School Lunch vs. Sack Lunch

Teaching children to eat healthily is easy when they are at home and only face the choices we stock in our own pantries and fridges. Away from home, things become a little trickier. All of us have been in the grocery store and had hungry little kids attempt to bargain some junk food into our purchase, maybe even trying to slip something into the cart when our attention was elsewhere. So, what happens when the lunchtime hunger hits at school?

Many local school districts have programs in place to provide healthy options to our children and offer a variety of food in all five food groups. Blue Valley, Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit follow two requirements to make their lunches qualify as complete meals. First, lunches must contain at least 1/2 cup of fruit or veggies. Second, the meal must provide at least two other food groups (protein, dairy, carbohydrates and either a fruit or vegetable, whichever was not chosen previously). Shawnee Mission, Olathe and many other local districts do not have these specific requirements but state that each of their meals contain fruit, vegetables, whole grains, meat and low-fat dairy. All of these school districts also say they monitor calories, saturated fat and sodium weekly and meet the criteria and regulation of the USDA.    

Regulations may be in place, but does that mean our children will pick the healthiest item on the menu? Mine won’t. If yours do, please tell me your secret! Packing a lunch yourself may seem like a surefire way to make sure your children are eating healthily and abiding by your food choices. I learned early, though—when my oldest was in preschool—that even when I packed a lunch I thought she’d love, she still exercised some nutrition independence. Many times the first things she ate were the pretzel and any other carbs that I packed, and the apple slices and baby carrots came back home with her.    

When it comes to school or home-packed lunches, I don’t know whether one option is healthier than the other. Children are going to make the choices they want to make, and even if they eat the fruit, they may also choose the chocolate milk.

Healthy choices when packing a lunch:

• Apple slices with PB dipping sauce
• Turkey and cheese rolled up (held by a toothpick)
• Pasta salad (can be eaten at room temp and add whatever veggies you want)
• Carrots, cucumber or pepper  with hummus or ranch
• Cheese, crackers, pepperoni to stack (homemade lunchable)
• Frozen grapes
• hard boiled eggs and muffin
• Peanut butter and jelly sandwich or PB and honey
• Any frozen veggie (by lunch time it becomes thawed)
• Build your own pizza (whole wheat pita or tortilla, marinara sauce, and cheese)

Jessica Heine is a labor and delivery nurse. She lives with her family in Olathe.