Get school ready with nutrient dense and yummy school lunch box ideas!!
Becca Crawford
With the start of a new school year, I know mamas are wanting easy, quick and healthy school lunch box ideas that are also super yummy. School lunch prep can become a Groundhog Day experience for the best us and trying to keep it fresh with variety can be challenging and exhausting.
A school lunch box should ideally contain a balance of the 3 macro-nutrients - fats, protein and carbs. Nowadays, kids are overloading on empty filler refined carbs while healthy fats and proteins have fallen largely by the wayside. Fats from natural sources are essential for optimal brain function, strong immunity, optimal growth and development and provide our kiddies with slow released stable energy throughout the day without insulin spikes and crashes. Protein from pastured animals and natural sources provides amino acids necessary for muscle growth, immune function, hormone function and all metabolic processes. Fats and protein are typically (and conveniently!) naturally found together in nature but you can add in extra healthy fats such as some olives (in brine only!), avocados (add a good squeeze of lemon juice to prevent oxidation), dips and be sure to dress salads with olive oil and vinegar either from home or in a little dispenser that kids can dress before eating.
Here’s a little shopping list cheat sheet from me to you to make that morning rush hour (or night before prep) a little more enticing and less mundane (but no less nutritious).
my top 10 quality protein ideas
Wild smoked salmon from The Canadian Way sold at Broth Bar & Larder. Make sure the salmon that you buy is truly wild and NOT farmed – we don’t want to be ingesting a slew of antibiotics, soy pellets and colour dyes that are fed to farmed salmon and nor do we want to support industries that farm fish in cramped and crowded conditions that breed illness and disease (which then spread to the wild fish population).
Grass-fed preservative-free beef jerky and salami sticks from Kooee! Snacks sold at Broth Bar & Larder.
Preservative-free and pastured prosciutto (eg Little French Ham made by Bundarra Berkshires and Lonza made by De Palma Salumi, both sold at Broth Bar & Larder). Preservative-free pastured ham made by Bundarra Berkshires
Activated nuts and seeds (if permitted at schools) sold at sold at Broth Bar & Larder. If some grades are strictly nut-free then seeds are typically permitted. The higher grades are less strict than the early grades.
Hard boiled pastured eggs such as Mussett Holdings or Carbeen Pastured Produce or Holbrook sold at Broth Bar & Larder. Or left over omelette.
Gruyere and Reggio raw milk cheeses sold by weight at Broth Bar & Larder. Any organic cheese (even if pasteurised) is ok (if dairy is tolerated) so long as its full fat and not marinated in vegetable oils/ seed oils. You might like to try my Cheese Puffs recipe if kids prefer little cheesy muffins.
Preservative free, pastured and naturally fermented salami from De Palma Salumi sold at Broth Bar & Larder.
Tinned wild fish (e.g. salmon) in brine or olive oil (not vegetable oils/ seed oils!). BPA free tins can be bought online from Vital Choice.
Yogurt (dairy or coconut) made by Bondi Yoghurt sold at Broth Bar & Larder.
Left over meat from dinner eg keftethes (meat balls) - recipe here on my website. Add up to 200g of sneaky livers or our liver cubes in there 😜
and for carbohydrates?
In terms of what carbohydrates, these should mostly come from VEGETABLES! Both above ground (e.g. cucumbers, tomatoes, capsicum, celery, salad greens), and root veggies (e.g. carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes - left over roast root veg is a great idea). Newsflash: despite their ubiquity, humans are not designed to eat much, if any, grains!!! If you must, do so occasionally and opt for properly prepared organic grains like sourdough bread (I love Iggys which we sell at Broth Bar & Larder) or sprouted gluten-free soy-free bread (and don’t forget to slather on the butter and other nutrient dense toppings like avocado or the protein sources listed above) or buckwheat based savoury muffins. You can use this recipe or this one and simply pour the mixture into muffin cases instead of a loaf tin and bake for 30 minutes.
Vegetables can also come from the sea….so throw in some nori seaweed sheets for mineral rich sea vegetables. Be sure that the nori you buy isn’t bathed in vegetable oils / industrial seed oils. These toxic oils are now sneaking into everything so READ THE LABLES!! The smaller sized nori sheets now all seem to be bathed in seed oils except for this one brand (GimMe Organic). A reputable brand of large sheets is Honest Sea.
Vegetables can be pickled (e.g. sugar free pickles are sold at Broth Bar & Larder) or fermented (e.g. our sauerkraut through into a salad).
Add a small piece of fruit if desired for an additional carbohydrate source. Always team fruit with quality fats and proteins and not alone so as to avoid an insulin spike and crash (the fats slow down the release of blood sugars) and to ensure that the vitamins and minerals in the fruit are properly absorbed (as they are fat soluble). For example the English have strawberries and cream, the Italians have rockmelon with prosciutto and the Cypriots have watermelon with haloumi cheese. Such wisdom in ancestral diets!
Treats (free of refined sugars and other artificial ingredients), should be kept to an occasional offering and not a daily staple due to the sugar content (even natural concentrated sweeteners should be consumed sparingly!). At Broth Bar & Larder we sell a range of nutrient-dense treats including bliss balls, power bars, carob bears (sweetener free!!), gummies, and raw dark chocolate. These are all infused with loads of healthy fats such as raw cacao butter, coconut oils, or activated nuts.
Other ideas – if wanting to bake something try my banana date walnut loaf and other recipes in the recipes section of my website.
containers, water bottles, soft pack eskis etc.
Lunch boxes - opt for stainless steel if possible. Also invest in some insulated containers to keep food cold (e.g. yogurt) or hot (soup, casserole).
Water bottles – opt for stainless steel and not plastic. There are numerous brands sold at various homeware, health food and organic stores.
Soft pack eskis – these have built in icepacks so simply pop their lunch boxes in there to keep cold. Once again there are numerous brands sold at various homeware, health food and organic stores. Howards Storage World has a good variety. Or simply use an icepack next to their lunch box.
Happy lunch box prepping! I hope the first few weeks of school are kind on kids and mamas alike.
Love Soulla x