What do non-Americans pack their kids for lunch?

[Anonymous]

European/Asian family here.

Leftover dinner in a cute bento box.

Very few sandwiches, as my children aren't fans, and certainly never a PBJ, since the idea of a sweet sandwich is slightly nauseating to my non-American taste (plus DS is allergic to peanuts).

Bento boxes are small and meant to pack mostly rice, which is a dense and caloric food. So we pack bento boxes with small pasta, or rice, and a protein, such as chicken, very small wiener sausages cut to look like octopuses or penguins, ham, tofu, and small veggies cut in attractive forms, bento-style. The meat often has a coating of sauce, curry or bourguignon, or whatever we had for dinner.
If there is space left, I include a little piece of fruit, in its own cute container.

I buy all the bento supplies online - one can easily go crazy with all the adorable things out there. They even have boiled egg molds in car or animal shapes.

[Anonymous]

We are European, but we believe in the adage, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" and our kids eat PBJ sandwiches, bagels with cream cheese, apples, pears, chocolate milk, etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leftovers from our regular dinners. Same thing the adults eat.

^^ this. Asian here. Kids eat the same as adults, once they have teeth. Packed lunches are leftovers or extras of food made that day. i.e. cook would make lunch in the morning, and kids would eat that at school that day.

We would never dream of packing a peanut butter sandwich, potato chips, or even juice. That's junk.

Really? A good source of fats and protein combined with whole grains you're going to call junk compared to say, the carbohydrate bomb someone else listed earlier of dumplings and white rice?

If you go to most of Asia, they all eat white rice. And they are generally less over weight than our pbj eating US kids. BTW, my kids eat pbj and white rice.

I love how the jam magically disappears from the nutritional breakdown of a PBJ to prove a point.

Nope. I'm not low fat; I'm actually high fat, but you'll never convince me PBJ is good for you. My kids get fat from avocado, olive oil, butter, full fat yogurt, and meat. I'm very well traveled and it seems the U.S. Is the only place that thinks PBJ is an appropriate kids meal.

good source of fats and protein combined with whole grains

PBJ = sugar + fat + more sugar with very little by way of nutrients..

Actually, peanut butter is a really good source of nutrients (Good fat, fiber, protein, and minimal to no sugar). Are you one of those people who buys everything 'low-fat' to be healthy??? Kids need fats. White rice (or bread) is what makes American kids fat. Not fat from peanuts.

In our house, "peanut butter sandwich" = peanut butter on whole grain bread. There's no "jam" or jelly in the equation; that would be a "peanut butter and jelly sandwich". Our PB also has nothing in it but nuts...so...no sugar.

[Anonymous]

My MIL stayed with us at the time when DC started preschool. For a month he brought all kinds of Russian meals unknown to many Americans, and at some point a teacher asked me if I know how to make a sandwich

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Indian and I just pack leftovers from dinner. Most of the food I make is vegan so it's not a big deal if it's at room temp until lunchtime.

How old are your kids? How are the not mortified to be opening Tupperware of daal and aloo ghobi? You know eating one American meal a day like PBJ won't take away from their Indian-ness; you realize that right??

this has to be a troll. mortified? really? it's not 1957. most elementary school kids in the DC area have eaten Indian food before.

[Anonymous]

Ada Rolls:
Wash and soak half cup split urad dal, half cup chana dal, and half cup rice. Soak the rice and lentils for at least three hours, then blend to a smooth batter (pancake batter/dosa batter consistency). Add turmeric powder and salt. You can also add pepper, garlic, ginger, and green chillies if you like when you are blending the batter, but our kids don't care for the extra spices.
Once the batter is blended, cook the ada like a dosa. Before taking it off the stove I put shredded cheese on the ada, and then roll it up. If you like, you can also add half a cup of mixed vegetable puree to the ada batter before cooking the adas (half cup veggies--spinach, broccoli, peas, and carrots--steamed and then pureed).

Chapati rolls are basically chapatis smeared with cream cheese, with cut up chicken nuggets in the center with some shredded cheese that is rolled up like a wrap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Indian, and our kids have taken ada rolls (ada is a lentil + rice pancake rolled up with grated cheese), besan chilla rolls (chickpea flour + semolina flour pancakes), chapati rolls (I spread cream cheese on the chapatis and often put chicken nuggets or chicken kababs in them--the kids love them!). Our kids have refused to take rice, so it's typically easy to eat foods that I pack.
The kids also take the usual mac and cheese, pasta, grilled cheese sandwiches etc...

New poster.

Can you provide recipes for the ada rolls and chapati rolls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Indian and I just pack leftovers from dinner. Most of the food I make is vegan so it's not a big deal if it's at room temp until lunchtime.

How old are your kids? How are the not mortified to be opening Tupperware of daal and aloo ghobi? You know eating one American meal a day like PBJ won't take away from their Indian-ness; you realize that right??

this has to be a troll. mortified? really? it's not 1957. most elementary school kids in the DC area have eaten Indian food before.

+1 My kids love eating different ethnic foods. We like to have a "round the world" cuisine experience. Seriously, who only eats "all american" food around here?

[Anonymous]

I'm in Canada, technically not America. But North America. People send lunchables here too. I've seen kids eating cold cans of canned pasta and cup a noodle type soups.
I personally wouldn't.
My daughter is 6, going into second grade. I pack things such as:
Fruit like apples, grapes, bananas, watermelon...
Greek salad, caesar salad. A mayo-less tuna salad with chopped veggies in it.
Leftovers from dinner like pasta, meatballs, roasted chicken, and homemade soups.
I always put a container of veggies like celery, red bell peppers, carrots, etc...
For a treat she likes the brownie flavored bear paw, gold fish crackers and occasionally chocolate pudding if I buy it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Indian and I just pack leftovers from dinner. Most of the food I make is vegan so it's not a big deal if it's at room temp until lunchtime.

How old are your kids? How are the not mortified to be opening Tupperware of daal and aloo ghobi? You know eating one American meal a day like PBJ won't take away from their Indian-ness; you realize that right??

this has to be a troll. mortified? really? it's not 1957. most elementary school kids in the DC area have eaten Indian food before.

+1 My kids love eating different ethnic foods. We like to have a "round the world" cuisine experience. Seriously, who only eats "all american" food around here?

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Indian and I just pack leftovers from dinner. Most of the food I make is vegan so it's not a big deal if it's at room temp until lunchtime.

How old are your kids? How are the not mortified to be opening Tupperware of daal and aloo ghobi? You know eating one American meal a day like PBJ won't take away from their Indian-ness; you realize that right??

this has to be a troll. mortified? really? it's not 1957. most elementary school kids in the DC area have eaten Indian food before.

+1 My kids love eating different ethnic foods. We like to have a "round the world" cuisine experience. Seriously, who only eats "all american" food around here?

+2

I'm American and can't stand American food. The thought of homestyle food makes me gag.

[Anonymous]

Indian kids at my school who brought roti "rolls" or boxes of rice or dosa or whatever definitely got made fun of. But things are more "culturally" sensitive now esp in DC in the 2000s. Parents would start crying bullying if someone said something about someone else's lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ada Rolls:
Wash and soak half cup split urad dal, half cup chana dal, and half cup rice. Soak the rice and lentils for at least three hours, then blend to a smooth batter (pancake batter/dosa batter consistency). Add turmeric powder and salt. You can also add pepper, garlic, ginger, and green chillies if you like when you are blending the batter, but our kids don't care for the extra spices.
Once the batter is blended, cook the ada like a dosa. Before taking it off the stove I put shredded cheese on the ada, and then roll it up. If you like, you can also add half a cup of mixed vegetable puree to the ada batter before cooking the adas (half cup veggies--spinach, broccoli, peas, and carrots--steamed and then pureed).

Chapati rolls are basically chapatis smeared with cream cheese, with cut up chicken nuggets in the center with some shredded cheese that is rolled up like a wrap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm Indian, and our kids have taken ada rolls (ada is a lentil + rice pancake rolled up with grated cheese), besan chilla rolls (chickpea flour + semolina flour pancakes), chapati rolls (I spread cream cheese on the chapatis and often put chicken nuggets or chicken kababs in them--the kids love them!). Our kids have refused to take rice, so it's typically easy to eat foods that I pack.
The kids also take the usual mac and cheese, pasta, grilled cheese sandwiches etc...

New poster.

Can you provide recipes for the ada rolls and chapati rolls?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

My kids are only 1/4 Asian but used to eating a lot of Asian stuff at home. Lunches include:
Rice, seaweed and tofu/surimi/shrimp to make "sushi"
Soy sauce chicken
Dal and basmati or nan
Rice, tofu & kimchi
Edamame
A mix of regular American stuff rotates in too...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm South Asian, DH is white American. I pack a combination of whatever is left from the dinner before plus veggies/fruit/some form of hummus and chips. DD loves daal so I send a lot of daal and rice with her. I usually put in some veggie in the daal - peas or broccoli, which also helps. It is meant to be eaten warm but fine at room temperature. [/quote

Cold or lukewarm daal -ew

Indian here and cold or lukewarm daal is yucky, so you are being plain lazy.

[Anonymous]

Also, all the posters saying they pack leftovers are far worse than American moms who at least bother to make a fresh sandwich. Who lacks leftovers for kids???? Yuck!!