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You are here: Home / FOOD / Packed lunches for parents who have better things to do

Packed lunches for parents who have better things to do

September 1, 2014 by Molly 4 Comments

When my daughter started pre-school last September the thing she was most excited about was her lunch. Ironically, this was also the thing I was least excited about. Making a packed lunch regularly was never going to make it to the top of my list of favourite things to do with my time.

pre-school

This is her this time last year, on her first day at pre-school. The night before I’d made her a packed lunch to take with her. It was my first foray into the realm of lunchboxes and it’s fair to say I didn’t enjoy making it. Call me a bad mother, but I think there are SO many things more exciting than putting together a packed lunch.

Over the year, however, my hatred of the packed lunch softened. So much so, in fact, that this year I will kind of miss them. Frog starts school next week and, like lots of youngsters, she’ll be making the most of the new government scheme offering all children in Reception up to Year 2 free school meals. Mind you, she’s already announced that she may change her mind and have packed lunches if the school dinners aren’t up to scratch – and that’s fine by me.

Mornings are busy in our house. Once we’ve got past the tooth brushing battles and dramas over which pants to wear (and that’s just me), we inevitably hit a wall with choosing breakfast or wanting to watch TV. And with a new baby on the way, I know things are going to get even busier. So if Frog does decide she wants a packed lunch then it’ll need to be made the night before. But the night before I will also have work to do, a baby to settle and – at some point – sleep to catch up on. That means I don’t have twenty minutes to faff about with a packed lunch.

Packed lunch solutions that have helped me: 

Stocking up on little packets of healthy treats helped me hugely. For example, Frog loves the Organix range of rice cakes and dried fruit packets. It takes approximately one second to grab one of these packets from the cupboard and chuck it into a lunchbox.

Leftovers are your friend. Whenever I made pasta I would always keep a little to one side and then put it in a pot with some chopped up tomatoes, cucumber, grated cheese and ham or tuna. Sometimes I’d make a big batch of it and use it a couple of days in a row, or have it for my own lunch too.

Ditto for tortilla wraps. Fajitas are a favourite meal in our house and we always end up with the odd unloved wrap leftover. Throw in some grated cheese, salad and any leftover cooked chicken from the meal and you’ve got a ready-made wrap sandwich for next day’s packed lunch. (By the way, there’s a great recipe for a cheddar and grated courgette wrap on the Organix website, if you’re that way inclined.)

I’m sure there are a million more ways you can save time making quick packed lunches, without compromising on the healthy aspect. For more ideas check out the #NoJunk challenge over at Organix, as they ask us to take a closer look at what our kids are eating and cut out the rubbish.

Have you got any good tips for making tasty packed lunches at high speed?

 

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Disclosure: This post is written in collaboration with Organix. 

 

 

Filed Under: FOOD Tagged With: healthy eating, lunchboxes, packed lunches

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Comments

  1. MummyandMonkeys says

    September 11, 2014 at 9:14 am

    I sometimes make it more interesting by using a large star shaped cutter to make a star sandwich. I also have mini ones that I cut cucumber into shapes. There are some great ideas on Pinterest, wish I had the time! X

    Reply
    • Molly says

      September 11, 2014 at 9:40 am

      We have a cloud cutter and a star cutter which F loves – although I’m not sure I’d be able to find the time to do that every day! x

      Reply
  2. The Breastest News says

    September 3, 2014 at 5:58 pm

    Great ideas 🙂

    I’d love to make up a fancy packed lunch for Logan every day however I have zero time as it is and he’s so used to getting a hot meal/ dinner from nursery so we went for school meals instead. The menu looks ok and we got to go and try it with them on a school visit so so far so good.

    Reply
  3. Jess @ Along Came Cherry says

    September 1, 2014 at 2:00 pm

    Cherry is staying for lunch two days a week at preschool when she goes back and that’s enough to make me freak out! I just know we are going to have mornings where the bread is mouldy and there is nothing to go in her lunch! x

    Reply

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Hello and welcome! I'm Molly Forbes - podcaster, presenter and blogger with a passion for positivity, confidence and body image chat. Regularly writing and vlogging about empowering female issues from a motherhood angle, I also cover lifestyle and fashion topics for like-minded mums who want to rediscover themselves after having children. Thanks for stopping by! Read More…

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Hey 👋 how are you? I watched The Social Dilemma Hey 👋 how are you? I watched The Social Dilemma and nothing will be the same again 🤯 In fact I couldn’t bring myself to post for a full week.
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Here’s the thing: social media is bad for health and bad for democracy. Misinformation spreads like wildfire, we live in echo chambers which amplify the division in society and all the while the addictive hit of dopamine and validation keeps us coming back for more. 
.
The algorithm doesn’t care about our reason for being here (no matter how worthy you think your mission might be). The algorithm just cares about keeping you here longer. We are not the customer, we are the product. 
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BUT social media also gives us connection, community, new ideas and space to explore our identity too. It’s not always bad.
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SO what now?
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✨We can post less. Particularly those who write about health - being on social media too much is bad for health so we need to consider the part we play in keeping people here. 
✨We can shun the internet pile-on and refuse to stoke the flames. Ask yourself, are you genuinely trying to do good and create change by calling out that person (and yes, celebs count as people)... or are you just trying to further your own profile? And if you’re following a pile-on: remember nuance exists and there’s often more than one side to a story.
✨ We can fact check before we share stuff. 
✨ We can follow a diverse range of opinions. Echo chambers create division - and society is more divided than ever.
✨ We can turn off notifications. We can create boundaries - phone free times (and maybe even rooms). We can talk to our kids about this too.
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The irony of posting this on social media is not lost on me. Social media CAN be a force for good, but we’re heading in the wrong direction. Take the good bits. Use it less. Spread joy. Cancel hate. Live more away from a screen ❤️ Any thoughts?
Dear PE teachers (and everyone), don’t do this 💔
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If you’re a PE teacher and you’re interested in engaging more kids in class then lose the diet culture and body shaming messaging - even if it’s meant in jest. Research shows kids who feel comfortable in their body are more likely to take part in sports, and movement is for ALL bodies, not just the kids with super athletic toned ones. 
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Want more insight and help with this stuff? Sign up to a Body Happy Kids workshop - we’ve got you. Oh, and read Train Happy by @tallyrye in the meantime.
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And parents - if your kids experience this type of messaging in their school setting absolutely challenge it. We’ve got a template letter on the #FreeFromDiets website you can tweak and a downloadable info pack about the workshops you can send to your school if you’d like them to sign up. Just hit the Workshops link in my bio and scroll down towards the bottom of the page.
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Creating a body happy setting can: 
⚡️increase engagement in class 
⚡️increase engagement in movement 
⚡️increase academic attainment 
⚡️increase happiness, confidence and overall wellbeing
⚡️help kids be more likely to engage in health promoting behaviours 
(And that’s just for starters).
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PS. I’m not coming for teachers - my husband is one. BUT research shows weight bias is often more common in PE teachers than other subject areas so this is a conversation worth having. 
#BodyHappyKids
I turn 37 in three weeks. When I was younger I use I turn 37 in three weeks. When I was younger I used to think 37 was old. It was “grown-up”, boring, over-the-hill. 
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By the time you were 37 you had your life figured out, wore sensible clothes and had waved goodbye to the fun stuff. 
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It’s no surprise I thought that really. Women aged 37 and over - particularly mums - were invisible. The only representations of older women on screen were the matriarchs. Ad campaigns and magazines featured young women in their “prime” (side note: 🤮 hate that phrase - what does “prime” even mean? We’re not cuts of meat. “Prime” baby making age? Is making babies all we’re good for?!)
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There was no space for any other version of women over 35. Women over 35 weren’t playful, fun, adventurous, sexual, curious. Women over 35 were Responsible, Sensible, Dutiful.
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Well that’s not what 37 is going to look like for me. Sure I do school runs and meet deadlines and wash smelly socks. But I also play and dance and adventure and enjoy my body. I feel like I’m just getting going to be honest. 
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37 is going to be a big year. I’m excited. I’m ready. And I’m certainly not invisible. Bring it on.
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#BirthdayCountdown #MumsGoneWild
Every year @GirlGuiding publishes something called Every year @GirlGuiding publishes something called the Girls’ Attitudes Survey. It’s a big piece of research into the thoughts and feelings of the girls in their community and gives an insight into some of the things that are important to girls and young women in the UK today. 
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The early findings of the 2020 survey have been released and the headline is (surprise, surprise) girls feel under intense pressure to look a certain way and it’s damaging their confidence and wellbeing. 
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Here are some of the stats:
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⚡️80% of girls and young women have considered changing how they look. 
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⚡️51% of girls aged 7-10 believe women are judged more on what they look like than what they can do (this figure is up from 35% in 2016).
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There’s also the finding that two thirds of girls support legislation to stop them seeing ads for diet products and weight loss clubs. 
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It makes for pretty devastating reading but is worth looking at, particularly if you have a daughter - I’ll link to the early findings in my Stories and the full report will be out next month.
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These girls are telling us not only do they feel this intense pressure to look a certain way, but that it’s causing them pain. They are telling us they don’t want the pressure, the ads, the constant barrage of negativity making them feel insecure about their appearance and their body. It’s costing them their wellbeing, confidence and health. 
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It’s time to listen.
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Sign the #FreeFromDiets petition. Tell your kids’ school about the Body Happy Kids Workshop for teachers. Call out diet culture when you see it (particularly when it comes for your kids). There are more resources in my bio as well as a post on media literacy further down my grid too. It doesn’t have to be this way. 💕✨ #BodyHappyKids
My babies started Year 1 & Year 6 today and as I w My babies started Year 1 & Year 6 today and as I waved them off to school after months of being home, it got me thinking about how my relationship with their first home has changed: my body. ❤️
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I have thin privilege but I’ve still often felt like my body was “wrong”. Why? Because like many of us I live in a society that taught me to fear fatness and idolise thinness from an early age. 
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Internalised fatphobia ran so deep that even after my body performed its most miraculous feat of my life - growing and birthing a human - I feared the softness of my belly.
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I justified the internalised fat phobia by telling myself it was about health, believing that health was a simplified concept I could control and monitor by a number on the scales. 
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And even when I started to suspect diets weren’t healthy I still failed to recognise the total system of oppression that diet culture is, how it harms so very many people including children, how it creates a culture where discriminating against people over their weight is seen as acceptable under the guise of health concern.
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I believe we will never end body-based oppression until we do the internal work too, rejecting diet culture & internalised fat phobia. Then we can challenge the health “facts” we’re sold by a multi billion £ industry, and investigate why we’re so ready to accept government diet culture infused health policy when we’re quick to question other policies.
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It starts with us showing body acceptance to our children, teaching them ALL bodies are good bodies, giving them the tools to question anyone who says otherwise. 
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This is not just about raising children at peace in their body. It’s about raising children who grow to challenge a system that harms us all, but particularly those in marginalised bodies. 
.
For me, it started with exploring my feelings about my babies’ first home. ❤️
A little story about 🩸periods🩸 and intuitive A little story about 🩸periods🩸 and intuitive movement and diet culture - here’s the headline: DIET CULTURE MESSES UP OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR BODY AND THIS HARM RUNS DEEP.
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Let me explain. 
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This was me last week. We hiked up a hill and when we got to the top the sky turned a murky shade of grey. Within seconds we were being pelted by hail and rain. It was GLORIOUS. I felt ALIVE.
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Not so this week. Because this week I got my period. And instead of relaxing into it, being gentle with myself, I battled it. I got frustrated with myself when exhaustion hit and my brain felt soupy. I tried to dig deep to find my spark, my energy, I felt guilt at missing swim sessions I’d booked. 
.
Why? Because diet culture runs deep. I examined it and realised I was feeling guilt at what I’d told myself I “should” be doing, rather than what my body *actually* needed. “No one regrets a workout! It’ll pep you up! Energise you!” Said the voice. But my body was bleeding and I was tired to my bones. I didn’t feel like it. And I felt like I was letting some invisible person down. 
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Last night I gave myself permission to be gentle. Cancelled all my swim sessions for a couple of days. Had a bath and put on my comfiest PJs. Turned off my laptop and phone, watched a film and had an early night. It’s what my body needed, and once I actually listened to it I felt so much better. 
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Embracing the seasons of my cycle and going with my natural energy levels is how I’m reclaiming my relationship with my body, I’ve decided. For me, this is the last internal bastion of rebellion against diet culture. And it’s (literally) bloody liberating 🩸⚡️💥
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