Creative "Cold Lunch" Cuisine

If you're a parent of school-age kids, you're probably no stranger to brown bananas and smashed sandwiches aging in the bottom of your child's backpack. By the end of the school year, most kids are tired of eating the same bag lunches day after day at school. Even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches can grow old.

These lunchbox ideas are based on four key elements:

Include more whole foods and less processed foods. Choose lunch items with higher amounts of fiber and nutrients children need (like calcium, protein, and vitamin C). Include fewer processed foods such as cookies, chips, and snack cakes, which have higher sodium, added sugar, and saturated fat.
Be creative. Think outside the lunchbox. Does your child enjoy spanakopita triangles, Chinese chicken salad, or veggie/soy corn dogs at home? With a little forethought and a reusable cold pack, you can probably pack them for lunch, too.
Keep it cold. For safety's sake, pack lunch with a reusable ice pack. Better yet, freeze a small water bottle or box of 100% juice. Your child will have a slushy drink to enjoy at lunch and won't have to worry about bringing an ice pack home.
Keep it fun. Include items that kids can stack or mix up to their taste when they eat. Remember that kids like to dunk, and include healthy dips with vegetables or other items. Cut foods into fun shapes with cookie cutters.

Cool cold lunch recipes:

• Pasta Lover's Lunch Salad. Pack a cold pasta salad and a plastic fork, and your pasta lover will love you, too! Make the salad with turkey, pepperoni, ham, or low-fat cheese (so it has some protein), lots of vegetables to boost fiber and nutrition, and whole wheat or whole-grain pasta. Toss everything together with a light bottled vinaigrette made with extra virgin olive oil or canola oil.

• Mediterranean Pita Pocket. Fill a pita pocket with feta, veggies, falafel balls, and some homemade or store-bought hummus. Some falafel balls come cooked and ready to add.

• PB Pocket.  Fill a whole grain pita pocket with peanut better, jelly, bananas, apples, raisins or all the above.  Hearty, fun, fabulous sandwich that will make the other school kids jealous.

• Everything's better on a bagel.  Provide a mini cream cheese to spread on the bagel or make a sandwich like you usually would, but with bagel instead of bread.  Turkey, cheese, ham, peanut butter and jelly, lettuce, tomato, etc.

• It's a Wrap! Wraps are a nice change of pace from the usual sandwich. Use a high-fiber multigrain flour tortilla, available in most supermarkets. Spread on mustard, hummus, light salad dressing, or green or sundried tomato pesto. Then fill 'er up with chicken Caesar salad or assorted lean meats, cheese, tomato, sliced onion, and shredded Romaine lettuce. Just roll it up and wrap in foil. Kids can eat it like a burrito -- by unwrapping it on one end and working their way down.

• Noodle Soup Cups. Many schools offer a hot water dispenser so older kids (or young kids with assistance) can add hot water to packaged noodle soup cups.  Some brands are lower in sodium and fat, and higher in fiber, than others.

• Veggie Sushi. Not all kids will go for this, but some children really like seaweed-wrapped sushi rolls. You can now buy pre-made sushi at many supermarkets. Choose sushi that is filled with veggies (such as avocado and cucumber) so there's no chance that it will get a little "fishy" in your child's backpack.

• Fun Fried Rice. When made with eggs, tofu or chopped lean meat, and lots of veggies, cold fried rice can be a satisfying noontime treat. Make your own using brown rice. Or set some aside for the next day when you get take-out Chinese food for dinner.

• BBQ Chicken Sandwich. Your child can assemble a yummy BBQ grilled chicken sandwich fresh at lunchtime. Just pack a grilled, boneless, skinless chicken breast with some lettuce and sliced tomato in one baggie and a whole-wheat bun in another. Add a packet of BBQ sauce and it's good to go.

• Fruit Sandwich.  Layer whole wheat bread with, cottage cheese, soft cream cheese, pineapple slices (or mix pineapple bits into cream cheese, chopped dried fruits, apple slices, shredded Swiss cheese.

• Ravioli.  Fill your child's thermos with HOT ravioli.  They should stay reasonably warm.

• Cheese tortellini.  Cook the tortellini.  Cool.  Mix in with vegetables and shredded mozzarella or Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil, vinaigrette or zesty Italian dressing and salt and pepper.  Put in a  thermos or tight tupperware container.

Tasty Side Dishes:

Add some of these to round out your child’s lunch:

Fruit cups (with no sugar added)

Applesauce in flavors such as pomegranate or cranberry-raspberry (also with no sugar added)

Nuts or seeds in a shell (if age and allergy appropriate), such as walnuts, pistachios, peanuts, or sunflower seeds

Raw veggies (ready to pack) such as carrot sticks, sugar snap peas, celery, or jicama sticks

Cheese sticks -- available in 2% sharp cheddar, part skim-milk mozzarella, pepper jack, and more

Healthy snack bars (individually wrapped) with 3 or more grams of fiber, less than 10 grams sugar, and no more than 1 gram saturated fat.

Yogurt in individual containers (keep it cold by packing them with a reusable ice pack or a small water bottle that has been frozen.)

Daring Drinks

• Bug Juice.  Mix green HiC cooler, dash of sprite, key lime yogurt.  Blend together and pour into thermos. Freeze overnight so it stays cold in child's lunch bag.
• Flavored lemonade.  Mix instant lemonade with a T. of your favorite koolaid - cherry, berry, orange, etc. Freeze overnight so it stays cold in child's lunch bag.
• Orange Julius.  1/2 of a 6 ounce can frozen orange juice concentrate, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup whole milk, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 5 or 6 ice cubes.  Blend up. Pour into child's thermos.   Freeze overnight so it stays cold in child's lunch bag.