COLUMBUS, Ohio — These meal prep hacks can save time, money and headaches for parents looking for ideas on what to pack for school lunch.
Lindsay Livingston is a registered dietitian and founder of the blog The Lean Green Bean. She helps central Ohio parents by posting ways families can stay on budget and healthy, with some treats in moderation.
Livingston has two children in school full-time, so keeping them fed and cutting cost appears to be a full-time job, but she has turned it into an hour of preparing meals on a Sunday. Sometimes her children even help during the process.
“It can get expensive if you're not careful, so I try to do some of the typical things people always say like shop the sales shop in season,” said Livingston. “We look at generic options a lot because they're usually the exact same… as name brand, but cheaper.”
Livingston takes it a step further than coupons by looking at products that hold their freshness and value.
“One of my favorites for lunch packing is canned fruit. It's picked and can at its peak ripeness, so you're locking in all those nutrients, but it's shelf stable, and it's a lot of times cheaper than fresh fruit,” said Livingston. “Buying that to put in lunchboxes is a great money saving tip that can also get you know fruits and fruits into your kids.”
Lunchboxes are key too, because getting children to try new things is part of the presentation. Livingston recommends finding leakproof and dishwasher safe bento boxes for kids. Options in the tray-style plate change up the routine and the flavors.
Preparing school lunch for kids
“I always try to get some protein in there. It doesn't have to be meat, things like cheese, eggs, yogurt can all give protein,” said Livingston. "Hard boiled eggs can be a great option. Yogurt is a great option. One of my biggest lunch packing tips is skip all the individually packaged things so the small bags of chips and the Lunchables and anything that's going to be more expensive and you can often buy all the stuff and make it yourself for a lot less money.”
Enter the reusable baggies. A silicone style sandwich bag that can go right into the dishwasher.
“It can definitely get expensive when you're buying those small individual bags. It's a lot of extra packaging and waste that can be avoided,” said Livingston.
Livingston suggests using these bags for homemade trail mix, dividing block of cheese into string cheese portions, or for condensing large bags or chips or puff corn/rice snacks.