Lunch Box Rules

By: Pam Anderson

Both of my daughters preferred packed lunches over cafeteria meals.

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Back in the days when I was still sending kids out to catch the school bus, I never could understand why both my daughters preferred packed lunches and disdained the school cafeteria. Why would they choose a salad or turkey sandwich, apple, cookies and bottled water over pizza, hamburgers, French fries and chicken fingers?

When my younger daughter, Sharon, arrived home from her first year at college, I decided to ask her why. Now that she's more adult than adolescent, her recollections were surprising to me. Here's what I learned.

She liked to brown-bag it mostly because of long lunch lines. She was able to sit down immediately and enjoy her lunch at a leisurely pace, while the cafeteria kids waited up to 15 minutes for theirs and then had to scarf it down.
Then there was that little issue of taste and quality: Cafeteria food wasn't that good. The French fries were soggy; the pizza was greasy. And the so-called sandwiches? "We won't even go there," she says. To make matters worse, the menu was so monotonous that the lunch-line fare began to look like pet food.

Sharon still prefers to eat like a kid. So I asked her to help me develop the four recipes you see here today.

Chunky Pizza Dip is a healthy alternative to pizza.
Herbed Creamed Cheese with Scallions & Tuna brings together three kid pleasers: tuna, cream cheese and bagels.
With Southwestern-Flavored Ground Beef, you can simultaneously make tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch. Just save out and refrigerate some of the taco meat and fixings such as shredded cheese and lettuce, plus chopped scallions and tomatoes. A good-looking salad like this will draw potential lunch traders. More likely than not, they'll be out of luck.
And for something sweet, Caramel Chocolate Dip is a treat that will entice kids to eat their fruit.

Sharon's final piece of advice: "Don't tuck special notes in your kid's lunch. They draw seriously unwanted attention." In other words, let the lunch speak for itself.

Tips from the author's teen
Sharon Anderson, just a year out of high school, offers these brown-bag tips:

School lunch is a compromise between what kids want to eat and what you want them to have. Want them to eat raw vegetables? Send along a little container of their favorite dip or dressing. How about that banana or apple? Pack a little peanut butter or caramel spread to dip it in.
Avoid repetition. Even a good lunch is a yawner if you have to eat it every day.
Spring for fresh-sliced deli meat when possible and good sandwich rolls instead of squishy sliced bread.
Invest in small, sturdy lidded containers for dips, spreads and dressings; Glad now makes disposable half-cup tubs. Also, reuse plastic salad containers.
The best part of school lunch? Dessert! Give kids a treat, even if it's a fun-size candy bar or a few small cookies.