5 ways to get your kids to eat their school lunches

With students back in school this week, parents across Manitoba are getting up early to prepare their lunches. So what can you do to make easy, affordable and appealing school meals?

Susie Erjavec Parker, the blogger behind WinnipegMom.ca, shares some of her tips for making school lunches that are kid-approved as well as easy on the family budget.

Erjavec Parker spoke with Information Radio host Marcy Markusa as she made lunches for her three children — including one who's starting kindergarten — early Wednesday morning.

1. Get your kids involved in deciding what's for lunch.

"We're looking at appetizing examples for lunch because our kids have come home with part of their lunches still in their bags, which is quite frustrating as parents — not only that they didn't eat that day, but that you're wasting money, right?" Erjavec Parker said.

"So we asked them at the beginning of this month to make a list of all the things that they would like to see in their lunch, within reason."

She and her husband learned that their children are not fans of sandwiches, so they're going to try mini-bagels — an alternative that her kids identified at the store — along with cream cheese and cucumbers.

2. Offer a variety of tastes and textures.

Erjavec Parker said she packs lunches with different tastes and textures: "Things like chicken salad, tuna salad, that you can send with rice crackers or maybe put Triscuits or something like that," she said.

Fruits and vegetables are a lunchbox essential, "So I always pack some like grapes or celery or mini-cucumbers and make sure they have a variety of tastes and textures in their lunches," she said.

Erjavec Parker said she's learned that her 10-year-old son likes radishes "because he likes the crunch and sort of the little bit of spice in it," while her eight-year-old son enjoys celery.

Both vegetables can be enjoyed with healthy dips such as hummus and yogurt dips, she added.

3. Hot dinners = warm lunches.

Erjavec Parker said one of her favourite meal ideas, especially as the weather gets chilly, is to make big dinners such as pastas, soups and stews and pack them into Thermos containers for lunch.

"I find that as the months get colder, especially in winter, they like to have a hot lunch," she explained.

"For me, that's actually easier to do because I'm not making that much more for dinner. I'm putting it in the fridge, in the morning I wake up, I'm heating up the Thermos and warming up that hot meal and putting it in there. It's super-easy."

4. Don't forget the protein.

Peanut-free schools can be tough sometimes for children, like Erjavec Parker's oldest son, who loves peanut butter sandwiches.

Since peanut butter substitutes don't appeal to him, Erjavec Parker said she makes sure some kind of protein gets into her son's lunches.

"So it becomes, again, a taste and texture thing for him," she said.

"You have to still pack protein, so hard-boiled eggs are one of the things that we do for him, sometimes just a little chicken breast cut in half with maybe some barbecue sauce for dipping — all those things that will help get their protein intake up during the day."

5. Don't count out leftovers.

We're not just talking about dinner leftovers — anything the kids don't eat from their lunches (like granola bars) could be put right back into the next day's lunch, Erjavec Parker said.

"You'd have to try at least five times to get them to try something new and like something, so don't pitch something at the first sign of, you know, them not liking it," she said.

"Try and reintroduce it again and stick with it until they give you a bona fide reason as to why they don't like that particular item."

Other time-saving lunch-making tips include making menus ahead of time, pre-making some lunch items on the weekends, and buying pre-cut vegetables.

What are your favourite school lunch ideas? Share them in the comments below.