelf-stable, nutritious snacks and lunchbox add-ons. Fruit cups packed in juice or water, nut and seed butters, whole-grain cereals and crackers, fruit leathers, the makings for trail mix, popcorn, and rice cakes are all good choices. Each day, once the main lunch (and any fresh items you want to add) is packed, the kids can choose from the add-ins bin to round out their meals and pack their own snacks. Just by keeping an eye on the level in the add-in bin, you’ll know how much grocery shopping you need to do for the week.
- Do a “20 minute tune-up” once a week. Pick a time and schedule it. This is your moment: Set a timer and get chopping and packaging. Slice vegetables, portion fruits, make single-serve containers of yogurt with frozen berries or jam or maple syrup stirred in (just not honey — honey left in yogurt makes the yogurt separate. Sad but true). Cube your cheeses, portion your dips and hummus and salsas. Whatever you can get done in 20 minutes is FINE. Don’t push yourself to do more unless you’re dying to. The point is, you’ll be that much farther ahead for every lunch-packing session during the week, and you’ll know that it’s only 20 minutes of your time that needs to be committed to the effort. We can all find 20 minutes — even if it’s during commercial breaks.
- Set a snack list. The hardest part of lunch-packing for me is invariably the snacks. I pack a great lunch, feel good about it, and then realize that I’ve forgotten to throw in a snack — and I don’t feel inspired. The snack list should ideally contain five items in each of three categories: Fresh foods, Freezer foods, and Fair Game foods. Fresh foods are things like apples or bananas with nut or seed butter, yogurt parfaits, fruit and cheese, veggies with dip, etc. Freezer foods are make-ahead items that you keep at the ready: Banana bread, mini-muffins, mini-bagels, frozen smoothies. Fair Game foods are the pantry items you can grab and toss into backpacks, like granola bars, crackers, and popcorn. Fill out the lists with accepted items in your household, and keep it handy. Each week when you do the grocery shopping, consult your snack sheet and do a quick check of your inventory to make sure that you have at least three of those snacks on hand, in enough quantity to keep you going for the week. If not, stock up. The fifteen snacks you’ve written down, packed in rotation, will be enough variety to keep the kids from getting too bored with their choices, but provide enough structure for you to keep things easy.
Packing a healthy and kid-approved school lunch every day can feel like a huge feat, but with the right organization, some advance planning, and a few simple tips like these, it doesn’t have to be a totally thankless chore. Try one or two of these ideas this school year, and let me know if they’re a help to you and the lunch-packing routine in your house!
* * *
A version of this post previously appeared on Red, Round or Green.
Do You Love The Lunch Tray? ♥♥♥ Then “like” The Lunch Tray! Join over 10,100 TLT fans by liking TLT’s Facebook page, join almost 6,000 TLT followers on Twitter, or get your “Lunch” delivered right to your email inbox by subscribing to my posts. You can download my FREE 40-page guide to “Getting Junk Food Out of Your Child’s Classroom” and be sure to check out my free rhyming video for kids about processed food, “Mr. Zee’s Apple Factory!“
Sally @ Real Mom Nutrition says
Love this post–and love Bri! She has the best tips.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I agree! I wish I could have her come to my house and whip us into shape. 🙂
eila says
Love Bri’s take on lunch packing…and life.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Totally. 🙂
Alli says
Sharing. Thanks for organizing your series again!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you for sharing!