Green Parenting: A New Way to Brown Bag Lunch

As kids, most of us had our parents pack us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch at some point or another. The sandwich may have looked good in the morning, but by lunchtime, the bread was soggy with jelly and one was probably tempted to scrounge up some quarters to buy a school meal instead.

But there's hope for the fate of the lackluster brown bag lunch, and it comes with a convenient eco-friendly twist. In my last , I listed Bento lunchboxes as an eco-friendly back-to-school shopping choice. The more I think about these modern day lunch boxes, the more I really like the idea.

Basically, your standard Bento lunch box has about four small containers inside of it. There are various varieties of Bento lunch boxes: some are stainless steel, others are made of plastic, etc. But the idea is great, because you can pack a variety of foods for your child's lunch and they'll carry much better than using baggies (there may be life for the old fashioned PB&J after all!)

Another plus of using a Bento box, or your own lunch box with small BPA-free plastic containers, is that there is much less waste than buying individually wrapped foods. If a child has a bag of chips, a juice box and cheese stick for lunch, there's the waste from the chip bag, the box of juice, the straw and its wrapper, and the plastic that the cheese was wrapped in. And, unfortunately, buying a school lunch also means lots of packaging, wrappers and trays that end up in the garbage each day.

Not only does the idea of multiple small containers reduce the amount of waste produced by a brown bag lunch, it also offers much more variety and more opportunities for encouraging kids to eat their fruits and vegetables.

The following are some ideas for sending your child to school with a balanced, nutritious lunch that they may even be able to eat without heading to the cafeteria garbage can afterwords.

1. Take a Dip
a. Protein: Hummus
b. Carbohydrate: Pita
c. Vegetable: Cherry Tomatoes
d: Fruit: Apple Slices

2. Do-It-Yourself PB&J
a. Protein: Peanut Butter
b. Carbohydrate: Whole Wheat Bread
c. Vegetable: Cucumbers
d. Fruit: Banana, Strawberry Jam

3. Mom's Egg Salad
a. Protein: Egg Salad
b. Carbohydrate: Rice Crackers
c. Vegetable: Red Pepper Slices
d. Fruit: Watermelon Cubes

4. Very Veggie Pasta Salad
a. Protein: Mozzarella Cheese
b. Carbohydrate: Whole Wheat Pasta
c. Vegetable: Zucchini, Corn, Cherry Tomatoes, Bell Peppers
d. Fruit: Peach Slices