We
still have a few more days of summer freedom, but let's be honest with
ourselves: school is starting again soon. For those of us who are
heading back to the books, now is a great time to be thinking about how
to feed ourselves well through the busy months. If you're not going to
class yourself but you pack a lunch for a kid who is, it's even more
important to know how to keep the lunch box healthy.
School
lunches are also big garbage producers -- according to the U.S. Energy
Information Association, school-age children generate 67 pounds of
garbage per child each school year, and that's just at lunch time.
Yikes! Instead of paper bags and disposable cutlery, cut back waste
where you can; pack lunches in reusable containers that often come with
the added bonus of being insulated and bring along reusable cutlery from
home. Add some cloth napkins and you are good to go!
An easy way
to make sure your packed lunch stays balanced is to plan your meal
around a vegetable rather than a grain or protein, include a fruit for
dessert, and make sure you're putting in some good protein and fats for
your brain to keep buzzing through the afternoon.
If food can be
heated up at lunchtime, then your job just got a hundred times easier.
Dinner leftovers? That's lunch. It's a whole lot easier to throw on a
little extra supper when you're cooking than to make a separate dinner
and lunch in one night, so plan to have some leftovers. Just make sure
to label them as "lunch food" in the fridge so they don't turn into
someone else's midnight snack. If you don't have access to a microwave
or stove at lunchtime, consider investing in a good thermos that can
keep soup, stews, and other re-energizing dishes hot until noon.
The
most important thing about packed lunches is that they need to be
portable. Perhaps this is why the sandwich still reigns supreme in the
packed lunch realm, but the real trick is simply making it a one-dish
meal. Meal salads are great for the early fall, when it still feels like
summer outside -- take tuna salad out from between the bread and dress
it up with scallions, dill, celery, and mustard, or pop it between some
crisp lettuce leaves instead. Make the kale salad everyone's nuts about.
You know the one (hint: any kale salad at all). Load it up with toasted
almonds and you'll feel like you just ate a steak for lunch, but
better. Food blog 101 Cookbooks even has a salad recipe called An Ideal Lunch Salad. Make it. Pack it. Lunch is served.
If
you want to go beyond salads, why not try stuffing some veggies full of
delicious things like rice, beans, cheese and spices and call it a
lunch? Peppers and mushrooms are especially famous for their stuffed
goodness, but stuffed zucchini (otherwise known as zucchini boats) is
equally amazing, as are onions, if you're up for a bit of a longer cook
time. Or what about these rice-stuffed tomatoes? Perfect as summer produce is still booming around us, but we're hitting the books once more.
And
sandwiches certainly aren't the enemy when it comes to school lunches,
it's just that we can get a little bored of them. And for folks who are
gluten-free, it can be pretty frustrating when your only lunch options
are packed full of gluten. If you need a change from bread, try bringing
quesadillas or other dreamy tortilla concoctions, or wrap up your
sandwich innards in crisp lettuce or rice paper wraps. Whatever you
pack, make it something you actually want to eat, not something you
think you should eat.
No comments:
Post a Comment