Lunchbox protein for fussy child!

[Ilikepie]

Hello All. As above. He doesn't like fillings in sandwiches so he is having butter sandwiches with a tiny tupperware of cheddar cheese cubes on the side. He doesn't like ham and i am wary of meats and fish anyway. Would it be safe to give him a cold sausage? The lunch boxes sit for nearly 4 hours in the playground before lunch and on a warm day I don't think even the insulated ones would stay cool enough to keep sausages safe. And he doesn't like dips. And is allergic to peanuts! Nuts are a no no due to possible cross contamination from peanuts.

i'm happy to keep giving him cheese, but is it good for him to have so much fat and salt every day?

We always use a freezer block - you can get quite small ones, ours are about 5cmx5cmx1cm.
We buy packets of ready-made mini scotch eggs for lunchboxes (ours are Quorn veggie ones but meat ones also available).

Quorn frankfurters don't need any cooking from the packet if you are happy to eat them cold. The same may be true of meat ones. So a small tub of those cut up could work.

But don't get too worried about this. School packed lunch is max 5 meals out of 21 in a week. You need the whole overall diet to be balanced but you don't need each individual meal to pass strict nutritional tests. You can just give in packed lunches food that will definitely be eaten and keep him going till tea, and make the balance up in the evening. Plus also remember that western diets are unhealthily high in protein normally - you only actually need about 10% of your calories to be protein so depending what you typically serve in the evening it may be fine not to give a separate high protein thing at lunch. Too much protein in the diet inhibits absorption of vitamins.

These are fab for cooling lunch boxes, just the right size, quite thin.

I have never put ice packs in lunch boxes. My dc have meat, fish, cheese, yogurt, and have never been made ill from them.

Among my dcs' favourite non-sandwich packed lunches are:
Last night's sausages.
Cold fish fingers (either in a sandwich or with cold chips and a little tub of ketchup. Personally, I love fish fingers hot or cold, but cold chips? Yuck. The dc, however, like cold chips!)
Cold roast chicken with mayo or ketchup. I often roast a tray of drumsticks and freeze them in bags of three (3 dc). I defrost a bag overnight for the following day's packed lunches.
Cold jacket potato with beans.
Mini quiches (they don't care for a slice of quiche, as it falls to pieces too easily, but I can make a tray of 10cm mini-quiches almost as easily as one larger quiche).
Thick soup or stew. These have to be warm, though, so I've got a 500ml wide-mouthed flask. I bring a portion of soup to the boil during breakfast and it's at a good eating temperature at lunchtime.

most items can be safely left out for a few hours, then eaten. A small ice block would elongate this period enough