Here are a few tips on how to get your kids off to school without making a negative impact on the environment. This week I'll focus on their lunches and snacks:
Make your own:
Think Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution: granola bars, sandwiches, pita chips, wraps, or make your own lunchables with crackers, deli meat and cheese. Try wrapping a banana in a tortilla spread with PB&J and roll it up. (My kids love that one!). If your kids have peanut allergies, try Sun Butter, which is made from sunflower seeds and tastes very similar to peanut butter. Start building your recipe collection for creative lunches and test them out on your kids before school starts.
Use reusable things to pack those lunches:
Try reusable lunch bags, bento boxes, reusable sandwich/snack bag or tupperware instead of plastic baggies. Use reusable water bottles, which sometimes come in packs of 5 in kid sizes to store in the fridge to make it easier to throw in the lunch box. Get big jugs of juice & put in those reusable bottles rather than buying juice boxes, (think of how many boxes & little straws, not to mention the plastic that packages the groups of juice boxes, is thrown away each day in your school).
Buy in bulk:
Things like pretzels, raisins, chips, or granola bars. Try to avoid single serving containers. Yes, it saves time to just grab a snack pack from the pantry, but if you have an extra 60 seconds, put it in a tupperware.
Here is a recipe for Chewy Granola bars, but there are hundreds out there on the internet:
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/chewy-granola-bars/Detail.aspx
Here are a few links for kid-friendly school lunches:
http://www.parents.com/kids/nutrition/lunch/healthy-school-lunches-snacks/;jsessionid=CUFRUNSAHOSBACQCEARR42Q?page=2
http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/everydaycooking/family/schoollunchesforkids
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food/healthy/ideas-kids-school-lunches
Hope this helps you save some money and that your kids enjoy their lunches. This will be a major lesson they can learn on how to help the environment. Happy kids, happy parents, happy planet!
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For a reusable lunch box that allows you to pack food without wrappers/bags, check out the Goodbyn (www.goodbyn.com). I thought it was so clever, I bought one for each of my two girls and they are not even in school yet!
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