DS wasted packed lunch fruit and veg

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Hi all

I'm in a quanduary about whether or not I should include fruit and veg in my son's (8) lunchbox.

Every day I put in carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, fruit (banana / apple) or some other form of fruit and veg.

19 times out of 20 it will come back uneaten.

DS will eat fruit / veg at home no problem.

I just wonder should I give in and not put it in and therefore not waste it (cucumber (and most fruit /veg) for example will need to be binned as been out of fridge whole day and bashed around in lunchbox) or keep putting it in as a nudge towards healthy eating?

Does anyone else have this issue and have any suggestions?

Seems a monumental waste of food to do it every day and 99% of the time come home and go in the bin. But I also feel a moral obligation to include it.

It never got eaten from the packed lunch but as their diet as a whole was healthy, and packed lunches are 5 out of 21 meals a week there was plenty of space to ensure balance overall.

I did put cress, watercress or a modest amount of salad in some sandwiches.

Cherry toms in a little pot, or cubes of pineapple with a cocktail stick to eat them with were also eaten.

But in the middle of the school day a good calorie rich, filling sandwich is more important than a celery, cucumber or carrot stick, IMO.

Mine liked felafels, so upping the plant content.

I used to put in carrots or apple for show, then cook the carrots for tea and chop up the apple for an after school snack.

I agree there's no need to put so much in.

ItWearsTheBatteriesOut thinking about it, if you wrap them in foil no one will know what’s in there! So you could just wrap a couple of tennis balls, then you wouldn’t even need to replace them weekly!

On a slightly more sensible note, if veg on the side is getting rejected can you add it into the sandwich or wrap. You won’t get as much in but a token effort. If the problem is carrot drying out you can fix that my wrapping them in piece of slightly damp kitchen roll.

Or do something like a cous cous and roasted veg salad, or pasta salad. Or if a food flask is an option, soup.

Have done the same for myself many a time,
The fresh;y chopped pieces look lovely when first prepared but by the time lunch time comes, even after being stored in the fridge, they don't have the same appeal.
And cucumber/tomatoes etc in sandwiches often leave the bread a bit soggy too.

I've stopped bothering taking them now. I have plenty of fruit/veg the rest of the time. I will take a little pot of fruit in juice sometimes, but I don't bother with the cut fresh stuff.

I'd rather eat it freshly prepared at home later instead.

Use a plastic apple ‘stunt apple’ so it looks like your being a good mum putting in fruit and veg but it’s not wasted…

Fruit and vegetables in lunchboxes always gave me the heebie jeebies as a child. They always went soft and ended up smelling funny.

Just give him fresh fruit/veg when he gets home instead.

You should pack what he'll eat. Mine never ate well at school because he wanted to rush out to play. Fruit and veg that has been stored in a lunchbox is never as good as fridge fresh

If you've ever looked at pre chopped veg (say carrot) in a supermarket, it's never as good as when it's freshly chopped. It discolours at the edges, looks limp and less full of water.

@GameSetMatch

Use a plastic apple ‘stunt apple’ so it looks like your being a good mum putting in fruit and veg but it’s not wasted…

Oh my God this is genius!

I just used to send the same apple in every day, safe in the knowledge it would come home untouched .
However this was before schools had any interest in the contents of lunchboxes.
You can get fruit and veg down at home but not if you're not there so it's just a waste.

This happened here as the boxes get "sweaty" through the morning. The exception is lettuce, usually romaine as it stays crispier.

They all eat any carrot sticks I put out at home. Do it is just a lunchbox ( and time) issue.

LOL, had I put a fake apple in my kids’ box it would have ended up as the cause of many practical jokes and been tumbled by staff immediately

Put in something like a clementine or a box of raisins, so you can just reuse it the next day if it isn't eaten.

@MajorNeville

I always joke that the same apple went to and from school with my son for 7 years. He was never going to eat it but we kept up appearances.

We did this. When he came home from school ill one lunchtime and we forgot his bag, which stayed in school for a few days, we pointed out his apple had a better attendance record than him and used to ask it to help with maths homework.

I had a travelling Apple as a kid

@JanglyBeads

Dried fruit worked for a while with mine.

Nothing wrong with sugar and sweets in moderation but let's be really clear here that dried fruit is just concentrated sugar with a fairly meaningless amount of fibre. You literally might as well give them haribo.

@SpiderinaWingMirror

Dds primary insisted that fruit must be in the lunchbox. This was early 2000s. I invested in a perfect wax replica apple (might have been from John Lewis?) And she carted that to and fro for several years.

This is genius!!

Red pepper gets eaten.

I just give DS salad when he gets home though. He's more interested in playing than eating so his actual lunch is tiny.

I used to put it on a cocktail stick with a bit of cheese or just a mixture of veg. So grapes, cherry toms, strawberry, chunk of pineapple, chunk or melon/watermelon etc stuck on a stick - called them fruit kebabs and they got eaten. Or mix chopped tomatoes, cucumber chunks, grated carrot, chopped celery, olives, feta, apple chunks in with a bit of cooked pasta or cooked grain and mayo as a salad.

Whole apples or oranges always came home uneaten and looking as if an elephant had sat on them, chopped fruit tarted up a bit was always eaten.

What a ridiculous waste of food. Either tell him to eat it or stop putting it in.

If he eats it at home then just do some chopped up carrot sticks and cucumber when he's home as a snack, I agree with others it can go gross quite quickly in a lunchbox. Things like fruit I'd send it and it will be fine to keep if he hasn't eaten it, especially bananas and satsumas etc.

We have the 'lunchbox apple' Dd never eats it, it lives in her lunchbox all week then I chop it up in her porridge.
She eats lots of fruit and veg at home so it's just a token really, it's there, she can eat it if she wants but she prefers pineapple, mango, raspberries, melon- things that don't tend to travel well and are better out the fridge.

I got my first ever mention in the Mumsnet Roundup, when I suggested putting plastic fruit in my dses’ lunchboxes, because I was sick of buying fruit and sending it into school, to come back uneaten.

This is years ago - the boys are all in their 20s now, and the lunch box police weren’t as strict as they are now - crisps and chocolate biscuits were allowed - but we were expected to send them in with fruit too.

I did wipe the rejected fruit and resend it the next day - a firm apple could do three days, and a just ripe banana might do the full week - but eventually they got too battered and had to be chucked out - hence the suggestion of using plastic fruit - it would satisfy a cursory inspection, and wouldn’t get too battered.

@SpiderinaWingMirror

Dds primary insisted that fruit must be in the lunchbox. This was early 2000s. I invested in a perfect wax replica apple (might have been from John Lewis?) And she carted that to and fro for several years.

If this is true you are a genius