Title: 9 Healthy & Easy School Lunch Ideas to Pack for Your Kids
Headings: 9 Healthy & Easy School Lunch Ideas to Pack for Your Kids
9 Healthy & Easy School Lunch Ideas to Pack for Your Kids
Should You Pack Your Kids’ Lunches?
Nutritional Considerations
Financial Considerations
Finding the Best Lunchbox
Healthy & Affordable School Lunch Ideas
1. Quesadillas With Fresh Fruit
2. Peanut Butter & Bacon Wrap
3. Not-Quite-a-Sandwich Roll-Ups
4. Hummus & Veggies
5. Mini-Pizzas
6. Breakfast for Lunch
7. Chicken Salad With Greek Yogurt
8. Cream Cheese Sandwich
9. Pasta With Pesto
Easy Lunch Prep Using the Bin System
Final Word

Content: Nutritional Considerations
Most schools still rely on heavily processed foods for the majority of their lunch options. Fresh foods have a short shelf life, and cooking large meals from scratch is more time-consuming than simply heating up frozen lasagna and french fries. Although there have been efforts to make healthier options mandatory, such as requiring more whole grains, school lunches still aren’t perfect. However, in many cases, packed lunches might not be much better. A study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior found that packed lunches were of a lower nutritional quality than school lunches. Specifically, “energy, fat, saturated fat, sugar, vitamin C, and iron were significantly higher whereas protein, sodium, fiber, vitamin A, and calcium were significantly lower for packed lunches than school lunches.” There is one important caveat to this study: researchers only examined the nutritional content in school and packed lunches. They did not analyze how much children ate of either option. There’s a good chance that, although school lunches are healthier, some kids might be eating less of them because they don’t like what’s being served.