Preschool lunch ideas - vegetarian and no nuts

[Anonymous]

Why do you all think it's so crazy that OP would prefer to spend 4 minutes in the morning making a sandwich, versus 30 minutes thinking about school lunches on a sunday? Why add yet another thing to your sunday "hanging over your head" routine? Making PB&J every morning was obviously working okay, so why judge that she doesn't want to escalate the work every week. We are like OP - not too stressed, but we take pride in not adding stress to our lives with unnecessary obligations. And in most cases, food starts to become a lot less healthy the more time you take to cook it. A handful of cashews is a lot better for you than a similar amount of egg salad sandwich.

PS judging from some of the suggestions on here, y'all have a very different take on "healthy" than I do. Pizza burgers? Spaghetti and meatballs? I look forward to seeing your fat kids in another 10 years....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you all think it's so crazy that OP would prefer to spend 4 minutes in the morning making a sandwich, versus 30 minutes thinking about school lunches on a sunday? Why add yet another thing to your sunday "hanging over your head" routine? Making PB&J every morning was obviously working okay, so why judge that she doesn't want to escalate the work every week. We are like OP - not too stressed, but we take pride in not adding stress to our lives with unnecessary obligations. And in most cases, food starts to become a lot less healthy the more time you take to cook it. A handful of cashews is a lot better for you than a similar amount of egg salad sandwich.

PS judging from some of the suggestions on here, y'all have a very different take on "healthy" than I do. Pizza burgers? Spaghetti and meatballs? I look forward to seeing your fat kids in another 10 years....

Except the OP's kid can't bring a handful of cashews anymore, and she asked for alternatives.

[Anonymous]

We had the same policy in our preschool, and really this isn't that hard.

Veggies, hummus, and cracker
Home-made whole wheat muffins (or banana or zuchinni bread) and hardboiled eggs (which I find to be easier than a sandwich, but to each his own)
Leftover blackbeans and rice
Quesadillas (cheese, veggie, black bean) or burritos
Homemade pizza (ww english muffin or pita, tomato sauce, cheese, spinach, cheese)
Muffin-tin quiches (as with muffins, make a big batch and keep in the freezer)
Empanadas (make a batch, keep in freezer)
Roasted chick-peas
Veggie burger sandwiches
Whole wheat pasta with any kind of sauce (this actually has a lot of protien)
Trader Joes spinach tortelini
Chobani yogurt tubes
Greek yogurt smoothies

Can you do fish? Our veggie preschool allowed fish, and we sent lots of fish & avocado roll ups (for some reason my kid loved them)

[Anonymous]

You lost me here.

Anonymous wrote: pasta salad with a kids yogurt on the side. There is so much carbs/sugar in that, that I might as well just send him with a slice of cake for lunch!

[Anonymous]

I sent my kid to a summer camp in a synogogue, so no meat or shellfish but fish was ok. My kid loves tuna salad sandwiches. How about your your school? Is fish allowed? Tuna melts are even better, and he eats them cold. Also loves applesauce mixed with plain yogurt. Boiling eggs is not time consuming, get over it. Quesadillas are also good. My son eats them cold. Sun butter and jelly as a back up if you can't find anything else.

[Anonymous]

It's a myth that you save time by making lunches once a week. Let's say you spend 30 minutes on Sunday making whatever pot of food you plan to send for the week. If said food is still going to taste good on Friday, it is probably heavily salted and seasoned and doesn't have fresh fruits and veggies in it. In which case, you're still spending time separately prepping fruits and veggies. In any event, you still have 3 minutes of work to do each morning assembling it all.

Or you could just spend 5 minutes each morning making a simpler, more "raw" style lunch (like OP's original lunch - with loose nuts and veggies) that don't involve much prep work. It's far more efficient to do the latter.

This concept of "hey working moms, spend 30 minutes on sunday cooking kids' lunches" is another martyrdom foisted on busy moms, but it doesn't make your lives any better. Working women who are genuinely organized and multi-tasking (and busy) wouldn't waste their sunday doing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:also, depending on what your child is willing to eat, here are some ideas:

http://www.thekitchn.com/20-lunches-ideas-you-can-make-the-night-before-recipes-from-the-kitchn-186016

Not OP, but I think this is awesome! Thanks PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You lost me here.

Anonymous wrote: pasta salad with a kids yogurt on the side. There is so much carbs/sugar in that, that I might as well just send him with a slice of cake for lunch!

Why? a pasta salad with sugar-yogurt is essentially the same nutritional value as cake. There's no getting around it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you all think it's so crazy that OP would prefer to spend 4 minutes in the morning making a sandwich, versus 30 minutes thinking about school lunches on a sunday? Why add yet another thing to your sunday "hanging over your head" routine? Making PB&J every morning was obviously working okay, so why judge that she doesn't want to escalate the work every week. We are like OP - not too stressed, but we take pride in not adding stress to our lives with unnecessary obligations. And in most cases, food starts to become a lot less healthy the more time you take to cook it. A handful of cashews is a lot better for you than a similar amount of egg salad sandwich.

PS judging from some of the suggestions on here, y'all have a very different take on "healthy" than I do. Pizza burgers? Spaghetti and meatballs? I look forward to seeing your fat kids in another 10 years....

Thanks, PP! The bolded comment above makes me realize just how superior you are. Clearly taking 4 minutes you take to add some jif to wonder bread is way superior to the 30 min I took to make the quinoa, broccoli and cheese muffins I gave to my daughter for lunch along with half of a -gasp!- pizza burger. **virtually pats you on the head** I'll let my daughter in the 10th percentile for weight know that she doesn't stand a chance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had the same policy in our preschool, and really this isn't that hard.

Veggies, hummus, and cracker
Home-made whole wheat muffins (or banana or zuchinni bread) and hardboiled eggs (which I find to be easier than a sandwich, but to each his own)
Leftover blackbeans and rice
Quesadillas (cheese, veggie, black bean) or burritos
Homemade pizza (ww english muffin or pita, tomato sauce, cheese, spinach, cheese)
Muffin-tin quiches (as with muffins, make a big batch and keep in the freezer)
Empanadas (make a batch, keep in freezer)
Roasted chick-peas
Veggie burger sandwiches
Whole wheat pasta with any kind of sauce (this actually has a lot of protien)
Trader Joes spinach tortelini
Chobani yogurt tubes
Greek yogurt smoothies

Can you do fish? Our veggie preschool allowed fish, and we sent lots of fish & avocado roll ups (for some reason my kid loved them)

Does OP need to go through this list to tell you why 80% of them are terrible for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you all think it's so crazy that OP would prefer to spend 4 minutes in the morning making a sandwich, versus 30 minutes thinking about school lunches on a sunday? Why add yet another thing to your sunday "hanging over your head" routine? Making PB&J every morning was obviously working okay, so why judge that she doesn't want to escalate the work every week. We are like OP - not too stressed, but we take pride in not adding stress to our lives with unnecessary obligations. And in most cases, food starts to become a lot less healthy the more time you take to cook it. A handful of cashews is a lot better for you than a similar amount of egg salad sandwich.

PS judging from some of the suggestions on here, y'all have a very different take on "healthy" than I do. Pizza burgers? Spaghetti and meatballs? I look forward to seeing your fat kids in another 10 years....

Wow. just wow. Maybe you should go eat the sandwich you made this morning and relax.

[Anonymous]

Quesadillas. Cheese, veggie, beans. Endless combinations.

[Anonymous]

My kid goes to a no-nut, no-sesame seed, no egg school due to the various allergies in her class.
Yeah. Try that! LOL. So meat is allowed, but we are lacto-ovo vegetarians, and my older kid HATES cheese (not sure why, she is otherwise not picky) so it can be a little tough to figure it out.
But I have 5 lunches, and I just rotate through them.
- black beans & brown rice burrito
- tahini-free hummus & pita
- lentil soup w/sour dough bread
- chickpea burgers
- pasta with sauce - we use the 'Explore Asia Mung Bean Edamame Fettucine' that is available at whole foods. We are not WF people at all but its the one thing I go there for. This pasta has 3 ingredients (mung bean, edamame, water) and has a crazy amount of protein. Just a little goes a long way and as long as I cover it up with some nice tasting sauce, she doesn't care.

THen we add a fruit and a vegetable (usually from dinner the night before). That's it.

Husband and I and kids all make pasta sauce, black beans, hummus, lentil soup, and chickpea burgers all in one go (as in one Sunday afternoon a month), and freeze it in tiny portions. Its not that bad because we all do it together and I literally do not have to stress about for a whole other month....and we use a pressure cooker so that makes it all go pretty fast.

[Anonymous]

Get a thermos and send it black beans and rice, bean chili, veggie stew, etc. add an apple and you're set!

[Anonymous]

We do sunbutter and honey sandwiches a couple of times a week. DD also likes a hard boiled egg I cut in half, I give her that with some cheese and fruit about once a week.

Last night we had breakfast for dinner so I took some of the extra baked beans, added a soy hot dog cut up and put that in her lunch for today. She has an orange cut up to go with it.