Top Five Tips for a Nutritious Make-Ahead Lunch

Today we're honored to host guest author Stacy Cacciatore from the healthy eating blog Five a Day the Fun Way.  Stacy started Five a Day the Fun Way to provide parents with realistic recipes, tips, activities, and ideas to make eating healthy fun for the entire family.

As an overweight child, anorexic teen, and obese adult, Stacy struggled with her weight for her entire life. After hitting an all-time high of 220 pounds, she decided something needed to change. She immersed herself in education about health, nutrition and wellness, resulting in losing 80 pounds, 11 sizes, and half her body fat.  As a mom, she wants to ensure her children don’t experience the same struggles with weight and food. She writes Five a Day the Fun Way to share her experiences, research, struggles, and successes in getting her entire family to eat healthier.

Check out Stacy's blog and website for more information about Stacy, her writing, and other projects. You can contact her at stacy@stacycacciatore.com.

Whether you are trying to pack a healthy lunch for your child for summer camp, school, or even for yourself for work, it’s not easy to bring a lunch that is healthy, quick, affordable, delicious, and can withstand making ahead.

As a busy mom, I struggle with balancing convenience, time, and nutrition. It seems that I can typically achieve one or two of these criteria, but not all three. Last week I found myself succumbing to the allure and convenience of the Lunchable. I dreaded my decision when I read that Lunchables are full of nitrates, high fructose corn syrup, and refined flour.

I immediately decided to set out to find healthy lunch ideas that I could make ahead on Sunday night for the entire week.

Given that I had recently had lunch with my son at his school and saw how the kids trade lunch items like silly bandz, I wanted to make a lunch that was not only nutritious, but that my kids would be excited to eat (and not trade in for chips.)

Here are my top five tips for making a healthy lunch that your kids will actually eat:

1. Put it on a stick:

Any food on a stick is a huge hit! I made fruit kabobs with fresh watermelon, cantaloupe, and grapes. By cutting all of my fruit, making fruit kabobs and a fruit salad on Sunday night, I was not only able to make their lunches for the week, but the entire family had fresh fruit to munch on for snacks all week long.

Sandwiches on a stick are another great make-ahead item. Simply cut a cheese stick and thick-sliced turkey into cubes and thread them onto a skewer with zucchini or cherry tomatoes. They stay fresh all week and you don’t have to worry about the bread getting stale in the fridge.

2. Keep it cool:

To keep lunches cool all day without a refrigerator, I freeze their Gatorade bottles and throw them in their lunches in the morning. Not only does it keep their lunch cool, but also it makes for a delicious frozen Gatorade slushy.

There are also several new containers on the market that include ice packets in the container. Fit & Fresh makes a great line of these containers that have ice packs that snap into the lid.

3. Get creative to include all the food groups:

It can be difficult to make a well-balanced lunch that includes servings from all of the food groups. Ham and cucumber rollups are a great make-ahead item that are simple and provide kids with protein, veggies, and dairy servings all in one. To make, simply spread fat-free cream cheese on a slice of ham, place a cucumber spear in the center, and roll it up. Pack with whole-grain crackers and fruit skewers to round out the meal.

4. Divide and conquer:

A smashed peanut butter and jelly sandwich and strawberries that have begun to liquefy are not appetizing. But this is exactly what happens when we put our kids’ food in plastic sandwich bags. I realized why my daughter never ate her strawberries at school, even though she loves them at home, when I visited her during lunch one day. The icepack had rolled onto her bag of strawberries, so that the beautiful berries I packed that morning were now deformed and liquefied in the bag. I wouldn’t eat them, so how could I expect her to?

I found the perfect solution in the Ziploc® Brand divided rectangle storage containers. These little containers are separated into three sections, which are perfect for packing a balanced lunch. The Smart Snap Seal ensures that the food not only stays separate, but also ensures that foods will not leak into other compartments.

You can also use Bento Boxes, which are separate plastic containers that all fit into a laptop lunch box. These are a bit more of an investment, at $29.99 per set, but you will get your money back in savings on plastic baggies and individually packaged yogurt, applesauce, and dips.

5. Use slim lunch boxes:

Fitting all of those lunch boxes in the refrigerator can be a challenge, but I used smaller bags that I found in the dollar section at Target.  If you use the Bento boxes that I mentioned above, they all fit neatly into a laptop lunch container, which stacks nicely in the fridge.

For more healthy lunch ideas or tips for making eating healthy fun for kids, visit Stacy’s blog, Five a Day the Fun Way. Do you have any healthy, make-ahead lunch ideas that are easily portable?  I’d love to hear from you!