Blog Roundup – Back to School Edition

School has started – woo hoo!! My daughter started sixth grade last week. One of her summary thoughts about the week?

“I think I’m going to be bringing cold lunch practically every day.”

This is NOT a post about advantages/disadvantages of school lunch. It’s a quick post about blogs and websites with lunchtime tips. For my kids, I always struggle with making their lunches varied but still healthy and edible (from their perspective). While I think leftover sesame peanut noodles with tofu sounds amazing, they would rather eat a plain bagel. JUST a plain bagel.

There are several items for sale in the Cedar Falls Outlet and Waterloo Moo Roo that make perfect additions to a packed lunch, or a great snack on their own. A few examples:

• Individually packaged Baker string cheese
• Single-serving yogurts from Country View Dairy (regular and Greek!)
• Organic blue or yellow corn chips from the Whole Grain Milling Company and Kramer’s salsa – just put 1/2 cup of salsa in a small container and some chips into a baggie
• Any of the firm cheeses we sell would be delicious in a lunch when cut into cubes and packed with fruit
• The quarter hams from Beeler’s can be kept in the fridge and sliced fresh in the morning for ham (and cheese!) sandwiches

FANTASTIC article from the Cedar Rapids Examiner about packing healthy lunches.

This list of tips for packing school lunch from SheKnows is a few years old, but still very relevant.

The blog Weelicious has loads of family-friendly and kid-friendly recipe ideas, plus lunchtime ideas.

The blog Never Seconds is written by a student in the UK, and she invites guest students from other countries to post about their school lunches as well.

There are some really fun ideas for bento box school lunches at the blog Another Lunch.

Do you ever wonder about what kids are eating at school? Loads of information can be found on the National School Lunch Program website, and at the Iowa Department of Education site.

Written by Disa Cornish