At the beginning of this year, we officially moved S from a half-day pre-kindergarten program to a full-day, five days a week pre-k student, which means she gets to eat lunch at school with all of her friends (SUCH a big girl!) and that also means we have two kids that we have to prepare lunch for in the mornings. Although, the choices haven’t changed much throughout the years in our family. Our girls can usually count on: cinnamon raisin bread with cream cheese, mac ‘n cheese, turkey and cheese with mayo sandwich, and since our trip to Paris, we’ve had requests for a baguette with butter, ham and fromage blanc. They are so chic.
What do we use to pack all this goodness in? We tend to go with what is easy to carry and what is eco-friendly. This is what we use:
- Soft lunch boxes. They are easier to carry, doesn’t weigh down the backpack, easily cleanable (thrown them in the laundry!) and keeps the food cold / warm. We’ve used ones from The Gap, Lands End, and this year’s favorite is a chocolate brown Hershey branded soft lunch bag that I received at BlogHer 2011.
- BPA-free plastic containers for sandwiches, snacks etc. This cuts down on using plastic zip-lock bags which means better for the environment and BPA-free which means its better for your kids. Containers also keeps sandwiches and snacks like grapes or chips from getting smushed and crushed. We use the containers from Laptop Lunch’s Bento Box, and recently we bought from Bed Bath and Beyond a set of 50 piece plastic container set for under $10.00 (the link goes to the 24-piece set, but they had the 50-piece set in-store.)
Bed Bath & Beyond’s Plastic Containers (They’re BPA Free!). Photo courtesy of BedBathandBeyond.com
- Thermos Fogoo for hot foods. I don’t know how it does it, but it keeps my girls’ food warm. It works. Buy it. You can find it anywhere, just Google it.
Thermos Foogo. Photo courtesy of Diapers.com
I know that there’s a whole host of new things out there that can make lunchtime easy and eco-friendly like the Lunchskins Reusable bags. I haven’t used these yet, but they look great. What do you use to make lunchtime packing easy and eco-friendly?
Lunchskins’ reusable sandwich bags. Photocourtesy of Lunchskins.com