Playing with Food

I had gotten in a real rut with Bunny’s lunches recently. Call it end of winter blahs, but whatever it was, I was phoning it in, and I could tell she was not interested in eating what I sent for her. After thinking about it for a while, I realized part of the problem for her and me was her lunchbox. She had one that was a modern version of a sack, reusable, but still in the shape of a sack. Although made of what appears to be insulated material, her class leaves their backpacks outside the classroom, and her lunch was never kept cold by the time morning sun had worked its way across the sky because of the orientation of her little building (her school is basically many, many buildings – no central hall, just groupings of two room units that more or less stand alone).

Also, it’s like a bottomless pit, that bag was. My routine is to empty her lunch while she’s having snack, and often I’d ask why she didn’t eat a particular item. The answer often was that she didn’t know it was there. Similarly, I would find it hard to concoct a cohesive meal that was appetizing all together. Looking back, some of those ‘meals’ were messed up and NO WAY would I have put the same grouping of stuff on a plate together.

So, I got her a new lunchbox. I’d been eying the Laptop Lunch system for a while, but wanted to see how Bunny is with bringing containers home before investing in this. After 2 years with almost nothing lost (2 lids over all that time) I made the plunge and bought a lunchbox set and a bento sleeve to keep it all cold. Our district is participating in the ‘go green’ zero waste initiative, and the wastefree ethic of laptop lunches is spot on with that.

It’s been a couple of weeks now, and I think we’re both pretty happy with the Laptop Lunchbox. The sleeve keeps the foods inside refrigerator cold, even until after school. I can see the whole box at one time and it helps me think about what would go nicely with what (no more cheese and yogurt and cheddar crackers). Bunny also can see it all, so she eats more variety. And, it’s just plain neat, which makes Mama happy – I like compartments. :)

Here are a few I made recently.

One concession to keeping with what other kids always have, is the mini fruit rollups. I was glad to find there is a ‘mini’ version, so Bun’s not taking in nearly as much sugar and HFCS… however, she’s been enjoying her lunches so much more lately that about half the time she doesn’t even eat her ‘treat’ until after school. I suppose that proves the mantra, ‘given appetizing healthy options, they’ll choose them over sugary snacks’… until later, at least haha!