This is a repost from the beginning of last school year (kids are in 2nd and 4th grade now!). I’d love to hear ideas of what real food you put in your kids’ lunch boxes.

-Angie

I’m still in shock, but somehow I now have a First grader and a Third grader! How did this happen? Just yesterday we brought home a tiny little toe-headed boy and the day before that we brought home a 4 1/2 lb itty-bitty baby girl. However it happened, they are both in school all day now while I sit home and wonder what I’m going to be when I grow up. Ok, so the first few weeks I’ll not be doing a lot of sitting; all of those projects built up over the summer and now need to be tackled. But in a week or so, I’ll have some time on my hands.

This school year both of my kids will be eating lunch at school. So one of my first projects to tackle will be perfecting my protein and veggie-filled muffin recipe to put in the kids’ lunches. Until then, though, they need something yummy and nutritious in their lunch boxes to get them through the day without crashing in the afternoon. This first week is a short one, so we didn’t have to come up with too many different lunch combos, but after a while I assume they’ll want something different. So we came up with a list of possible things to put into a lunch box that will be a hit with the kids and satisfy my need to put “real” food in the box.

I love the idea of a “bento box” style lunch. Neither of my kids are huge sandwich fans; so putting a bunch of separate snacky-type foods in their box seemed like the reasonable thing to do. Here are the ideas for my kids’ school lunches (the kids do not exclusively eat paleo/primal/gluten-free/dairy-free, but I try to serve them real food as much as possible):

1. Ham Cubes (all meat is nitrate/nitrite and sweetener free whenever possible)
2. Sausage or Hot dog
3. Cheese Cubes or slices (all dairy products do not contain rBST, hormones, antibiotics, etc.)
4. Boiled egg (eggs come from our backyard chickens)
5. Pepperoni slices
6. Salami slices
7. Homemade Jerky
8. Meatballs (Everydaypaleo.com recipe suggested by my friend April)
9. Banana (fresh or dried) (All fruit is organic whenever possible)
10. Apple slices with peanut/almond butter
11. Grapes
12. Plantain Chips
13. Pickles (homemade)
14. Carrots with dip
15. Apple Sauce (unsweetened)
16. Veggie/Fruit muffin or cookie
17. PB & J (will try elanaspantry.com bread recipe)
18. Lunch meat roll ups
19. Frozen fruit (thaws in the box)
20. Yogurt Pop (frozen tube yogurt)
21. Sweet Potato Chips
22. Leftovers