Here’s my dilemma as a mother (well, I have many but let’s focus on this one): I refuse to send my kids off to school with junk-filled lunches. Despite the litany of “but the other kids get soda in their lunches….and cheese puffs…and candy bars”, major meany that I am, I continue to send high-quality proteins with a veggie, a fruit and water. To hear the grumblings when I pick them up, and to see the uneaten items shoved to the back of the fridge, you’d think I was packing them frog’s eyes and hemlock. Yet having them eat hot lunch has not been a better alternative, nutritionally speaking.
Fortunately, they now go to a school that has gotten on the healthy lunch bandwagon. A company called Revolution Foods is offering healthier, high-quality, well-balanced school lunches. Thankfully, my kids have loved every lunch they’ve had so far. Their favorite is the pasta with meat sauce and the chicken caesar salad. Even though I have packed them similar things in the past, they are more receptive to it because it’s NOT COMING FROM ME! Like so many things, sometimes kids need to hear it, see it, experience it from someone else before they’ll actually believe what you’ve been telling them for years.
For more information about what Revolution Foods is doing, including how to incorporate their healthier ideas into your family’s meal plans, go to the Colorado Parent website and click on “Meet Nicholas Saccaro” who is the vice president and general manager of Revolution Foods in Colorado.
Now, because the Revolution Foods lunches are priced a little higher than “regular” school lunches, I occasionally pack lunches for my kids. Because it is apparently important in the world of packed lunches to have pre-packaged goods in order to be cool (what-ever!), I was glad to hear that Revolution Foods has created a line of packaged goodies that adhere to their philosophy of “never-evers” (no transfats, no high fructose corn syrup and no artificial ingredients).
They offer a Jammy Sammy, a wheat-free sammy bar made with fruit and/or peanut butter such as Peanut Butter & Strawberry. Similar to a toaster “pastry”, the Grammy Sammy has a soft-baked bar filled with organic yogurt such as Cinnamon Graham & Vanilla Yogurt and Cocoa Graham & Banana Yogurt. My kids loved the Grammy Sammys but found the Jammy Sammys to be a little dry without a glass of milk at the ready. They also loved PopAlongs, a healthier version of a potato chip. These are wheat-free, popped chips made with whole grain rice, corn and oats. They come in original, Cheesy Cheese and Simply Cinnamon flavors. Their favorite by far was the Mashups. Organic fruit like Berry, Grape, Tropical and the really yummy Strawberry Banana is pureed and put in squeezy pouches. They can be frozen too which serves double duty as a food cooler in their lunch bag. Besides tasting good, I think it was the “squish factor” that made this particular product stand out to my kids. The best part for them was that their junk food-eating peers were oooing and ahhhing over THEIR lunches. Score one for Mom and another one for not giving in!
As a very nice tie-in, 3% of the net product sales of Lunchbox Simplicity is donated to support the Revolution Foods school lunch programs to bring healthy meals to under-served schools across the country.
Lunchbox Simplicity(TM) items are available at Whole Foods and online through their website. To learn more about Revolution Foods, visit www.revfoods.com.
Everyone Around the Table 
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