With a little planning, imagination and some feedback from your child, you can pack a school lunch that your child will enjoy and one that will meet his nutritional requirements.

Plan Ahead...

When you pack a school lunch, it needs to be something fun, fast, and nutritious.  Planning ahead and involving your child in the planning helps to teach them about good food choices, and it also ups the chances that they will eat the lunch you send.

To make the planning process go smoother, consider these suggestions:

• Take your child to the grocery store and let them show you what they like to eat.

• Look for many prepackaged foods such as baby carrots, individual fruit cups, pudding cups, dried fruits, granola bars, or boxed juices.

• If the price of prepackaged foods is prohibitive, spend Sunday afternoon with your child making your own individual bags of goodies.

• Sit down with your child and make a weekly school lunch menu. Make sure each lunch includes foods from three or four food groups.

• Pack as much as possible of the lunch the night before. Give your child responsibility for this as appropriate for their age.

With a little imagination, a school lunch can rise above the sandwich made on white bread.

• Bagels, rolls, pita pockets, English muffins, raisin bread, or flour tortillas are a healthy base for a nutritious school lunch. 

• Try varying the type of bread each day to make lunch more appealing and interesting. 

• Lean cuts of meat such as ham, roast beef, or turkey are favorites with kids.

• Consider pasta salad, chicken salad, or tuna salad served in pita bread or in a small cup or container.  Just be certain it can be kept cold to prevent food spoilage.

• Peanut butter and jelly is always a favorite. Not only is it a good protein source, but it does not have to be refrigerated.  You can jazz up a peanut butter sandwich by mixing the peanut butter with some granola or wheat germ.

• You might be surprised how well your child will take to raw vegetables, especially if they are packed with a container of low-fat or fat-free Ranch dressing.

• Offer your child the opportunity to taste raw squash, zucchini, broccoli, green peppers, or celery.

• Consider ready-to-eat fruits like dried apricots, raisins, individual cans of fruit cocktail, cubed melon, or grapes instead of a fruit that needs peeling, such as an orange or a kiwi.

• When it comes to choosing a beverage for lunch, milk is recommended.  It really doesn't matter if it is white or chocolate milk, just so your child gets the nutrition from milk.

• Fruit juice is an okay substitute for milk once in a while, but make sure you are packing 100% fruit juice and not a high-sugar fruit drink. Calcium fortified juices are even better.

• It is a good idea not to pack chips, cookies, cakes, or candy in your child's lunch, at least not on a daily basis. Consider pretzels, graham crackers, nuts, trail mix, mini rice cakes, popcorn, granola bars, fig bars, or yogurt-covered raisins.  Tuck a surprise sweet treat in the lunch box once a week.

What about those convenient lunch kits such as "Lunchables"? 

Typically, more than half of the calories in those lunches come from fat; however, the low-fat versions are better.  Still, the sodium content is quite high at 1,200 - 1,850 mg per kit. (The recommended sodium intake per day is 2,400 mg)  The cost of these convenient kits is also high at $3.00 to $7.00 a pound.   Consider purchasing your own single-serving plastic containers and filling them with low-fat meat, cheese, crackers, pretzels, Goldfish crackers, baby carrots, and fresh or dried fruit.

"You can give your child the power to make healthy decisions about what goes in their lunch if you learn to ask the right questions," says Beth Fontenot, MS, LDN, RD.  Such as, "Would you rather have a peanut butter sandwich or a turkey sandwich?"  "Would you rather have a banana or a box of raisins?"  "Would you rather have pretzels or nuts today?"

Food Safety Tips

To protect your child from foodborne bacteria, make sure lunches are kept at the correct temperature.  Choose an insulated lunch box or sack to ensure that foods stay at the proper temperature.  The refreezable ice packs work well.   A well-insulated thermos will keep hot foods hot. 

Be sure to wash all lunch containers as well as the lunch box with warm soapy water each day to prevent the growth of bacteria.