I want to start by clarifying my qualifications to address this topic: I am NOT a registered dietitian or nutritionist. I am a person (specifically a mother) that’s been preparing lunch for my kids for 5 years straight (with major exceptions of Dad’s delicious smoothies, quesadillas & guacamole interspersed in there). Subtracting for those meals and others where I was postpartum or on a lunch date or something, that still comes up to about 1,500 lunches I’ve produced for my kids.
And guess what? You probably have done that too. Or WAY MORE if your kids are older! Or maybe you’ve been packing/making a lunch for yourself for a decade because your office has no hot lunch option or it’s gross or way too expensive. I don’t know! Any way you slice it, I consider any of the above-mentioned individuals official Lunch Wizardry Experts. But this also means we are probably SO OVER IT.
I don’t know about you, but the pandemic (plus third pregnancy?) has made meal prep all the more exhausting. It’s Groundhog Day and the meals just keep coming. People keep needing to be fed! The audacity of those sweet mouths requesting such things (I’m joking- they are actually very grateful a lot of the time and love to help in the kitchen- which is both awesome and stressful).
In our home we do the pretty standard 3 meals + 2 snacks… and it’s just a lot to think about and shop for. So here’s how I’m coping in the Pandemic Lunch Arena: new energy/ideas + less actual effort = success
1. Remove Expectations & Guilt
Confession: At times I am more uptight than is probably necessary about what I serve my kids. Maybe some of you are like that, or maybe you are totally cool about the foods your kids eat. I’ve chilled out quite a bit, thankfully. They ate as much candy as they wanted this past Halloween… and we are all still living to tell the tale!
All that to say: Give yourself permission to NOT make lunch a massive, perfectly balanced feast. Pandemic or not, meal planning is hard. There’s a lot going on.
One of the pediatric dietitian accounts I follow and love (Feeding Littles) ensures it’s OK to include a fat/protein (to fill up tummies) + produce of some variety (ideally) and CALL IT A DAY! No guilt. Pssst, that means you are NOT a “bad parent” if there isn’t a vegetable consumed or offered at lunch everyday. Fruits (and so many other foods) are full of nutrients too.
Especially in survival mode, just do your best and praise yourself for getting food on the table. Serve up leftovers. Serve the Blue Box Pasta (as my 5-year-old lovingly calls it) because a mother’s sanity is just as important to a child’s overall health as their nutrient intake (I am just assuming that here, no source to back it up).
Chances are if you’re feeling like a guilty mom, you aren’t feeling like a creative mom, or your best self. Serve what you are able to serve that meal, and move on mentally without dwelling on it! Feel gratitude that there was food to feed your family (choices, even, probably) and remember what a luxury that is.
2. Enact a Mix & Match Menu Style
Related to #1, do NOT feel the need for lunch to coordinate in any way, shape, or form. Kids run around and climb constantly (just mine?) and they just need fuel. Period. Also, kids don’t even know yet what foods are meant to “go together”. Just tonight my son put a strawberry on a piece of tofu and called it a “sandwich.” Last week he added blueberries to his chili along with the shredded cheese and tortilla strips…and then proceeded to consume the whole bowl. So…yeah. Don’t worry if your lunch components feel random. It’s probably not any worse than blueberry chili.
That said, on typical (or mid-Pandemic third-trimester atypical) days, I shoot to serve: a grain of some kind, a fat/protein source, a fruit, and a vegetable. I’m sure many of you do this already without even thinking about it.
crackers + cheese + apples + carrot sticks
tortilla + nut butter + banana + cucumber
bread + turkey + grapes + snap peas
The beautiful thing is, you can use dried, freeze dried, canned, fresh, or frozen fruits and vegetables. Canned fish, frozen nuggets, refrigerated cheese. Any grain on hand, including leftover rice or pasta! There is likely SOMETHING SOMEWHERE in your house that fits into these “categories.”
Some days this goes out the window and it’s who knows what. Drop the fruit. Drop the grain. It’s just a flexible formula to guide my brain when I get to the fridge and think “I cannot come up with one more meal.”
Find the free, colorful Mix & Match Lunch Inspiration Chart at the end of this article that you can print out and use in your kitchen!
3. Change up the Venue
Sometimes it helps all of us to have a change of scenery. This obviously won’t work if you are packing lunches for kiddos to take to preschool/school. This is more practical if you’re doing virtual learning or homeschooling with kiddos…or just have toddlers & babes that are around for lunch.
Instead of eating at the kitchen table, go out to your backyard & eat there! Have a picnic (fast food??) at a local park. If it’s cold where you’re at, then pull out a huge blanket and eat on the floor of the playroom. Kids think it’s really cool and different, but it requires minimal effort on your part. I am all about this.
4. Change up the Serving Dishes & Utensils
Bring out wooden chopsticks from the take out meal last week and let the kids stab at their foods instead. Use leftover paper cups from the holidays instead of the usual plastic Ikea ones (this was really the highlight of a meal recently). Add Pirates Booty to your grocery pick-up order and make everyone talk like a pirate the entire meal.
Serve the food in muffin tins, like all the cool kids are doing. Dump everything on a cutting board for a Snack Board/Kid-cuterie like all the cool kids were doing last year.
MIX IT UP! The only rule is that you MUST exert the SAME amount of time and energy as normal (or less). This is the key.
5. Get Your Kids Involved
It’s not really that hard to prepare a simple lunch. It’s the mental workload of coming up with foods day after day after day that is exhausting. Solution: Recruit your kids to help think of lunch items for the coming week!
This is a win all around. You don’t have to use your brain. The kids feel empowered and heard. They will be more likely to consume the food too!
BETTER YET, THEY CAN MAKE THE MEAL! I have many mom friends whose kids pack their own lunches at very young ages. This is so cool. I almost cried happy tears the first time my 5 year old made all of us PB&Js for lunch with zero assistance. Let’s put these cute hands and brains to work, yeah??
Last, but not least…
As promised, the free, colorful, printable (8.5×11 in) chart:
Here is the Preview! Click download below to print one for your home!
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