what do you put in your child's lunch box?

[DimpledThighs]

Was putting it together and just wondered how 'typical' it was. I must add that if it deviates in any way from the below I get repremanded!

Juice box (apple or orange)
sandwich - protein and a vegetable, usually tuna and sweetcorn
yoghurt (tube, was frubes, now yeo valley yeah!)
fruit (varies, kiwi today)
biscuit (usually jaffa cakes)

Doesn't seem like much to me, but they don't complain.

Be as critical as you like!

Sandwich or wrap - cream cheese and sweetcorn a favourite.

Tropicana Go drink (70% pure juice, 30% spring water)

Yoghurt/fromage frais

Granola bar

Fruit

Saw a programme recently where they were randomly looking in unidentified lunchboxes at a primary school, and the first one they opened had 2 packets of mini cookies and a bag of crisps (and nowt else)

GOHW that lunch box could have been any from our school,tend to find the younger children will quite happily have healthy stuff in their lunch but its the older ones we have problems with, and also getting them to actually eat something. The amount of lunch boxes that some of out year 6 kids open and just empty the contents into the bin is terrible, have given up reporting it to the teachers as they dont bother speaking to the parents about it and i have been told by headteacher not to discuss with parents about what their kids eat at lunchtime.

wurlywurly - your kids get lemonsole for thier school lunch!!

my ds1 has
ham sandwiches (the same for the past 3 years) no deviations what so ever

a custard pot or sometimes if hes being daring a frube

a tescos own make chochip cake bar (i gave him a mr kipling one last week and it came home again!)
and
he has robinsons sugar free squash

i have given him fruit but it comes home again. the school has a healthy eating policy so snack times are fruit and water only. BUT he wont take anything for snack time as he doesnt have time to eat it, it takes up too much of his playtime to stay still and eat.

i would be fuming if my kids were emptying their lunches out and not even eating them!! not only for thier health but its costs a small fortune also!
our dinner ladies make them put all their wrappers and uneaten food back in the boxes so the parents can see what they have eaten and what they havent.

Ds1 likes to have a cheese & crisps sandwich

(not everyday but occasionally)

Does this make me a bad mummy???

ds takes: white roll with salami
a piece of cheese
red pepper cut in strips
grapes
those dried banana crisps
2 waffles

dd takes: brown bread filled with salad and pate or mortadalla
carrot and cucumber sticks
grapes
2 rice cakes
dried fruit or coconut

they both take mineral water to drink. They eat everything, some at break and the rest for lunch.

sunita - not a bad mummy sometime at weekends ds1 has a ham and wotsit sandwich!!
its his treat as we have monitor his intake of wotsits or hes climbing the walls after eating too many

Same here, a crisp and ketchup sandwich is on ds wish list as the best treat!

worleygog, he loves it, they know him in the dinnerhall and we always tell them the days that he stays for school dinners, one weeks in the burger and chip day (pork burgers and oven chips), next week will be hotdogs(low fat sausages and oven chips) and the final week will usually be the lemonsole day which he has with jacket potato, problem is a cant manage to buy it anywhere would love to offer it to him at home.

DD has

sandwich (ham or chicken)
a box of raisins
a yoghurt
a banana
an apple
a carton of juice.

Once a week the school let them have a bag of crisps as well. We are not allowed to send in biscuits, chocolate, sweets or cakes. So its a good job she likes fruit so much.

To be fair there is never anything left when she comes home and she allways asks for a snack when she comes out so I either take an apple up to school with me or we pop in the cake or sweet shop for a treat.

dd (5) had today

2 slices wholemeal bread with tuna & onion

apple

Orange

squeezy yoghurt

Diluted juice

small pk of 5 (fives?) crisps as a treat as she hasn't been at school all week due to tonsilitis & I wanted her to have a wee treat when she opened her rather boring lunchbox.

I'm loving these ideas. Packed lunches are like torture to me. Actually DS eats loads of different things and eats a lot, and our nanny bakes lots of stuff and freezes it, but its the day in/day out grind of thinking about it. Also school is completely nut free and of the 3 children in the school with serious allergies, 2 of them are v close mates of DS's, so things like hummous/cereal bars etc are off limits. Also kiwi fruit and strawberries.

Today was:

snack:

banana (in banana guard - so shoot me)
carton of apple juice (not organic but from Waitrose so I just bet those apples have had a happy outdoor life with lots of space to roam)

Lunch

salami (organic, but that may be a contradiction as its still processed meat. But posh processed meat) sandwich - wholemeal bread.
Chopped up carrot and sugar snap peas
small pot of raisins and yoghurt raisins mixed together
home made cake (Ds has a cake pretty much every day in his lunchbox - he's a slim 5 year old who needs his calories. But they are always home made, and pretty much always banana bread/carrot cake or flapjack variants.

He often has crisps, but they will be those vegetable crisps or twiglets or pretzels - a few only in a little pot.

Virtually everyday he tells me the story of how the twins brought in a crispy creme doughnut each!

My list vanished int o the ether!!!!

If school tried to ban crisps and biscuits I'd be stuck! DS1 is on gluten and dairy free, they cannot cater for him at school dinners (he does go on a roast day (wednesday) sometimes, but only withour gravy or stuffing).

So we're a bit limited in chice.

They have :

A juice carton (we had to get a letter from the dietician for them to be allowed that over the standard school distributed cheap squash!!!)

Sandwich, wholemeal if I brought the bread, white if DH did, rice cakes for ds1 obv. Peanut butter, ham, cheese spread (primula witha dded omega usually for ds2)

Fruit- apple from the organic box, or an orange. They love to rummage for what's buried in there.

Crisps. Because they're gluten free.

yoghurt pr home amde biscuit, something like that usually. DS1 has soya, ds2 has either Shape or Yeo valley.

Well let me see.
Fruit shoot
Sausase roll
Chrisp
Chocolate bar x2
Pringles
Harobo family pack
Dairylee lunchable
Cheese strings x3

Thats if i can be bothered to pack a lunce, i just give um money and tell them to go to McDonalds.

Juice
DS1 cheese sanwich
DS2 ham sandwich
Yogurt
fruit
small bag mini chedders (i know i know)
Kitkat

Sunita, some days my SIL has to give my niece a mayonnaise sandwich, as that is all she will eat!

I would like to add that DD had switched to school dinners when she started secondary, but they have got so bad she switched back to packed lunch. She was having a baked potato with cheese and beans every day. But that wasn't so bad compared to when a new company took the catering contract after christmas. She then could only have cheese in her baked potato (she had to pre-order beans the day before) , and they were charging £1.60 just for that!! A two-course dinner was only £1.65, but she said it was 'orrible and wouldn't eat it. Where is the Jamie effect? We need good school dinners, please. Not over-priced everything-out-of-a-tin.

today i did ds a ham sandwich, a box of sultanas, a banana, a frube and a fruitshoot

and i can nearly guarantee that he will come back with half a ham sandwich and the crust off the other, the full box of sultanas, prob the frube too becuase the diner ladies won't help them open anything

They'd go bonkers at my kids school if half this stuff was sent in! They reward children with points for a healthy lunch box so the children actually complain if I put in anything like crisps, biscuits or cakes as an occasional treat. And peanut butter is totally banned - the children would have any nuts confiscated because of other kids with nut allergy. I put in a seeded wholemeal bread sandwich with ham, tuna or cheese, accompanied by cucumber, carrot, cherry tomato and one or two pieces of fruit. Plus water.

My ds normally has:

Wholemeal roll with ham or cheese or chicken
Babybel
Yoghurt
Apple/banana/strawberries or carrot sticks
apple juice carton

Sometims I'll substitute with:

Cheese dippers
Crackers and cubes of cheddar
tub of cocktail sausages
little pot of mini cheddars
flap jacks

On a Friday he gets a mini muffin or a cake bar.

I'm so glad that my oldest dd is now at secondary school, as virtually the only thing she'll eat in a sandwich is peanut butter and it was banned by the primary school! Now she has peanut butter sandwich or a wrap with salad and chicken tikka, virtually every day. Plus grapes, orange, yoghurt and a cereal bar or piece of malt loaf.

DD2 likes more variety and is happy to take in pasta salad, cold homemade pizza, pitta breads and a pot of tzatziki etc.

janeite, its a pain not being allowed peanut butter!

do you all put ice packs in with your child's lunch? if not, am imagining ham sandwiches festering in a centrally heated school...am i being anal???

Ours is kept outside - icepacks only needed in the summer.
I'd have thought it was more of a pain to suffer from nut allergy!
Ours would not get their house point if they had a cake/biscuit/sweets in their lunch box

As a mum of a peanut allergic child I really do appreciate the mums who don't send peanut butter .

The feeling of dropping off a lo and wondering if they will make it through the day okay isn't something I would wish on anyone.

Thanks again to those mums and carers.

Sandwich on wholemeal bread or a wrap (be good to yourself type). With something like:

Ham/tomato or mayo or cucumber
Tuna or Salmon with sweetcorn and mayo
Turkey
Cheese with cucumber

plus a fromage frai

A carton of pure juice or a smoothie

Any combination of the following

Sweetcorn (tinned)
Corn on the cob
Cheese
Cucumber

Satsuma, tinned peaches or pears (in juice), strawberries, kiwi, apple, grapes

Never crisps or chocolate or biscuits etc

Just read the rest of the thread, I don't agree with food being confiscated from children at all.
I am the first to ensure a healthy lunchbox and I agree that schools should encourage healthy food but they have no right to take away food that a parent chooses to give their child (even if it is junk). What good will it do - its only lunch, suspect there is a chance their overall diet will be fairly poor/unhealthy too.

I liked the idea of the school that awards points for healthy eating, good positive effect by the sounds of it