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Five Great Tips For Packing Your Kids Lunch

Do you have a picky eater at home? Most kids are picky and when you send them off to school, you may wonder if they eat. The school cafeteria is notorious for serving foods that the kids don't want to eat. They are either not healthy or they taste terrible. Many school districts are looking into healthy alternatives, but kids often won't eat it. The solution is to pack your kids lunches each morning.

If you pack lunches for your kids, you may run out of ideas. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches just won't cut it each day. You need some great ideas to make your kid's lunches healthy, appetizing and flavorful. Here are some great tips to help you.

Have all the right equipment: When you pack lunches everyday, you should make sure you stock up on all the right tools to make packing lunches a breeze and easy on your child. You need a lunch box that is actually big enough to hold everything. Make sure you have plenty of plastic utensils, thermos, sandwich bags and reusable containers with lids. You might also want to get some reusable ice packs to keep the lunch cool during the day.

Go beyond the sandwich: Think of the things that you kid likes to eat. They make like sandwiches, but that gets boring after awhile. Crackers, lean lunch meat and cheese are always popular choices. You can even serve your child crackers, slices of mozzarella cheese and lean turkey pepperoni for a nice change. A thermos is great for sending in soup or pasta. Leftover pizza is another popular choice—of course all kids love pizza. You may even be able to serve leftovers from the night before.

Get creative with the food: Kids always find foods more appealing when it is presented in a fun and creative way. Finger foods are fun and easy to pack in the lunch. If your child loves sandwiches, use whole wheat bread and cut it into fourths. You can also use cookie cutters to make them look fun. Fresh vegetables are good when you use small pieces. Look for baby carrots, which are sweeter anyway. Tiny bananas are also fun. Many grocery stores now sell them and kids will love them, too.

Make packing fast: You can make packing your kid's lunch a breeze when you prepackage everything beforehand. If you buy a box of graham crackers or goldfish crackers, use snack size sandwich bags to prepackage them before. Have a large box in your pantry and store it in there. When you pack lunches, all you have to do grab the bag you want to put in the lunch.

Let your child help: The most important part about packing lunch is making your sure child will eat it. After that, you want to pack healthy. You can help ensure your child will eat the lunch by letting your child help. They can give you ideas about the things that they want or do not want. When you do this, you can be certain that the lunch won't get thrown away.