Critique my DD's packed lunch

[flowerpootle]

Bit out of practise...

Mini breadsticks
Quinoa crisps (handful)
Hummus
Lump of Parmesan (her favourite cheese)
Chopped cherry tomatoes
Chocolate digestive biscuits
Nectarine
Cherries

She's 4

Carb, protein, fruit, veg. Nothing fussy or complicated- they just want to chuck the food down and run out to play. If you like you can combine the carb and protein in sandwich form, but separate bread and cheese will still have some nutritional value.

@joystir59

A sandwich and some fruit is enough isn't it? What's with all the fancy stuff? A ham or cheese or hummus sarnie.

What fancy stuff? It's all normal fairly basic food, cherries are in season so not expensive at the moment, I bought a smallish punnet for a pound in Morrisons the other day, plenty for 3/4 days lunchbox supply for a 4 YO.

I too am confused by the obsession with sandwiches and the notion that anything other than the conventional/basic is too fancy/aspirational or middle class, despite being inexpensive, unlike ham which always makes me at the price of a small pack that doesn't go very far.

Me and my siblings survived on spam sandwiches 🤢 and wagon wheels. I think you’re doing ok and most importantly shes fed.

Maybe a sandwich or a wrap

She won't eat anything mixes up so no sandwich or wrap

When did chocolate biscuits become the new Benson & Hedges?

best comment of the thread!

Too much, and not enough filling foods. My son is 7 and he wouldn’t eat all that due to the fact he wants to go out and play quickly. Pasta salad and a yoghurt or chicken salad wrap and apple slices. I find if I give him little bits they come home uneaten.

That sounds fine to me. But my DS had a dairylea drunker and a finch bunch yoghurt for his nursery school packed lunch yesterday

Munch*

I wouldn’t give cherries for school because of the stones. Nothing looks especially terrible but all chocolate was banned at DS school.

DS would occasionally have either a wrap or sandwich but usually a bento box. Now I didn’t faff about making panda faces out of rice but they did look nice and I remember the nursery staff quizzing me about his food and his lunch box. I’m Chinese so it’s just a usual thing. So balls of rice and left over cooked veg and meat, chopped up fresh veg, hard boiled egg, small savoury dumplings and a little fruit on the side. A combination of those things. DH would take a box but still liked sandwiches as that’s what he was brought up with.

Competitive lunch boxes reach new levels in some asian cultures, the Japanese take it to heady heights plus there are societal pressures. Here is an article from the BBC. Judging over a dairylea dunker is nothing compared to this, its next level.
www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191015-lifting-the-lid-on-japans-amazing-bento-boxes

I think it's ok. Maybe a sandwich would be a bit more filling but breadsticks and cheese is basically cheese and crackers and is fine.

God I miss those old style hard plastic lunchboxes - so much more resistant to being dropped 3 times on the way into the school building... no horrid manky crevices to get the exploded yoghurt out of.

I don't do the MN lunchbox angst though - if it's a decent fit with the rest of the child's diet and it's stuff they're going to eat then I consider it a win. I gave up monitoring it when DD1 and her best mate would just rearrange their lunchbox contents among themselves to make each of them into their "ideal" lunch! (Mine have been known to take olives and crazily mature cheddar cubes in)

It is just a load of snacks? No main?
My 5yo has:
A sandwich or wrap (I suppose could be pasta or rice but haven't done yet!)
Trail mix (I know a lot of places ban nuts - could switch out for raisins or mixed dried fruit)
A piece of fruit
A sweet treat (Sometimes a chocolate biscuit (time out, penguin etc - all the classical things you are meant to have in a packed lunch haha), sometimes a bear yoyo thing etc. Wouldn't object to changing to crisps but haven't).

@Auntienumber8

I wouldn’t give cherries for school because of the stones. Nothing looks especially terrible but all chocolate was banned at DS school.

DS would occasionally have either a wrap or sandwich but usually a bento box. Now I didn’t faff about making panda faces out of rice but they did look nice and I remember the nursery staff quizzing me about his food and his lunch box. I’m Chinese so it’s just a usual thing. So balls of rice and left over cooked veg and meat, chopped up fresh veg, hard boiled egg, small savoury dumplings and a little fruit on the side. A combination of those things. DH would take a box but still liked sandwiches as that’s what he was brought up with.

Gosh, can I have one of your lunchboxes please 😃

I think other people must have different definitions of salty to me

I just looked at the Sainsbury’s website (no I obviously don’t have anything better to do), a quarter of a pot of plan houmous has 0.33g grams of salt in. I can’t imagine many other sources of protein with less salt in than that. And 8 mini breadsticks have got 0.24g in. That’s less than a slice of bread!

@marzipanontoast

It is just a load of snacks? No main? My 5yo has: A sandwich or wrap (I suppose could be pasta or rice but haven't done yet!) Trail mix (I know a lot of places ban nuts - could switch out for raisins or mixed dried fruit) A piece of fruit A sweet treat (Sometimes a chocolate biscuit (time out, penguin etc - all the classical things you are meant to have in a packed lunch haha), sometimes a bear yoyo thing etc. Wouldn't object to changing to crisps but haven't).

You are thinking about this in the wrong way, and in a very British and limited way. A lunch box doesn't have to have a "main", it can be a selection of things for someone to eat. As long as there is a good nutritional balance, it is filling and it doesn't take a young child too long to eat. Your list of items is fairly standard but the OP's is much better nutritionally, and I'd say, more fun to eat.

@Longdistance

That sounds like a bunch of picky things. You need a main like a sandwich. Parmesan is really salty, so are hummus crisps and actually digestive biscuits.

Op has already stated why she doesn't do sandwiches

@GADDay remember Benson&Hedges is the best tobacco money can buy

Why do you need the approval of strangers?