AIBU to hope Bento boxes for packed school lunches never take off here?

It’s hardly a new fad, they were a thing when I was a child.

What seems to be a new fad is for things that people don’t like, don’t agree with, or are slightly jealous of, are sneeringly labelled ‘only doing it for the instagram’. It seems to be the insult of the moment on here!!

🤣🤣🤣 yep I remember all that!! So many hours wasted on those recipes. I particularly remember the 'tip' about 'sneaking' grated carrot into a grated cheese sandwich and my very cross reception age ds1 coming running off the bus in the afternoon, saying why did you put carrots in my sandwich?! I gave up then.

YABU

I used to live in Asia and I had this really cute panda shape cutter. You squished rice inside, and put a seaweed sheet on top and pressed it down.

Hey presto a smiley panda. My DC loved it.

Someone on my local fb group does amazing stuff like this, I agree who has the time but she seems to really enjoy it and her LO must be delighted. Wish I had the time, skill and inclination!

My kids have bento style boxes for packed lunch. I pack them a sandwich or a wrap (the savoury) some fruit a vegetable something crunchy and something sweet.

it’s not all artsy and beautiful. It’s just everything ina. Seperate compartment.

DD is in primary and has a packed lunch. She’s fussy though so it’s something basic like a ham wrap, yogurt, drink and a snack…not that I do it anyway, DH does it whilst he’s cooking tea.

This! I never gave ds an option.

Bento boxes alone are brilliant.

The ridiculous lunches in a Bento box that are all over SM can get in the bin. I saw one the other day where the sandwich had been cut into the shape of a school bus (complete with olive wheels and little passengers!) with the cheese on the outside of the bread to make it yellow, a cookie that was taken apart and then decorated to look like a clock and a variety of vegetables that had been cut out/filled back in with other vegetables. Who has time for that?!

Oh and the pickled veg was homemade but I did 2 weeks worth at a time, they actually put them together themselves at secondary, dd2 would even make mine.

My dc we're taking them 15 years ago. But no radish carving! Rice or couscous, protein of some description, pickled veg, fruit for the one who ate it, mini muffin (made batch each weekend). Easier than sandwiches as essentially it was leftovers!

One of my dds uses a bento box, usually takes leftovers in it as she doesn’t like sandwiches.
She’s packed her own lunch since year 4. I would say a bento box make it easier for her to organise her lunch

Many kids where I work in the UK have these. I think they're awful:

A. The WASTE. Sandwiches cut into stars etc. The other day one child had apple slices, peeled and then cut into rabbits! Cucumbers cut into teddies etc. I'm assuming that much of the waste is chucked out eaten by mum who probably doesn't need to eat it so it's still waste.

B. The TIME and effort it must take, better spent playing with your child or talking to them.

C. The choice. It's ridiculous and overwhelming for a 3 year old.

D. Guess what they will eat first when it's all presented at once? The marshmallows, the chocolate buttons, the crisps, the tiny cupcake. Are those star shaped sarnies or rabbit shaped applesgoing to get eaten? Unlikely. When kids have a normal lunchbox we can just say sandwiches/ pasta/rice etc and fruit need to get eaten first but when it is all open at once they will pick at what they want. And our brain/ taste buds are pre-programmed to enjoy the sweet/ fat stuff.

I remember packed lunches at school- cheese spread all over my Trio bar, wet sandwiches where they had been snuggled up next to cucumber slices, apples with fluff on from the depths of my school bag. My kids have a neatly packed bento box (as do I for my work lunches) and it makes life so much more pleasant.

I've never shaped my cucumber slices though!

I'm with you. BUT school dinners at DS' school are £3.20 a day and the food is not great.

I love a bento box for the compartments. None of the other fancy stuff, just for practicality.

Both mine have used a Yumbox since creche. I have one too for my lunch. They have used the same ones for about 3 years now.

I peel oranges and cut up apples and put a sandwich etc in the other section. They only have ten mins to eat at big lunch so it's much quicker .
And we do have the little animal forks

its simple. Don’t go on Instagram/facebook/tikto whatever it is and you won’t know about these silly things, therefore you won’t care.

Food is my love language and it genuinely brings me joy to make lunches that make my kids smile.

DS (age 3) gets sandwich’s in shapes with cookie cutters, vegetable rounds cut with a cutter, little picks in his fruit.
my big kids get a joke in their box and often non sandwich alternatives. Today they have bagels cut in to little rounds toasted in the air fryer with rounds of ham and cheese to resemble a lunchable and a tiny squeezey bottle for sauce.

It makes all of us smile and takes potentially 2/3 minutes longer than a standard lunch

My DC are now 25 and 21 and had Sistema bento boxes for packed lunch. They were great for stopping things getting squished together. No faff, just chuck it in. (I will confess to the occasional star- or heart-shaped sandwich when they were very little).

We still have one left that I occasionally use when I need a packed lunch.

Surely the compartments are easier /better for putting different items and it's only as complicated as you choose to make it.

I've never prepared food of any kind with a measure of how it matches up to SM standards, so find making lunch boxes quite easy.

I think instagram/social media parenting is what you're really talking about, and I fully agree there. It's largely performative and I have no time for it. What you're thinking of isn't traditional bento, though, and the part that's annoying you (ridiculously precious stuff mostly meant to look cute and show how much more time you spent on it than other moms) would unfortunately exist without bento boxes.

We use bento boxes for our family because it reduces disposable packaging, has almost eliminated the constant lost/mismatched/messy tupperware containers/lids that drove my DH crazy, our DC like them, and (importantly) it made it easy for our DC to start packing their own lunches early on. We have a few fridge & pantry bins where sandwich/tortilla roll-up components and meat/cheese/crackers are stored, plus edamame or beans, a simple batch-cooked meat and grain or pasta, cut/washed raw veg, salad mix, fruit, and yogurt. Sometimes chocolate chips or mini marshmallows wander in there and whatever leftovers we have plus condiments are on offer as well. The bins go onto the counter right after dinner and everyone fills their bento box for the next day. The DC know to do carbs and protein in the big compartment, fruit and veg in the medium, yogurt or a sauce/dipper (or "sprinkles" as one of my littles has termed their current parmesan obsession). Our teens now have boxes with moveable dividers and freedom to go "off formula" so to speak, and when they're home they help their little siblings pack lunches as one of their evening jobs... obviously everything sounds at least 5x more appealing to a kid when offered by an older sibling than a parent, and they're (usually) good natured enough to help take a cookie cutter to a sandwich if someone wants shapes. Our youngest isn't in school quite yet but now insists on filling their own box to be eaten at home or at the park. It's not perfect or fuss-free, but it's the best system we've found for our family and everyone is generally content with it. And happily it doesn't involve DH or I doing anything fancier or more time consuming with a knife than slicing some carrots and bell peppers lenthwise a couple of times per week.

Chicken nuggets is an overcomplicated meal?? It is easier than a sandwich...

DC is midway through secondary and has always had a bento box lunch. Yes he ate it all when in primary, now he makes it and it depends on what’s happening at lunch time.
I didn’t make it cutesy beyond sometimes having a teddy bear biscuit (no refined sugar of course).

I really think (and corroborated by a previous poster who seems to know) that the cutesy shaped veg and sandwiches are just for social media for the most part, I doubt every mother in Japan does that.

I am a fan of the Sistema bento box though, makes it much easier for me to think of things for lunch for some reason. Good call from the judgey person talking about nuggets too, I might put some Quorn nuggets in the next one as it's tricky getting protein in a veggie child 😁

Oops, I have a couple of bento boxes for DD. They make packing a good variety of these easier without having to use loads of little pots. Admittedly I do carve her strawberries into hearts every day (takes an extra second rather than just lobbing the top off!) and I do go the extra mile on Valentine’s Day or when everyone on school dinners has a Christmas lunch, but the rest of the time it’s very standard stuff.

We all have them. I first got one for DD2 so she didn’t have multiple pots/packets to open at preschool. Then we realised how useful they were for packed lunches on days out with significantly less waste of plastic and food. DH and I got great ones from Aldi (little ice pack compartment too) and I’m gutted I didn’t think to get 5 the same so we all have them.

I just make a basic cheese sandwich though. No faffing with fancy shapes!