What does your high school girl take to school for lunch?

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Forum -> Parenting our children -> Teenagers and Older children

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Wed, Jan 26 2022, 7:03 am

Desperate for ideas....She wants to eat healthy but doesn't think about ideas ahead of time, so ends up taking a bagel every day and it's getting old.... Smile

Any ideas welcome! Smile

amother

Lightcyan

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 7:11 am

My daughter takes a salad almost every day. We buy these containers from Amazon, which are less then 50 cents each and she can throw it away and not have to worry about bringing home smelly containers and washing them: https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod.....55182

She makes the salads herself and in addition to lettuce, peppers, cucumbers and grape tomatoes, she adds one of the following proteins:
Tuna
Leftover shnitzel (from suppers)
Leftover grilled chicken (I usually make for Shabbos)
Feta cheese
Chickpeas, on a day she can't find other stuff she wants

My daughter has told me multiple times that other girls have commented at school about her "fancy" salads!

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 7:21 am

I've been trying to encourage her to do that, but she doesn't like stuff other than vegetables in her salad... Sad

amother

Nasturtium

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 7:36 am

The small ready made tuna with a packet of Melba toast.
Yogurt with the individual packets of granola.
Small Sabra Chumus with pretzels or crackers.
Sometimes she’ll make a salad together with these things or a sandwich.

small bean

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 7:40 am

My high schooler brings a creamcheese sandwich every day.

My 8th grader brings deli salad, or flat pretzels and chumus, or plain salad with no added protien or carb, or noodle soup.

Both of them do not do healthy lunches.

ChalieB

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 7:56 am

My favorite was leftovers from dinner

amother

NeonPink

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 7:59 am

You can buy her a bento box or a few tupperware containers.
Or even a thermo container and warm up leftovers.

Bento boxes invite you to put in a few different small things:
a ball of rice
hard egg, cut in halves or sliced
few carrot slices
half a tomato
a square of nori leaf
a little bit of lox.

If you enter "bento" or "1 week of bento" or "make bento" "bento box" in the youtube search function, you will find many interesting suggestions... and you will be in awe of japanese women who prepare the bento for their husbands early in the morning with a freshly cooked, balanced, healthy meal that is beautifully arranged...

If you take a thermo container, what works well is either something like tchulent, or gulash, or also mac and cheese... those things conserve the heat well.

If she has a microwave she can use at school, you could give her a compartmented rectangular microwave container (plastic, not glass, glass breaks and is heavy) and fill it with
1/4 carbs (rice or potatoes or noodles or quinoa or gnocchi or farvel or shpatzle)
1/4 protein (shnitzel, gulash, fish, eggs, tofu, cheese)
1/2 veggies (if it's salad, she can take this part out while microwaving or fill it in another container)
There are containers that have exactly that layout (1/2, 1/4, 1/4)

If she takes tupperware, you can either do
Salad (tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, scallions, celery stalks, corn) (fill salad sauce in a little plastic bag)
2 hardboiled eggs (you could also dice them and mix with salad)
or 1 can of tuna (you can also mix it with salad)
or tuna hamburgers
hamburgers
shnitzel

amother

NeonPink

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:03 am

LO wrote:

I've been trying to encourage her to do that, but she doesn't like stuff other than vegetables in her salad... Sad

then you can separate. You take one box for the salad and one box for the protein, and one box for the carbs...

I use cheap tupperware-style containers, that are not runny, so that there are no problems with sauces, they are stackable, so you can take it home stacked. I have two sizes, 1l and 1/2l, I take 1l for the salad and 1/2 for the protein or carb... just as I need it...

Raisin

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:16 am

She could do a yogurt and granola and fruit parfait.

tuna or egg salad or cheese or chummus or guacamole in a container, plus rice cakes/crackers, and salad in another container.

A thermos - you can make extra supper and she can take that. (soup, pasta, etc)

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:19 am

Thanks, keep the ideas coming! I want to print this out for her and let her make a plan... Smile

amother

Nasturtium

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:22 am

I forgot to add, sometimes she’ll make pasta and cheese (or take pasta from the night before and warm it up) and put it into a thermos.

amother

Oldlace

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:23 am

DD (neither DD) will take tuna or hard boiled eggs. They smell.

Salad with chicken or beans or cheese.
A wrap.

It also depend on how much time she has that day for lunch.

amother

Bluebonnet

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:31 am

Roasted vegetables and quinoa,
Avocado,lettuce, raisins and walnut salad
Fish and brown rice
Cold pasta with veggies
Whole wheat vegetable wraps
Sushi
Tuna chickpea salad
Black eyed peas, carrots and chicken salad

amother

Cobalt

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:33 am

Standard stuff: Israeli salad; tuna, egg salad, pbj or cheese sandwich; sometimes cottage cheese in a thermos jar; a fruit; maybe some nuts or pretzels. Milk she buys in school and sometimes she buys a cup of soup.

GLUE

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:36 am

My DD school lets them bring in sandwich makers and crock pots-is that an option for your daughter?

amother

NeonPink

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:42 am

For a snack

oats with yogurt, and fresh fruit

for lunch, side dishes
chummus
guacamole
egg salad
shakshuka
baba ganush
t'china
roasted eggplant slices in yogurt
roasted eggplant dices in tomato sauce
yogurt-cucumber-soup with garlic
tsatsiki
cole slow
waldorf salad
arbes
moroccan carrot salad
zimmes

pumpkin pie

butternut1

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:45 am

amother [ Lightcyan ] wrote:

Please, please consider the plastic waste you are producing by throwing out a container each day. Our world doesn't need more plastic waste ending up in our water bodies and landfills, and this kind of plastic doesn't get recycled. Thanks!

butternut1

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:47 am

Mine like to take leftovers in a thermos, but we often do cheese melted on tortillas, or quesadillas.

amother

Milk

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:48 am

It seems like she’s limited to bagels because that’s all she has on hand.

My suggestion is take her to th store and have her show you stuff she would like to take for lunch.

Then you have ideas for things to be stocked up on, and as long as you have options in the house she likes it won’t be too hard for her to prepare her own lunches without involving you too much.

amother

NeonPink

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 8:52 am

Oh, it's a good idea to prepare lunch the evening before and keep it in the fridge.

If you put the salad dressing in a little plastic bag (with a knot) (or a little extra container), it's no problem to make salad the evening before.

Same goes for all the suggestions I made, except things in a thermos. Those you would have to warm them up in the morning.

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