I'm a brown bagger by nature. As a kid, I rarely bought a school lunch because my Mom packed mine each day. Ever the Original Crunchy Lady, my Mom was into making bread and granola long before it was cool. That homemade wheat bread really made for a rib-sticking sandwich. Coupled with homemade oatmeal cookies and apple slices, I had enough fiber for my whole class. Thanks, Mom!
Throughout my own long and storied career as a school-lunch-maker-mom, I figure I've made at least 3,200 sandwiches and that's figuring low. Add to that the lunches packed for my man as he headed out the door and the ones I make for myself when I'm on a job site and that's a lot of zip locks and bread.
At times I've gotten sick of making lunches and begged my children to buy food at the cafeteria. "Are you kidding? Do you know what's in that stuff?" says my son, who will only willingly buy on Chicken Fingers days.
Now that I know that the average hot lunch contains about 1,000 calories and 40 grams of fat, I've fallen back in love with brown bag lunches. But I want to jazz them up a bit. G.T. is now eating like a horse and I've got to think of new ways to fill him up without adding empty calories.
Considering the fat calories and cost of purchasing a lunch each day, it just makes sense to make our own food and bring it to school or work (or even to eat at home.) Today's Small Thing is to think about ways to make lunch delicious, nutritious AND portable.
Do you have:
Brown bags or lunch boxes
Ziplocks
Re-usable containers
Prepared or homemade snacks
Sandwich fixings or leftovers
Juice drinks or change to purchase drinks at school or work
Knowledge of what your kids/spouse will actually eat out of a bag
I've come to accept pre-packaged snacks in some instances (such as chips) because they can actually save you money by limiting the serving size. If your family will demolish a jumbo bag of cheetos in one sitting but you can dole out one individual-size bag per child per day, you are saving money. Same with juice drinks or cookies. You just have to learn what works best for your team.
POINTS: 40 for planning some brown-bag goodness. Give your man a sack lunch and a kiss as he leaves for work and tell him his Sonic days are over. Think about how to make your home lunches or school lunches a little more spectacular this year.
Here are some quick links to get you excited about the possibilities!
http://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/brown-bag-lunches-that-make-grade
http://busycooks.about.com/od/breakfastrecipes/a/brownbaglunch.htm
http://www.stretcher.com/stories/05/05apr04a.cfm
Share your ideas! I'm looking for inspiration!
