♥Hi Friends!

No grandbaby yet.  Patience is a virtue, huh!?!  Now on with my promised school lunch post…

My kids haven’t eaten a school lunch in years.  I just cannot bear to send my babies out in to the big wide world, empty handed, only to be forced to eat the toxic, processed food they serve in the school cafeteria.  It does nothing to increase their energy levels for the school day, let alone HEAL them in any way.  And it certainly isn’t good food for their brains!  Now that school has started again, I feel like in many ways I have a lot more control over what they eat than I do during our long hiatus filled with UNHEALTHY food from reunions, parties, campouts, cold treats, and all the other ‘SAD’ (Standard American Diet) food choices that seem to go along with Summer.

HEALTHY, HEALING school lunches require a completely different mindset for the whole family.  But as long as you make them fun and yummy, kids and/or spouses usually don’t have a hard time with the change.  I feel like Super Mom every day feeding them smoothies for breakfast and then sending them even more HEALING foods for lunch.  Yeah!  Go Katie!  I am however, well aware that I can’t shield them from eating UNHEALTHY things when they trade food with their friends at school (you know the famous “Lunch Swap”).  Or when they are older and get their driver’s license and leave campus with their friends for the fast food joints.  But I do my best to show them what HEALTHY food choices look like and hope they will continue to make those choices when they are no longer living under my roof.

You’d be surprised though at how much they learn to like the HEALING lunches you send them, as you educate them about the power of food and the SPIRITUAL, PHYSICAL and EMOTIONAL consequences from eating it.  Whether their choices are HEALTHY or UNHEALTHY, they learn to listen to and feel what their SPIRIT, BODY and MIND are telling them.  #4, my 17 year old, almost always takes his brown bag to eat when he and his buddies go for lunch at the off campus places they frequent.  Sometimes their friends like to tease my kids, but quite often they want to know where they get some of the things they bring for lunch.  My 9th grader and baby of the family, finds that her friends always want to eat her jicama!  What is jicama you say?  Check it out some time!

So, in an effort to help you overhaul your current school lunch menu (if it happens to be UNHEALTHY), here’s some ideas that I have learned through trial and error.  And if you have some other lunch ideas, please feel free to comment below.  I always love more options!

♥THERE’S 4 THINGS I ALWAYS TRY TO MAKE SURE IS IN THEIR LUNCHES:

1. FRESH VEGGIES-There are so many wonderful veggies available.  Send a mix of 2 or 3 or rotate a new one every day!  Here’s some of our favorites.

• broccoli
• carrots
• cauliflower
• celery
• cucumbers
• jicama (we love jicama, just slice/peel off the skin and cut in to sticks)
• peppers (red, orange or yellow are our favorites, whatever is on sale)
• sugar snap peas (these tend to spoil easy so freeze leftovers for smoothies)
• yams (We’re talkin’ fresh, peeled and sliced, and they taste great!)
• ‘HOMEMADE SALSA’ (See recipe below!)

2. FRESH FRUIT-I always try for fresh but sometimes in a pinch I send one of those Kirkland brand applesauce pouches from Costco.  A little tip: you can place your cut up melons in a ziplock baggie too. 

• apples (I generally slice them so I can save the core for smoothies, but that’s more work!)
• bananas
• blueberries
• cuties (mandarin oranges)
• melons
• oranges (I like to slice them and put a slit in the peel of each slice)
• strawberries (Cut the tops off and save for smoothies!)

3. NUTS-In some form, I try to get their HEALTHY fats in, but depending what the main course is, the nuts might not make it in the brown bag that day.

• Nut Butters-We like to use the Artisana Nut Butter pouches that they can squirt on each slice but you can also send an organic PB from Costco or elsewhere in a small container with the chocolate chips already mixed in for ease of dipping.  Delish!
• PB&J or PB&H-Make sure to use organic PB if possible or a brand with only peanuts and maybe some salt as the ingredients.

• Bag of Raw Nuts & Seeds-I send a little snack sized bag with my husband every morning. Click here for my post with examples of nuts and seeds.  I get many of them at Costco in the baking isle, as well as in bulk at health food stores or grocery stores like Whole Foods.  
• ‘MOM’S TOTALLY AWESOME TRAIL MIX’

4. MAIN COURSE-Often my main course includes something from veggies, fruits and nuts.

• PB&J or PB&H-Use an organic or few ingredient jam/jelly as well as raw honey.  Click here for my recipe for ‘BERRY FREEZER JAM’. 
• Sliced apple/Nut Butter/Dark Chocolate Chips-Send a sliced apple (put the core and stem in your smoothie) with nut butter  and Enjoy Life Mini Chocolate Chips they can sprinkle on top.  
• Cheese and Crackers-Grass fed raw cheddar (it should be a white color since that’s the original color of cheese) or Goat’s Milk Cheddar (white in color also) slices with Back to Nature crackers or Mary’s Gone Crackers are yummy.  I love the Back to Nature brand because it tastes like Ritz, Saltines, Wheat Thins and Trisquits without all the UNHEALTHY ingredients.  I find these at grocery stores (Smith’s in Utah, Target sometimes), Whole Foods and sometimes Costco.
• Hummus & Veggies/Crackers/Whole Grain Bread-Little single serve hummus is available at Costco for ease.  I’m putting together a warm hummus recipe that’s delish for Winter.
• Leftovers-I bought these thermos’s on Amazon.  Before school I just warm up soups, pasta dishes, mac-n-cheese (Annie’s or Back to Nature organic kinds from Costco or the grocery store), or any HEALTHY leftovers, and they stay hot until lunch time.
• Muffins-Homemade (recipes coming soon) or HEALTHY store bought (which are hard to find.)
• Chips, Salsa & Beans-Warm your beans, refried or whole, and put in thermos.  Maybe even a little raw cheese sprinkled on top.  You can omit the salsa if you want.

♥THESE I MAYBE SEND, MAYBE NOT, DEPENDING ON THE LUNCH:

1. TREATS/SNACKS

• Annies, Yum Earth, or Stretch Island Fruit Snacks-These are HEALTHIER alternatives to the other fruit snacks out there and I’ve seen them all at Costco at some time or another, as well as other grocery stores.
• Yum Earth Suckers-I purchase 5 poung bag of these on Amazon in for about $30.  They aren’t full of chemicals and are great for Halloween.  I also have them on hand when the neighbor children knock on my door. 
• Annie’s Crackers and Snacks-She has a line of sweet and savory crackers, snack mix, bunnies, or cookies.
• Clif Kid Organic Z Bars (Costco or Target)
• Kettle Brand Potato Chips (Costco, Whole Foods, Good Earth in Utah, some grocery stores)

2. DRINKS

• Water in a reuseable water bottle is just fine for lunch.  I don’t send any drinks (they are pretty much just sugar and void of raw enzymes and fiber) but if I did I’d send the organic 100% juice boxes available at Costco and other stores.

♥HERE’S SOME SAMPLE MENUS:

• PB&H, Kettle brand potato chips, veggies, fruit

• nut butter with sliced apple and chocolate chips, Annie’s crackers/snack mix, veggies, fruit
• hummus, with tortilla chips and veggies for dipping, Kid Z Bar or ‘MOM’S TOTALLY AWESOME TRAIL MIX’, fruit
• soup (or any leftover like pasta, etc), whole grain bread or crackers, veggies, fruit

• raw cheese, crackers, veggies, fruit, ‘MOM’S TOTALLY AWESOME TRAIL MIX’

• refried beans, tortilla chips, salsa or veggies, fruit, fruit snack

• muffin, veggies, fruit, ‘MOM’S TOTALLY AWESOME TRAIL MIX’
• salad with lots of veggies, apples or berries, nuts, and beans (or ingredients of choice), HEALTHY homemade dressing or Annies brand (a HEALTHIER choice than some), whole grain bread, fruit snack

One last thought.  I give myself a pass for all the plastic baggies and containers I use.  I find it a lovely dream to think I will never pollute the environment with anything toxic.  But alas, I don’t have enough brain space or time in the day to wash and worry about glass containers coming back with my kids.  I make enough good choices with the things I recycle and the chemicals we no longer use in our home or on the environment.  I simply can’t live in a place of unnecessary guilt (one of Satan’s most popular toxins!)  And neither should you!

♥Love you!  All of you!

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Another recipe for those garden tomatoes!  Or any tomatoes really.  And, homemade salsa is soooooooooo HEALTHY!  Wowza!!!  I use to put way too much onion and garlic in my homemade salsa and although those items are extremely HEALING (antibacterial, antifungal, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah) too much of them can over power salsa and make if hard for people to be in close proximity to you when you talk, breathe or sleep (sorry Honey)!  So here’s our recipe, with just the right amount of everything and a couple of spices to make it just that much better.  We think anyways!  This makes a big party size amount so cut recipe in half for a family dinner amount or after school snack of chips and salsa.  Although it will stay tasting good for about 3 days in the fridge.

HOMEMADE SALSA

• 3 pounds tomatoes
• 1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
• 1 medium-large garlic clove
• 2 slightly packed cups cilantro
• juice from 1 lime or 1/2 of a lemon or to taste
• 1 Tbsp raw honey
• 1 Tbsp ‘Real Salt’ or 1/2 Tbsp sea salt or more or less to taste
• 1 tsp ‘Simply Organic Lemon Pepper’ (My favorite brand.)
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• a pinch or two of ‘Simply Organic Crushed Red Pepper’ (Depending on your desired level of heat!)

In food processor place tomatoes that have been quartered, chopped onion, garlic and cilantro that have been slightly chopped, and along with the rest of the ingredients blend/process for 20 seconds.