Has anyone tried a school lunch delivery service

[Anonymous]

I'm not looking forward to packing school lunches this year, and would prefer to avoid school lunches (most days) based on the quality of the food. Has anyone tried any of those "organic, free range, blah blah blah" food delivery services that are specifically geared towards kids? Do your kids actually eat them? Are they packaged in a ton of plastic? Any advice on ones worth trying or ones to avoid?

I would love to outsource healthy-ish school lunches, at least for a couple of days a week!

[Anonymous]

No idea. Starbucks boxes cheese and fruit are great

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not looking forward to packing school lunches this year, and would prefer to avoid school lunches (most days) based on the quality of the food. Has anyone tried any of those "organic, free range, blah blah blah" food delivery services that are specifically geared towards kids? Do your kids actually eat them? Are they packaged in a ton of plastic? Any advice on ones worth trying or ones to avoid?

I would love to outsource healthy-ish school lunches, at least for a couple of days a week!

Delivery to your home and sent into school I assume. I can't see schools being thrilled with food deliveries to the school. And I can totally see parents aiming for delivery to the school.

[Anonymous]

How lazy are you that you can’t pack leftover dinner for lunch?

[Anonymous]

I've never heard of this and a quick google search yields hot meals for kids, so someone will get rich off of this soon enough.

Here's my EASY strategy which I developed from being a working mom with a kid who has finicky (not picky or restricted, necessarily) tastes and doesn't like "main courses" for school lunch. Basically, I rely on a lot of pre-packaged stuff and throw it in a box. If I have washed fruit/veg in the fridge, clean containers and lunch boxes, and can make a sandwich that takes 20 seconds (even the night before) it takes me less than 90 seconds to make lunch. No matter what, I know he eats it (say what you want about super duper healthy lunches...many go straight in the trash).

We do:

1 drink: we alternate between water, seltzer, spindrift, or occasionally smoothies (Odwalla, etc...) or apple juice or OJ

2 fruits or veggies: 2 clementines, small apple, blueberries, grapes, washed snap peas, mini cucumbers, my kid likes lettuce, whatever works. We also like dried or dehydrated fruits such as dehydrated strawberries, mango strips, or TJ's fruit leathers. Pick any 2.

1 savory carb: pretzels, chips, nuts, etc...

1 sweet treat: rice Krispy treat, cookie, candy, don't care.

1 sort of main hopefully with protein: usually a bagel, sometimes a soft pretzel, often a sandwich which I can make the night before (only chicken + lettuce on small roll), uncrustable or organic hot pocket or pepperoni roll or whatever is your thing. Hummus cup works. Or Guac. Or cheese cubes. Whatever. Truly.

Some will say this has no protein or calcium. Yeah. It doesn't have a lot. But the kid eats eggs or bacon and always milk for breakfast and is home at 3 for snacks, so we're good. No biggie. I just want him to eat at lunch, which he does.

Also:
- Have 2-3 lunch boxes so you don't have to wash/clean every single day if you are busy or your kid is bad about putting it out until the morning.
- Have several ice packs frozen in case you slip up on that.

[Anonymous]

I hate making lunches too but honestly it isn’t that hard. Sandwich (PB&J is our go to), some fruit, cheese, and something else like cookies, fig bars, or chips is what I usually do. If you are really lazy just use uncrustables then you don’t even have to make the sandwich.

[Anonymous]

DS is in fifth and making his own lunches this year. He started doing so during the summer. It is great.

[Anonymous]

They had this option at my daughter’s preschool in NYC (contracted with one vendor) but I’m not aware of any local options.

[Anonymous]

Just don’t overthink it. Cheese sticks, grapes, chips/pretzels and a sandwich. Repeat with some variations.

[Anonymous]

You want healthy lunches prepackaged without a lot of plastic? Good luck.

It was the first week of school. I ordered a couple of pizzas on Sunday and packed them Monday and Tuesday. Kids were thrilled. It won’t be a regular occurrence but try it if you need a quick lunch that pleases most. It’s not healthy at all.

[Anonymous]

When I’m feeling overwhelmed I order Vegetable+Butcher meals for a week or two and eat half for lunch and package the remainder for DS’s lunch. I usually send a treat of some sort those days as well because he will otherwise start complaining about the meals tasting the same. They really don’t, and he likes them a lot, but seems to want to rebel against having healthy meals day in and day out.

[Anonymous]

This thread sounds like spam for V+B

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of this and a quick google search yields hot meals for kids, so someone will get rich off of this soon enough.

Here's my EASY strategy which I developed from being a working mom with a kid who has finicky (not picky or restricted, necessarily) tastes and doesn't like "main courses" for school lunch. Basically, I rely on a lot of pre-packaged stuff and throw it in a box. If I have washed fruit/veg in the fridge, clean containers and lunch boxes, and can make a sandwich that takes 20 seconds (even the night before) it takes me less than 90 seconds to make lunch. No matter what, I know he eats it (say what you want about super duper healthy lunches...many go straight in the trash).

We do:

1 drink: we alternate between water, seltzer, spindrift, or occasionally smoothies (Odwalla, etc...) or apple juice or OJ

2 fruits or veggies: 2 clementines, small apple, blueberries, grapes, washed snap peas, mini cucumbers, my kid likes lettuce, whatever works. We also like dried or dehydrated fruits such as dehydrated strawberries, mango strips, or TJ's fruit leathers. Pick any 2.

1 savory carb: pretzels, chips, nuts, etc...

1 sweet treat: rice Krispy treat, cookie, candy, don't care.

1 sort of main hopefully with protein: usually a bagel, sometimes a soft pretzel, often a sandwich which I can make the night before (only chicken + lettuce on small roll), uncrustable or organic hot pocket or pepperoni roll or whatever is your thing. Hummus cup works. Or Guac. Or cheese cubes. Whatever. Truly.

Some will say this has no protein or calcium. Yeah. It doesn't have a lot. But the kid eats eggs or bacon and always milk for breakfast and is home at 3 for snacks, so we're good. No biggie. I just want him to eat at lunch, which he does.

Also:
- Have 2-3 lunch boxes so you don't have to wash/clean every single day if you are busy or your kid is bad about putting it out until the morning.
- Have several ice packs frozen in case you slip up on that.

Np. Thank you I took a screenshot of your post. Start K next week!

[Anonymous]

No, but you could microwave a TV dinner, put foil on it, place in lunchbox with baggies of crackers you pre-bag on Sundays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've never heard of this and a quick google search yields hot meals for kids, so someone will get rich off of this soon enough.

Here's my EASY strategy which I developed from being a working mom with a kid who has finicky (not picky or restricted, necessarily) tastes and doesn't like "main courses" for school lunch. Basically, I rely on a lot of pre-packaged stuff and throw it in a box. If I have washed fruit/veg in the fridge, clean containers and lunch boxes, and can make a sandwich that takes 20 seconds (even the night before) it takes me less than 90 seconds to make lunch. No matter what, I know he eats it (say what you want about super duper healthy lunches...many go straight in the trash).

We do:

1 drink: we alternate between water, seltzer, spindrift, or occasionally smoothies (Odwalla, etc...) or apple juice or OJ

2 fruits or veggies: 2 clementines, small apple, blueberries, grapes, washed snap peas, mini cucumbers, my kid likes lettuce, whatever works. We also like dried or dehydrated fruits such as dehydrated strawberries, mango strips, or TJ's fruit leathers. Pick any 2.

1 savory carb: pretzels, chips, nuts, etc...

1 sweet treat: rice Krispy treat, cookie, candy, don't care.

1 sort of main hopefully with protein: usually a bagel, sometimes a soft pretzel, often a sandwich which I can make the night before (only chicken + lettuce on small roll), uncrustable or organic hot pocket or pepperoni roll or whatever is your thing. Hummus cup works. Or Guac. Or cheese cubes. Whatever. Truly.

Some will say this has no protein or calcium. Yeah. It doesn't have a lot. But the kid eats eggs or bacon and always milk for breakfast and is home at 3 for snacks, so we're good. No biggie. I just want him to eat at lunch, which he does.

Also:
- Have 2-3 lunch boxes so you don't have to wash/clean every single day if you are busy or your kid is bad about putting it out until the morning.
- Have several ice packs frozen in case you slip up on that.

And put this stuff in a Yumbox. I bought ours in 2015 and they are still going strong.