From: ginger@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Ginger Ogle)
Subject: SUMMARY: uneaten lunches
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 05:42:45 GMT

Thanks for all the great ideas!

My question was:

I need some advice from some experts lunch-makers. What do you put into
your kids' lunch boxes that they actually eat and that isn't too junky?

Food ideas:				
-----------					
- peanut butter and crackers (put together my own)
- string cheese
- chunks of cheese
- cheese sticks (MooTown Snackers)
- bologna/ham wrapped around a sweet pickle
- rolled-up sandwich meat
- salami and crackers
- Tuna salad sandwiches or just tuna salad
- cream cheese sandwich, with or without jelly
- Ricotta cheese with some salt and dill makes a pretty good sandwich spread!
- leftover roast beef or chicken sandwiches
- Bread or rolls or flour tortillas
- slices of French bread
- banana muffins or bran muffins
- Peanut butter on flour tortilla - either roll it up and slice it or
	cut out "cookies" with cookie cutters
- most anything on a bagel 
- mini bagel and salami or string cheese
- Cold hamburgers & hotdogs (make extras at dinner for the next day)
- Leftovers from a dinner they like.  That way, you don't have to make 
	anything special (time & money saved) and they get a meal they like.
- macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, raviolis, etc. [in] a small thermos
- soup in a thermos
- hard-boiled eggs
- cold pizza
- yogurt and a granola bar or a piece of fruit
- Fruit-ca-bobs..use wooden skewers and put on grapes, cantaloupes, string
	cheese, etc.
- apples or oranges, cut up
- canned pineapple slices
- pieces of apple and grapes
- 1 fruit item, either fresh fruit which tends to get left, or a little con-
	tainer of apple sauce or canned fruit, which does tend to get eaten
- cut up veggies and dips 
- whole carrots
- cherry tomatoes
- whole English pea pods
- small container of peanut butter with celery/carrot sticks for dipping
- 1 treat item, either chips, pretzels, a pudding container, cookies 
	(homemade or pre-packaged) or once a month, a candy bar.
- Either a can of soda (I do have teenagers who would buy it from the snack 
	bar anyway) or one of those yucky juice packs


Lunch rules:
------------

- Eat what mom makes or make it yourself.

- If you don't eat your lunch, your sibling can pack your lunch for you 
	the next day. ;-)

- If you haven't eaten your lunch, then you have to eat it as a snack 
	if you want one after school.

- There are days when only the "junk" gets eaten (cookies, etc.).
	Then the next day everything is healthy food.  They either eat it or 
	go hungry.  They usually survive and eat more at supper.

- Everyday we ask them what they had, and everyday we ask them if they 
	finished.

- I ask the children what they want in their lunch, within certain bounds.
	They must have some sort of grain (bread, bagel, tortilla, etc), 
	some sort of protein (tuna, egg, peanut butter, baked beans), 
	at least one piece of fresh fruit (although apple sauce is ok), 
	and an optional not-too-junky thing like a cookie.

- Our (currently) second- and third-graders have been making their
	own lunches for a year now.  To start with, have them submit
	a weekly menu for shopping and scheduling.  You review it for
	nutritional veto and schedule rearrangement (tuna salad has to
	be both on the same day, for instance.) They have to leave a clean 
	kitchen.  Failure to clean up gets them school lunch the next day 
	out of their allowance.


Time savers & Money savers & General Hints:
------------------------------------------
- I pack my lunch at the same time.  It takes about 5 minutes in the morning.

- I buy pizza from Domino's with their two for one price specials for dinner 
	on Monday.  One whole pizza is bagged and frozen that night so that 
	it can be plunked into a lunch bag straight from the freezer.I figure 
	about $1.25 per lunch this way for the pizza.

- I have several Tupperware "Packettes" which are two chambered containers; 
	we pack cheese and crackers, pb and crackers, ham and cheese, etc, 

- I put in a blue-ice packet and let it keep a yogurt and sandwich cool.

- I bought four-ounce containers which I put canned fruit or pudding in.

- I purchased a small hot thermos.  Then I microwave leftover macaroni and
	cheese, pizza, chili or soup and fill the thermos.

- Check backpacks often for discarded lunch items.  I have found some
	amazing and disgusting messes at times, that did fascinate the 
	younger one.

- Buy lunch meats on sale and freeze them.

- Have you asked your two what they'd like to take for lunch?  Maybe let 
	them help you shop for it?   

- Have them pack their own lunches, within certain nutritional and cost 
	guidelines.

- Make up a week's worth of sandwiches and freeze them (no mayo, though).  
	This is *perfect* for pb&j!

- Send the night before's leftovers - this works great for us.

- For sandwich days, we pick fillings at the start of the month - so we end
	up with pb&j, or yellow cheese analog, or ham or some combination.

- We have different fruit tastes in my house so I just buy smaller quantities
  	of more things.

Observations:
-------------
-  My kids appetites vary greatly with whether they are growing or not, so 
	if they aren't growing they don't eat much, so I don't get bugged 
	as long as a minimum amount has been touched and the kid hasn't 
	asked for alot of food.    

-  What it turns out is that they don't have enough time to finish lunch.  
	(They only get 15 minutes for lunch - some of this time is
	also waiting in line).  Perhaps you could questions your kids to 
	see if time is a factor.

-  We found last year that Ellen was bringing parts of her lunch home 
	because they didn't have time to eat - they were playing during 
	lunchtime and not eating!

- Free time on the playground comes as soon as you finish your lunch. How
	fast can you eat (if at all?)

- When I was 6 years old and complained about my lunch once too often, my 
	mother decreed that I should make my own lunch.  We did not have 
	junk food in the house, so it was impossible for me to take a box of 
	cookies or a sack of potato chips for lunch.  I did have outlandish 
	things, however, since I had free run of the refrigerator.  I often 
	took dinner leftovers like pork chops or mac & cheese.

- For whatever reason, I fixed my own when I was a kid.  Unfortunately, the
	instructions were simple:  here's the bolgna, here's the bread; I did 
	it thru 6th grade, then bought in most of Jr High, and I don't 
	remember what I ate in high school; since then, I DO NOT eat bologna 
	to this day!

- It's amazing to me what repetitious meals little kids like, but my
	daughter's the same way..... if we find something she likes, she'll
	eat it at lunch and dinner and the next day too! :-)

- Our school system gave up on serving anything other than "kid"
	food - I'm sure they get balanced meals but now they're structured
	around chicken nuggets, hamburgers, hot dogs, spaghetti and pizza.
	The food is good (I've eaten lunch at school before) and the kids
	*eat it* - I think that's better than having the meatloaf meals
	go into the trash.
 
- It's amazing to me (who'll eat anything and everything for lunch)
	the variety of stuff out there these days - I took nothing but
	cheese sandwiches or roast beef when I was a kid (and my Mom isn't
	that unimaginative (-:). 

- It's an enormous hassle preparing a tuna fish sandwich for one child and
	an egg sandwich for the other, but if they are going to eat it, it 
	is worth it.

- As far as mutual exclusion, what's the problem? Can you fix PB&J for one 
	and ham for the other?  It shouldn't take that much longer; maybe 
	the kids can help ("I'll do the sandwiches, you grab your fruit").
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hope this helps; it's only September, by June, this should be a breeze!"

-- 
/*   Ginger Ogle	       ginger@cory.berkeley.edu	
 *   EECS
 *   University of California at Berkeley, California
 */
From: dani@hp-ptp.ptp.hp.com (Danielle Cohen)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 21:01:15 GMT
Subject: Re: Re: one year olds (Thanks)
Organization: HP Pacific Technology Park - Sunnyvale, Ca.