7 Back-To-School Lunch Prep Hacks
Video Transcript:
Hi everybody. Today, we're talking about seven back-to-school lunch prep, hacks. And I think you're going to love these. Some of these like I wish I had known 20 years ago and I bet you're going to feel the same.
So you'll have to let me know what your favorite one is in the comments below at the end of the video. I also just filmed a video about five back-to-school lunch ideas because if you like this one, you might also like that video.
So I'm Ashley Oswald owner of Oswald Digestive Clinic where we help people improve and eliminate bothersome gut issues like gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, and more. If you or somebody you know wants to work with our clinic, start by scheduling an appointment with us. Without further ado, let's talk about these lunch prep hacks.
7 Back-To-School Lunch Prep Hacks
Frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Number one is frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Yes. I know you can freeze PB and J can you believe it? And so all you have to do is take the bread.
If your kiddo is gluten-free as mentioned, in the other video, Costco makes a really good gluten-free bread. There are some other brands out there too. So just take that, put the peanut butter on the bread, otherwise, it's going to get a bit soggy, put the jam on the inside.
The key is to buy quality nut butter, so it doesn't have to be peanut butter. I know a lot of schools don't allow peanut butter anymore, so it could be like sunflower seed butter, almond butter, or cashew butter, there are lots of nuts and seeds butters out there now. And then jam, just really looking for a jam that doesn't have a bunch of added sugar.
Nut Butter
For the nut butter, look for something without a bunch of like hydrogenated oils. I could even make a whole video about how to choose good quality nut butter and jam. It's gotten a little bit ridiculous that I even have to make a video about that, but unfortunately, there are a lot of bad products on the market in those categories right now.
So anyway, I digress, do that and smash it together. You could take a big cookie cutter and make it into a fun design. Certainly, that gets rid of the crust. If your kiddo doesn't like the crust and then just freeze it and it'll keep in the freezer.
I've heard for at least a few weeks, I've heard up to a month. Honestly, I haven't done this one myself. I actually just recently learned about it.
But yes, that can make it so much easier. You prep it once a month, and keep a bunch of them in the freezer. And it goes back to like in our other video, we're talking about having your kids make their own lunches, so that can just be a grab-and-go option for them.
And then on the topic of sandwiches, I added a couple more bonuses to this number one because I guess I had more than seven tricks I wanted to share with you. So I just added these here.
Avocados
Avocados, you can cover them with water and they're not going to brown. So if you want to cut an avocado in half, put it in a container, cover it with water, and it's going to keep for a few days without browning. So such a good trick, right?
The next one is for other types of sandwiches, instead of making it in the morning to where it might get soggy by lunchtime, you could simply put the bread separate from the sandwich ingredients and then have your kiddo make it at lunchtime.
Chips
And lastly, if you're sending your kid with some sort of chip, like maybe it's banana chips or sweet potato chips, put some extra air in the baggie, blow some extra in the baggie, zip it, and the chips aren't going to get crushed.
Frozen Sponge
Number two, if you are out of ice packs, or if you want something a bit lighter for your kid to carry around, you can just fill a sponge with water and freeze that, and that can be used as an ice pack. And you could do that with a couple of sponges and a much more affordable option. If you're again, just out of ice packs.
Frozen Smoothies
Number three is frozen smoothies. So you can actually make smoothies maybe twice a week, freeze them, and can be another grab-and-go for your kiddo. And as mentioned in the last video, this can make it easy for kids that don't have a lot of time to eat lunch and or who want to spend most of their time out playing so that they can get proper nutrition versus some kids I've heard just don't even eat lunch cause they want to play the whole time.
So at least they're getting some nutrition from drinking a smoothie. If it's frozen, maybe it's in a brown bag. It'll thaw by the time lunch comes around and I've mentioned in the other video, just really make sure that there's enough nutrition in that smoothie. That's the biggest mistake that people make with smoothies.
They add too much fruit, and not enough healthy fat and protein. So it's not filling at all. And the kid or even the adults will get hungry within a couple of hours after drinking it. And that can cause them to have a hard time focusing in class.
Apples
All right. Number four is when you cut an apple, so I mean, first of all, if your kid could just eat an apple whole, I mean, that's better, less prep time for you, but if you have younger kids and you're cutting up an apple into slices, then maybe putting it with like sunflower seed butter for dipping so that they're getting some protein with that carbohydrate from the apple, you can cut it and then put it back together.
Exactly. Like it was like the real apple and put a rubber band around it. This is the best trick for preventing an apple from browning. I know when I was growing up, we would always put lemon juice water on top of the apple on it sort of worked. This trick is even better. I'm surprised I just also learned about that one a couple of weeks ago.
Don't make separate lunch
And then number six is to not make a separate lunch at all. Just make more food at dinner the night before. And then the second part of this trick is in the morning, you can actually heat up that food, even if it's like not a soup, you would normally think of as soup in a thermos, but you can heat it up and put it in a thermos because that will save your kid time.
If they have to wait in line for a microwave at school, uh, because the thermos will keep it nice and hot. And again, sometimes we don't think of using a thermos for things that aren't soup, but it could be a really great trick.
Let your kids prepare their own lunch
So last but not least number seven is maybe my favorite trick because I don't like to cook or even meal prep makes lunches, but to have your kids make their own. And as mentioned in our last video, I think we often underestimate kids' ability to do things.
And if you just give them all the tools and all the options, stocked to maybe a kid lunch fridge, with a lot of fun containers, they can even pick out their own reusable baggies and things just have them make their own lunches the night before, saving you a ton of time, making sure they get what they want to eat for lunch, give them plenty of healthy options and I shared tons of ideas in our last video.
And so I hope you enjoy these tricks, let me know what your favorite one was or is I think for me it's maybe that rubber band around the apple one or honestly the frozen peanut butter and jelly. Yep. That's my favorite one.
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