Kids School Lunches - What Do You Pack for Your Children?

What do you send your kids to school with? I’m getting bored of making sandwiches. Salads are not appreciated. There are no reheating facilities, nuts are banned, chocolates and chips are frowned upon. What do your children appreciate in their lunch box that is also healthy and nutritious.

Comments

  • +4

    I do mainly "finger foods." For my pre-schooler today: Carrot + cucumber sticks, apple (cut in 8), smoked tofu cubes, 3x small choc-topped puffed rice disks and a small pack of burger rings. (The bigger kids look after themselves but I vet their selections regularly to ensure there's not too much crap.)

    chocolates and chips are frowned upon

    Who cares, as long as you're not the one frowning.

    • -1

      No wonder they're "bigger" :p

      • +2

        Haha. They're not bad actually. The other week I caught them taking in left over mixed bean salad (loaded with spanish onion)!

    • +1

      Sounds better than my lunch.

  • +2

    anything… and get them to swap lunches with stuff they like at school with the other kids.

  • +2

    Just a slab of knoppers from Aldi. Lunchbox comes home empty every day.

    $3 a day for a kids lunch is a good deal

    https://www.knoppers.com/

    • Is that all your kids eat? (Also it contains hazelnuts, is that allowed in school lunches?)

      • +3

        It's a progressive school. Kids with allergies are told not to eat other students food. Teachers on yard duty have epi pens. It seems to work.

    • +1

      $3 a day for a school lunch is an appalling waste of money!
      I'm unhappy if a kids lunch tops $1.
      Today we had the big kids take left over roast lamb on sandwiches, and apple or orange and a slice of home made cake.
      The little girl took left over roast vegetables, a jelly in a cup (90c packet makes a pile of these) and some grapes.

      • +1

        and apple or orange

        The apple alone would be half of your $1 budget. That lunch you made today would be at least $2 plus your time and electricity to cook the cake and lamb.

        • +6

          Pink Lady apples, $2.50kg marked down at Woolies on the weekend. Royal Gala were $3kg on weekly special, and pears cheaper, so this isn't some outlier. I just weighed one of the apples and it was 117g.
          So 30c.
          Oranges 3kg for $4.50, 14 in the bag. 32c.
          Grapes $3.69/kg for red seedless. fewer than 100g serve. 37c.
          Sandwich, 22 slices of bread plus two heels in a $1 loaf. 10c
          Roast lamb. 2.4kg leg for $12.50 marked down at Woolies. figure 1.8kg yield, $7/kg. About 60g lamb = 42c
          One kid had cheese @ $6.50/kg Woolies Tasty 1kg block. Maybe 30g. 20c. The other didn't.
          Packet cake is 80c (although this was made from scratch, but I don't know which recipe she followed) plus 45c butter, 75c eggs and 16c milk. 10 slices gives 22c/slice.
          Left over roast vegetables were potato, sweet potato and carrot. $2kg sweet potato, 95c kg potato, $1.50kg carrot. She took maybe 150g = 23c
          Jelly, 5 serves for 90c, = 18c

          Oldest kid: $1.24
          Middle kid: $1.06
          Youngest kid: $0.78

          Avg $1.03. Was hoping to beat $1, and I would have if not for that eldest cheese eating!

          As for time. Well, I had to make dinner last night anyway, and a roast is very easy. Peel and chop some vegetables, throw the joint in a pan, turn twice. Go and do something else for 90mins (actually a bit longer as it was a big leg).
          Jelly takes 90seconds after the kettle is boiled. A kid made the cake, but even so it was less than 10 or 15mins.
          Power? @ 25c/kWh. Oven was on for 2hours and draws around 2kW, but obviously is on a thermostat once it reaches the temp. 50c? 75c?

          If feeding the kids took time I would have been working, it might have a cost, but it took time I would have otherwise used to go buy take away or arrange delivery, with the added costs. And making a couple of sandwiches and packing a lunch box was well under 10mins.

          I don't know what my 4th child took. She is a law to herself.

          If I budgeted $3 per kids lunch, I would need $60 a week instead of $20, so it does add up pretty quickly.

  • +1

    I bought some of those insulated flasks that keep food warm and they take in left over pasta (I reheat it before it goes into the flask that morning). I'm not sure how warm it keeps the food but they are happy with the temperature it is still at at lunchtime. Before we had those they would take in cooked but cold filled pasta without any sauce (eg Leggo's/Latina ravioli).

    My youngest likes filled croissants rather than a sandwich.

    I've tried mini quiches in the past as I used to like them but they're not popular with my kids. Apparently frittatas are popular with some kids (not mine).

    Hard boiled eggs.

    Cheese and crackers.

    Hummus and crackers.

    • Forgot to add cold pizza is popular with my 2 too.

    • +4

      A tip for warmer food in vacuum flasks, put some boiling water in the flask for a few minutes (and then pour it out) before you put heated food in there. That way the warm food you put in doesn't have to first warm up the flask and it retains heat much better!

  • +1

    chocolates and chips are frowned upon

    screw that.

    my youngest is thin and with a high metabolism. (Mrs Altomics family are all tall and thin/athletic)

    she gets -rice cakes with butter, small pack of chips, chocolate chip cookies, indian spicy snacks, dry 2 minute noodles, carrot sticks, oat/museli bar.

    in winter (hahaha!, i live in bris) they will have - like mummy2 suggests- warm pasta in a flask. or soup with bread (bread is not in the flask). or stir fry.

  • bliss balls
    blend a cup of 3-4 different nuts, oats, seeds, kinako, coconut, dried fruits and then mix it all together with a spoon of honey and 2 mashed bananas. scoop into shapes and bake for 10 minutes, then freeze them all. a batch usually last 2-3 weeks, just taking 2 our of the freezer each day. No sugar or flour, great energy and taste.

    If you look up the multiple bliss ball recipes, you:ll find your own way to make them with ingredients that are cheap and available in the area. I buy kilo bags of nuts, and combined with the oats, $100 of ingredients last me ~3 months.
    the banana and honey adds the sweetness and the toasted nut or seed flavor also makes the snack delicious.

  • +8

    I give mine $10 to spend at the canteen
    If that’s not enough for them, they bash some younger kids for more.

  • +1

    Half a dozen raw eggs, hahaha. :) :) :)

    • And when they're cutting?

  • +3

    A packet of sugar and peanut butter smeared on a playing card.

    • Be careful, peanut butter is very high in calories.

  • +1

    Our kid's primary school is treenut/peanut/egg free.

    Most kids just drink water and eat celery.

    • +1

      Egg free? So is that all product containing egg such as cakes, mayonnaise etc??? That really is limiting. Eggs are great for nutrition.

      • My primary school was knife free, arguably that was rather limiting as well.

  • Sushi rolls… They're really easy to make and they're cheap and healthy

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