Packing Healthy Lunches

Packing lunches is tricky with 3 kiddos.  At dinner time, I am pretty strict about "this is what's for dinner," because I don't want to become a short order cook or create picky eaters.  School lunch is a different story.  I want to send them all food that they like and that I know will fuel their bodies to help them get through the rest of the day.  Being 3 different people, they like 3 different things, but I am trying my best to streamline lunch packing for my own sanity!

I used to be pretty lax with lunch packing and would pack them a lot of prepackaged, convenience foods.  They were all really picky and would only eat junk and things from a kids menu, like hot dogs, etc.  We slowly started introducing more fruits and veggies and stopped buying the junk and I am shocked to say that although it was a process, they are doing much better with healthy eating!  I want to have a good balance between crazy health nut and allowing them to be kids.  Disclaimer, I am in no way a nutritionist, nor claim to have any clue as to what I'm doing, but this is the formula that I have come up with to try and make lunch packing a little easier:

1 protein
1 fruit
1 veggie
1 salty
1 sweet

A typical lunch for my 12 year old will look something like this:

Baked chicken on a baby spinach salad, hummus with corn chips, cantaloup and blueberries, protein balls (recipe below) and an Arbonne energy fizz drink.


9 year old will eat this:

Baked chicken on a lettuce salad, hummus and chips, cantaloupe with blueberries and a fruit rope.


7 year old is a lot pickier than the other two, but making progress!

Baked chicken (skip the salad, but he will eat some carrot slices with ranch), gf mini pretzels, just blueberries (skip the cantaloupe) and protein balls.


Protein balls recipe made with Arbonne's vegan protein powder.

6 scoops Arbonne protein powder
1 cup nut butter of choice (my kiddos are allergic to peanuts and prefer The Sneaky Chef yellow pea butter or Jiff cashew butter)
1/4 cup of honey
A handful of your favorite dried fruit, dark chocolate chips, etc.

Directions: Microwave the nut butter and honey for 15-20 seconds to help it mix easier.
Add the dry ingredients and mix
Form little bite sized balls with your hands
The consistency has to be almost like play dough, so if you need to make it a little dryer, add some more protein or if it needs a little moisture, add a splash of almond milk.
Store them in a zip top baggie or container in the refrigerator.

(The one pictured has chocolate protein, dehydrated strawberries and dark chocolate chips.  Their favorite has vanilla protein and dehydrated blueberries and some oats.)

Do you have any healthy lunch menu items that are a hit with your kids?