Power Moms Unite

It may seem too early to be thinking about heading back to school, but it’s not too early to start planning for the new year. It is so easy to get into a brown bag rut. As the holidays approach and creativity and energy wane, kids begin clamoring for the school lunch over a boring packed lunch. While convenient, research has shown that school lunches contribute to obesity among children of all ages. Bag lunches give parents more control over what their kids are eating.

Take what is left of winter break to experiment and poll your kids at lunch and snacktime. “What appeals to you, that might be packed in a brown bag lunch?” Try peanut butter on celery and cream cheese on celery (a nice peanut free alternative.) Try a soup or stew recipes for lunch tomorrow.  It might make an easy brown bag lunch in the future. Epicuirous.com has a list of healthy alternatives to the usual and often boring peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Fabulous foods also has some recipes for “PB and J” alternatives, though they lean more toward the sophisticated child palate and seem like they might be prohibitively time consuming to prepare. About: Busy Cooks appeared to have the most promising recipes for kid brown bag success in a timely manner. The bologna slaw wrap sandwich and crispy tuna recipe looked especially promising. Brown Bag Success is a great book filled with other ideas. It got great mom reviews except a complaint from one mom about too many peanut butter sandwich variations.

Happy experimenting!