Advice for school lunches

horrorfan

Sometimes I'm just running too late in the morning and I can't pack my lunch. On those days I have to eat the cafeteria food. Any advice on how to log this stuff when there's absolutely no nutritional info available??

_Resolve_

Pack lunch the night before?

horrorfan

Pack lunch the night before?

Some nights I go to work right after school and get home at 10. Then I still have to eat dinner and do homework in an hour in order to get a good nights sleep.

sfbaumgarten

Pack lunch the night before?

Some nights I go to work right after school and get home at 10. Then I still have to eat dinner and do homework in an hour in order to get a good nights sleep.

Excuses. We're all busy. Pack your lunch.

I do all of my food prep on Sundays so I can grab and go through the week.

_Resolve_

Pack lunch the night before?

Some nights I go to work right after school and get home at 10. Then I still have to eat dinner and do homework in an hour in order to get a good nights sleep.

Yeap life is busy, I get up at 4:30 am, to the gym for an hour and a half then go o work for 10 hours. Home by 7, eat dinner, pack a lunch and pass out.

Sometimes you need to just do what needs to get done, or be hungry and eat cafeteria food.

I make a huge salad twice a week and cook chicken or steak and add it to the salad. That is usually my staple for lunch every day.

Nedra19455

Can you request info from your school district's nutrition services department? If I remember correctly, this information should be available, since some parents/kids need to know for specific medical reasons.

If not, then estimate as best you can from other entries in the database and try to avoid it, whenever possible. Maybe bribe a sibling to help make your lunch for you?

Psychgrrl

I usually pack mine the night before. I put frozen veggies and protein into a pyrex dish and then microwave it. Today's lunch was a cup of chopped spinach and a pouch of tuna. My mid morning snack was 1/2 cup frozen mango, 1/2 frozen raspberries (they'd thawed by the time I ate them).

My second meal is a cup of green beans and four gardein "chicken" tenders. I LOVE those things (the 7 grain ones). I have that about 3:30-4. That gives it time to settle before I hit them gym.

horrorfan

Pack lunch the night before?

Some nights I go to work right after school and get home at 10. Then I still have to eat dinner and do homework in an hour in order to get a good nights sleep.

Excuses. We're all busy. Pack your lunch.

I do all of my food prep on Sundays so I can grab and go through the week.

An excuse would be "I just get tired". I physically have to be in bed by 11 in order to wake up the next day and not be stressed, tired, etc which have huge affects on my weight. I am asking what to do on those days (which we all have) when I just can't pack a lunch. For example there was a period of time where I had to be at school earlier so I had to be in bed earlier and barely had time to eat dinner. The second part of your post was helpful though, thank you. I might consider that

horrorfan

Can you request info from your school district's nutrition services department? If I remember correctly, this information should be available, since some parents/kids need to know for specific medical reasons.

If not, then estimate as best you can from other entries in the database and try to avoid it, whenever possible. Maybe bribe a sibling to help make your lunch for you?

I will definitely try to request it. I looked at their nutritional page and its set up in a very weird way.

horrorfan

I usually pack mine the night before. I put frozen veggies and protein into a pyrex dish and then microwave it. Today's lunch was a cup of chopped spinach and a pouch of tuna. My mid morning snack was 1/2 cup frozen mango, 1/2 frozen raspberries (they'd thawed by the time I ate them).

My second meal is a cup of green beans and four gardein "chicken" tenders. I LOVE those things (the 7 grain ones). I have that about 3:30-4. That gives it time to settle before I hit them gym.

This was very helpful! I just need to get through the next three weeks before school ends. I might just buy tuna or something canned that I don't have to cook. I LOVE gardein!!! I like their beefless tips and their chicken strips so much!!

For snack I usually only have one cause breakfast is at 8:00 and lunch is at 12:30 so I never get hungry. My 3:00 snack when I get home is usually fruit and some protein!

gaydeen

Most school lunches have the calorie count listed on the district's website. If they do not have there, every district has a dietitian, so you can email them and ask.

moseler

Have you checked with your district's Health and Nutrition Department? They are supposed to post the nutritional values for all items they serve by date. I am a teacher and if by horrible chance I have to eat the food from the cafeteria... I check the website information.

If you can't get that information... I would pack a lunch the night before. My go to items for lunch include chicken breast, greek yogurt, apples, grapes, baby belle cheese, carrot sticks, sugar snap peas, Otria Greek Yogurt dips, nuts... just to name a few. I throw in an ice pack to help keep things cold or I freeze a water bottle.

Good luck to you!

amykr93

I don't understand people who are telling the OP to "stop making excuses".

And 'excuse' would be saying that she had no time to ever prep a lunch: she was asking about what to do on certain days when she cannot, for whatever reason. Sometimes people just don't have time to follow something 24/7, it's life, it happens.

OP: I would email the district you go to school and ask for nutritional information. Otherwise I would do something quick and cheerful, prepping a salad would take 5-10 minutes max and then you could just grab a can of tuna or stick chicken in the oven to cook while you eat and do homework, then take it out and either leave as is or cut it up before adding it.
That's what I used to do when prepping dinners for work in between uni work, getting my son ready for the babysitter etc.

walking_the_labyrinth

I would just pick the most straightfoward foods available...is there a salad bar? A sandwich that has reasonable sized bread and you can control the amount of condiments?