School Meals v Packed Lunch

gregg1

Iona_Penny wrote:

bread sticks?, cheese straws? I used to cut the sandwiches into stars with a pastry cutter I had and put a slice of brown on top and white on the bottom; they looked good. Perhaps you could suggest to him they are not sandwiches but 'starbites' any good?
You can also buy giant pasta shells, perhaps you could fill 3 or 4 with his favourite filling. Beware of putting spready things on crackers as they go soft and yukky!

nothing wrong with breadsticks. My daughter also refused to eat sandwiches. She takes cream crackers with butter on (they stay crisp wrapped in foil), breadsticks, plain naan breads. It might not sound very appetising to us but I for one think its better than her stuffing her face with a chicken burger from the school canteen. We do balance it, she always always takes two pieces of fruit with her (and eats them), a bottle of water and usually a bag of snack apricots. She always gets a proper cooked meal when she gets home so I am not too worried about the "breadsticks"

Irishmummyof2

I have one dd in school, who is very fussy and won't take a school dinner which cost £2.00 a day.
So she has a packed lunch, we started off with a ham sandwich, a peparami, (sp?) a piece of fruit, a yoghurt and crisps. Watever in the lunch also had to cover for at snack time and she is not allowed to eat the crisps till lunch. She also brings a bottle of squash.
I want to ditch the peparami (sp?) and crisps but wat can i replace them with, bearing in mind it has to be healthy and cheap.
Thanks

Rachie_B

my son like tortilla chips as an alternative to crisps,i sometimes give him a dip too in a little lidded pot ,sometimes mini bread sticks instead of the tortilla chips

what about cold sausages cut up into pieces ? better than pepperami !
savoury flapjacks,piece of HM pizza

also instead of crisps i sometimes give savoury popcorn or pretzels too,lower in fat than crisps

you could make your own vegetable crisps,beetroot,sweet potato & carrot are yummy

have a look on the OLd Style board for loads of fab ideas

looneyleo

You could include some dried fruit. Apricots are always a good one to start with. I find if you cut them up really small and mix them with raisens the kids eat them quite easily. if you leave them whole and they aren't used to the texture they tend to get rejected. There are also rice cakes, crackers, breadsticks and if she is old enough she could try some nuts and seed mixes which are healthy. I know it might sound a little silly but my DD loves to take dry cereal as a snack like a small bag of cherrios. There are lots of different types of fruit out there that you could try to give a little variety and variation to the box rather than just apples and bananas...good luck...

Rachie_B

looneyleo wrote:

You could include some dried fruit. Apricots are always a good one to start with. I find if you cut them up really small and mix them with raisens the kids eat them quite easily. if you leave them whole and they aren't used to the texture they tend to get rejected. There are also rice cakes, crackers, breadsticks and if she is old enough she could try some nuts and seed mixes which are healthy. I know it might sound a little silly but my DD loves to take dry cereal as a snack like a small bag of cherrios. There are lots of different types of fruit out there that you could try to give a little variety and variation to the box rather than just apples and bananas...good luck...

my youngest is the same,in fact he prefers it dry than with milk on lol

SammyD_2

A little pot of houmous with breadsticks and cut up veggies? My oldest loves this. Dried fruit and nuts are also a great idea as suggested by other posters, but make your own mixes up rather than buying pre bagged. My son loves pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds etc with dried apricots.

Also have you thought of using pita bread to make "pockets" to stuff with fillings, or tortilla wraps - useful for variation.

Irishmummyof2

Thanks, She loves cereal and thts something i've never thought of.
She doesn't like dried fruit unfortuantely and only the best of both for bread.

jellyhead

not really a crisps relacement but i've found cheap pineapples this week and spud has taken a big tub of it to school for lunch.

veg crisps are yummy, i haven't made my own but i bought some lol! would a sausage roll be better than pepperami? i don't really know what pepperami is, some sort of sausage thing?

spud tells me that toher kids have all these goodies in their lunch boxes but as he struggles to eat a sandwich and fruit i've never added any treats, aren't i mean!

victory

My son loves cheese crackers or even the plain crackers, those cheese strings, babybell, pitta bread with cheese in or ham, frubes xxx

mountainofdebt

Irishmummyof2 wrote:

I have one dd in school, who is very fussy and won't take a school dinner which cost £2.00 a day.
So she has a packed lunch, we started off with a ham sandwich, a peparami, (sp?) a piece of fruit, a yoghurt and crisps. Watever in the lunch also had to cover for at snack time and she is not allowed to eat the crisps till lunch. She also brings a bottle of squash.
I want to ditch the peparami (sp?) and crisps but wat can i replace them with, bearing in mind it has to be healthy and cheap.
Thanks

Have you been spying on my son's lunch box, as this is what he has !

Personally I don't think this is a 'bad' lunch - she could be eating alot worse, both if she had school dinners or a packed lunch - especially if the sandwiches are made with wholemeal / brown bread.