Q: I have 8-year old twins. I need help with nutritious lunches that do not require refrigeration as my kids do not like peanut butter and jelly.

A:
As a mom who packs my kids’ brown bag lunches, I sympathize. I’m fortunate because my son and daughter like PB&J sandwiches, as long as I use a certain brand of peanut butter, bread and jam! But I can send PBJ’s only so often because I suspect they end up in the cafeteria trash can.

My first suggestion is to think of healthy foods your children like. I sometimes send leftovers as lunches when it’s a dish my kids love. For example, my daughter is crazy about cold macaroni and cheese and pizza. Leftovers don't work for my son though. He loves cheese, but isn’t crazy about bread, so he enjoys sliced co-jack cheese with crackers. He also likes certain kinds of soup, which I heat in the microwave and put in a thermos. In addition to a thermos for warm foods, it also pays to invest in an insulated lunch bag or small cooler to keep foods and beverages cold.

And it’s not just what you pack, but how much you pack. I found that if I send too big a lunch to school with my son, it doesn’t all get eaten. Matt, who’s always been a dawdling eater, complains he doesn’t have enough time to finish lots of lunch items. I have learned to pack less, which means I usually leave out dessert-type food so I know he’ll eat the more nutritious food. For younger children, also helps to prepare the food so it’s fast and easy to eat, such as peeling oranges and hard-boild eggs or slicing apples ahead of time.

Here are some other tried-and-true suggestions from moms and dads who have been there:

For small sandwiches, try:
--baby bagels
--crackers
--small bialys
--whole grain breads cut into shapes
--Hot Pocket sandwiches, heated before school and wrapped in foil
--two squares of green pepper
--slices of apple (dipped in any citrus juice to keep them from discoloring)

Other nutritious things you can pack:
--hard-boiled eggs
--hard cheeses sliced or cut in shapes with a cookie cutter
--beef, ham or poultry slices, spread with mayonaise and rolled into "logs’’
--a carton of your child’s favorite yogurt (if it’s not premixed, mix it at home so it’s resady for lunchtime)
--a thermos of your child’s favorite soup
--cottage cheese and fruit (add some pecans or walnuts for a special crunch)

Kids love to use toothpicks for:
--fruit kabobs (bits of apples, cheese, bananas, grapes, melon, pineapple, etc.)
--leftover little meatballs
--cheese cubes
--vegetable cubes
--fruit cubes
--cubes of leftover meatloat or salmon loaf

Some fun finger foods:
--raw vegetables with or without a dip (broccoli "trees’’, cauliflower, carrots, celery, zucchini, cucumber)
--peanut butter and honey on crackers
--peanut butter on celery
--peanut butter on banana slices
--peanut butter on apple slices
--finger jello (this is a non-sticky, slow melting dessert—see our recipe in the Pocket Parent Pantry)
--chicken legs, disjointed wings
--popcorn

For healthy desserts, try:
--dried fruits
--raisins and walnuts
--blueberry muffins
--bran muffins
--banana bread
--zucchini bread
--slices of fruit (most young children will not eat a whole fruit)
--a small box of your child’s favorite cereal
--peanuts

I found two helpful paperback books that provide both creative ideas and recipes to jazz up school lunches.

The first is called "Brown Bag Success; Making Healthy Lunches Your Kids Won’t Trade'' by Sandra K. Nissenberg and Barbara N. Pearl. The authors are registered dieticians from Buffalo Grove, Illinois. The book was published by Chronimed Publishing, Minneapolis, Minn., and can be ordered by calling (800) 848-2793. Two recipes from the book are featured in our Pocket Parent Pantry Recipes: ABC Soup and Very Berry Muffins.

The second book is "Super Easy Bag Lunches’’ by Maxine Sprague, an author from Edmonton, Canada. The book provides many ideas for packing creative, inexpensive, healthy bag lunches. The publisher is The learning Center Press, (403) 432-5252, and the book can be ordered through Amazon.com.
Good luck!

--Jo Hansen

The following brown-bag lunch tips and money-saving cooking tips are excerpted with permision from "Super Easy Bag Lunches’’ by Maxine Sprague. To order her book from Amazon.com, click here.

Jazzed Up Bag Lunches -- 13 Ways to Turn HUM-DRUM into YUM!

If the thought of making packed lunches has you dreading the back-to-school season, try using some of these quick and inexpensive ideas to perk them up.

1. Pop in a funky new pencil, cool gel pen, eraser or shaped notepad.

2. Include a tricky food riddle. "What did the tomato say to his friend? You go ahead. I'll ketchup."

3. Write a special note. "Thank you for cleaning your locker and returning all the containers and spoons from last month's lunches."

4. Round up some unusual eating utensils such as measuring spoons, baby spoons or chopsticks

5. Slip in a colorful paper or cloth napkin to celebrate a special day such as Valentine's Day.

6. Personalize a paper lunch sack with colorful stickers and markers centered around a theme of interest to your child such as animals, sports or hobbies.

7. Make a fabric lunch bag using colorful cloth cut in a holiday shape such as an Easter Egg or heart.

8. Bake pizza in a square shape. Add sauce, cheese, green pepper strips for X's, and Pepperoni for O's.

9. Make millennium bugs using celery spread with cheese. Stick in shaped pretzels for butterfly wings, raisins for eyes and dry chow mein noodles for antennae.

10. Mix cinnamon and sugar in a salt shaker and shake onto buttered toast. Cut the toast into wedges, long thin pieces or use a cookie cutter to cut out a holiday shape from the center.

11. Celebrate 100 days of school by stringing 100 doughnut-shaped dry cereal pieces onto a licorice lace and tie in a knot to make a yummy necklace.

12. Bag up a bunch of grated carrot, slices of celery, cucumber, green pepper and a handful of raisins. For a dressing, mix a small amount of cream, a dash of vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar to pour into the bag and toss before eating.

13. Ask your child to suggest something they would love to find when they open their lunch bag and add it to your grocery list right now before you forget.

Maxine Sprague, BEd (tlcpress@telusplanet.net) is a parent, author, and educator and lives in Edmonton, Alberta. She is the author of 3 books including her latest, Super Easy Bag Lunches. (The Learning Center Press, Box 82016-GMO#2, Edmonton, Alberta, T6J 7Eb $12.95US, $16.95CDN.) Web site: www.telusplanet.net/public/cscltd/

Economic Food Shopping Tips

By Maxine Sprague, BEd

Buying food and preparing bag lunches is a challenging daily routine for many families when you consider that one child could eat as many as 2400 of them during their school years alone. We often find ourselves stuck in a rut, serving the same boring lunches day after day.

Fifty or sixty years ago, parents had limited choices when it came to shopping. Today, we are bombarded with glitzy ads, sale of the century signs, coupons, discounts, rebates, don't pay until the year something or other, giant discount warehouse, one stop supermarket shopping, gigantic malls, info-mercials, 1-800-24 hr. mail order, easy credit and world wide internet access. Keeping control of spending habits and teaching children how to manage money are necessary life skills in today's world.

Grocery items are one area of your budget where you can make considerable savings with very little effort using good shopping habits and commonsense. This is especially true when it comes to packed lunches. Store shelves are bulging with an enormous variety of costly prepackaged lunch and snack foods aimed at capturing the dollars of busy parents.

Clever marketing strategies, phenomenal advertising budgets and attractive packaging are used to target your children so they will talk you into buying them the latest and greatest lunch snack. Not only are these individually packaged snacks expensive, many of them are nutritionally deficient and add excessive amounts of fat, salt, sugar and chemical additives to your youngster's diet.

Use the following suggestions to help you prepare economical, nutritious and appealing lunches that will have your family saying, "Great lunch today!" Beautiful words to a lunch maker's ears.

1. Teach children money saving strategies. Talk about advertising, using teachable moments not lecture style.

2. Set a wise-consumer example for your children by reading labels, comparing prices and sticking to a budget.

3. Narrow choices for children by having them choose between two cereals rather than asking which cereal they would like.

4. Limit prepackaged lunch box snacks to one or two per week.

5. Compare brands and try using cheaper brands to see if the quality is the same or close enough to justify the savings.

6. Watch at the checkout as cashiers sometimes make errors or the computer may not have had a price programmed into it correctly. Catching the error when it happens makes fixing it easier and faster.

7. Look high and low. The most expensive brands are often placed in the most convenient location.

8. Buy in season and freeze or can for later use. Buy bulk when items are on sale, if you have available storage space.

9. Make your own convenience foods. Spend a few minutes mixing several batches of dry ingredients for a favorite loaf, cake or muffins. When needed, add the wet ingredients and bake.

10. Thinly slice or chop leftover roast, chicken, pork, turkey and other meats, lay out on a cookie tray and freeze. Once frozen, the pieces can be packaged until ready for use in sandwiches, tacos, salads, soups and stews. Pre-freezing on trays keeps the pieces from freezing together so you can take out only the amount you need.

11. Use a thermos, cloth lunch bag and reusable juice and food containers rather than buying the more expensive individual serving sizes and disposable wraps. The initial investment is higher but the savings are significant over time.

Many of our parents and grandparents grew up with an attitude of waste not, want not. It would be of benefit to us to learn from their example and to pass those tips on to our children. Saving a little here and there adds up to a lot in the end. Packing economical and nutritious lunches saves time and money while providing our children with the food they need for active, growing bodies.

Reprinted with permission from Super Easy Bag Lunches ISBN 0-9691665-2-4 $16.95CDN. $12.95US (The Learning Center Press, 82016, GMO #2, Edmonton, Alberta T6J 7A6,
E-Mail: tlcpress@telusplanet.net; Web Site: www.telusplanet.net/public/cscltd/)

Maxine Sprague is a parent, author and educator. Super Easy Bag Lunches is her third book. Maxine has made over 4000 bag lunches and will be making many more for her husband and three children. She has a big white cat named Laptop and a small black dog named Franklin. Thankfully, they don't eat bag lunches. She is a Master Composter and enjoys gardening, hiking, sewing, spending time with family and friends and giving group presentations for adults and children.