1 Shopping List, 5 Lunches, 1 Hour

It can be done. With one list and one hour, here’s how you can pack lunches for the whole week on Sunday night.    

Article from ziploc (pinterest)

Healthy Lunch Box Idea

Busy kids need a healthy school lunch to boost their energy and help them concentrate and learn in the afternoon. With our top lunch box tips and a 5-day lunch box meal plan, you’ll find packing a healthy lunch to nourish your kids a breeze!

Ensure you include a range of fresh fruit and vegetables and vary the food daily so kids don’t become bored.   

Top tips for a healthy lunch box
• Always include fresh fruit and vegetables.  Vary the selection to keep it interesting.
• Offer a variety of whole grain breads, rolls, pita bread and flat breads.
• Use avocado as a spread instead of butter or margarine.
• Use reduced fat dairy foods. Cheese and yoghurt are ideal.
• Kids need a serve of protein at lunchtime. Ensure you include lean meat, egg, peanut butter, chickpeas or tuna.
• Add a chilled bottle of water and limit juice.
Keep it fresh - packing the lunchbox
It’s important to keep food in the lunch box cold to inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria. 

Pack the school lunch in an insulated lunch box and include a small freezer brick or freeze a bottle of water and pop it into the lunchbox to keep food cool.

Helpful tips for adding fresh fruit and vegetables to lunch boxes
• Kids like fresh fruit cut and ready to eat.  Fruit salad is the ideal lunch box solution; it’s colourful, easy to eat and bursting with vitamins.
• Offer different seasonal fruits each day for a change in flavour, colour and texture.
• Freeze fruits in the summer or for sport days.  Simply pop the frozen fruit into a small sealable plastic bag or airtight container.
• If including whole fruit in the lunchbox, select fruit that is a suitable size for a child to easily hold in their hand and eat (this is particulary important for younger children).
• Peel and slice or cut fruit if possible and choose seedless varieties of grapes, watermelon and Imperial mandarins.
• If you’re added tomato to sandwiches, place the tomato between fillings and not directly onto the bread.  This prevents the bread becoming soggy.
• When using avocado, mash or drizzle with a little lemon or lime juice to prevent the avocado from discolouring.
• Mild tasting and crunchy lettuce varieties like Iceberg and Oak leaf and Lebanese cucumbers are ideal for kids.
• Add leftover (or cook extra) roast pumpkin or sweet potato to sandwiches, wraps and roll fillings.  Naturally sweet and loaded with beneficial antioxidants, roast vegetables team well with a range of fillings.
• Make salads or salad sandwich fillings interesting by using a range of vegetables like grated carrot, snow pea sprouts, lettuce or rocket or baby spinach, sliced celery, tomatoes, avocado and cucumber.
• Use a vegetable peeler to slice cucumber into thin ribbons for sandwich fillings.
Fresh for Kids have created a 5 Day Healthy Lunch Box Meal Plan and a Quick, Recess, Lunch and Snack Recipe Booklet which are free to download to give parents some fun and healthy ideas for their children’s school lunch boxes.

Quick Recess, Lunch and Snack Recipe Booklet Edition 4

Ojue Lunch Box Stackable designer bento set

Blending the Japanese love of bento (lunch boxes) with stylish modern design, the chic Ojue Lunch Box lets you store and carry your lunch vertically. Avoid the drawbacks of traditionally wide-bottomed Tupperware which often gets upended when placed in a bag, spilling your lunch onto important files or electronic notebooks.
 
Ideal for people with slim bags or just design-lovers, the Ojue is minimalist functionalism par excellence. Inside the lunch box are three layers of containers that stack neatly one on top of the other, perfect for store your main course, side salad or desert. It also comes with matching chopsticks for the final cool Japan touch, storing neatly in a recess in the lunch boxes’ lid.


The Ojue Lunch Box features:

• Three stackable containers
• Upper: 140ml
• Middle: 300ml
• Lower: 300ml
• Colors: white, black, brown, pink and light green
• Size: 160x 160.5 × 55mm (6.29 x 6.31 x 2.16")
• Weight: 300g
• Materials: ABS resin (outer case), polypropylene (body), polyethylene (containers)
• Comes with matching chopsticks
• Instructions: Japanese onl

Five Trends to Watch in 2012: Part 1

Last year at this time, I itemized trends for 2011.

As before, my disclaimer remains the same: I am directly tapping my professional experiences of the last year, including discussions with customers, prospects, partners, peers and colleagues. I am referencing my own research and analysis, and I may have also consulted the Internet for its wisdom, but any similarities to published work of others are strictly coincidental. These are my own five areas of addressable interactive marketing I will be monitoring, in which I will be expanding my knowledge, creating strategic plans for the coming year. Let’s start with the Trend One, the rest to come…

#1 – Mobile and social own the conversation. 2011 was a year where marketers understood the importance and value of mobile and social paradigms, and acquired familiarity with the technologies and opportunities, and competence with channel engagement or campaign execution. 2012 will see the continuing tipping of the scales. Campaign execution will transition into a modified holistic view of consumer interaction where mobile and social elements represent the crux of digital consumer engagement, not outlying or niche channels.

In many of my presentations, I quote from Vic Gundotra of Google from 2010. “Focus on the mobile user,” Mr. Gundotra stated, “and all else will follow.” At the time he was the engineering lead for Google’s mobile platforms. Not coincidentally he is now the engineering lead for social platforms, including Google+. We can certainly infer that if this statement was modified for today, he would clarify it is the mobile-social user that stands at the center of the universe.

What Google has understood is that the concepts of mobility and socialization have the potential to be pervasive to every type of online activity. For consumers, mobility and socialization translate to tangible things like convenience, immediacy, information, exploration, communication, action and more.

So every digital campaign element in 2012 must be optimized for mobile interaction, and must inherently foster socialization concepts such as sharing or liking. Or rather, to paraphrase Mr. Gundotra, mobile and social concepts must be the focus of marketer’s strategies, not just add-on channel afterthoughts.

And what smart marketers will realize this year is a mobile and social focus isn’t necessary so as to drive revenue and sales through dedicated m-commerce or f-commerce channels. Mobile and social are the key drivers that will represent success and improved ROI across a brand’s buying channels – whether retail, wholesale, catalog or call center, e-commerce, m-commerce or f-commerce.

More trends to come. Stay tuned!

Five Trends to Watch in 2012: Part 2

On Wednesday I began what has now become a yearly tradition of sharing some of the direct digital marketing trends I think will make a big impact this year.

I started off with trend one of five: Mobile and Social Own the Conversation. 2011 was a year where marketers understood the importance and value of mobile and social paradigms and 2012 will see the continuing tipping of the scales. Campaign execution will transition into a modified holistic view of consumer interaction where mobile and social elements represent the crux of digital consumer engagement, not outlying or niche channels.

Let’s take a look at the second trend I’ll be keeping an eye on:

#2 – Understanding multi-screen profiles In 2012 digital consumers are multi-screen consumers. In my 2011 piece, I identified the “four screens and counting” dilemma. The prevalence of multiple wired screens within reach of the digital consumer during the course of the day (TV, desktop/laptop computer, tablet, and smartphone) creates hurdles for marketers. This means increasing technical complexity from an execution standpoint, and fractured views of individual consumers. Even though cross-channel consumer data (another focus for marketers in 2012) is important and becoming a more tangible reality every day, the concept of communicating with an individual profile across their four screens is still elusive.

2012 will be the year that marketers begin to make sense of the fractured multi-screen profile, both in terms of creating a single holistic view of this device-hopping user and better understanding the inherent schizophrenic behavior that comes with multi-device use habits.

About a month ago I read about IBM’s efforts to re-think and re-design the venerable email inbox specifically for mobile (smartphone) users. Why? Because research clearly shows that the same person has far different priorities and traits when accessing their email inbox from their smartphone vs. their desktop computer. It’s the same person; it’s the same email in their inbox. But the mere difference of the device being used to access the inbox makes all the difference in the world to turning priorities and user traits upside down.

As direct digital marketers in 2012 we have two mandates for understanding multi-screen profiles: use the increasingly powerful tools at techniques at our disposal to aggregate user and activity data from cross-channel activities into consolidated consumer profiles, yet be wary of using that single consolidated profile view to dictate segmentation and targeting regardless of the point of interaction. We can aggregate attributes like demographics, purchase history, browsing behavior and more, and create increasingly actionable insights. But these insights may always be trumped by the specific needs and desires signaled to us by the user’s device of the moment. While the primary online shopper within a young family may always buy the large box of diapers at Amazon with standard ground shipping, the same shopper while on a mobile device may only be interested in the small box and rush shipping.

Understanding, reacting to and creating a smarter view of these multi-screen profiles is an imperative for 2012 – and a trend to watch.

Check back next week for the rest of my trends to watch!

http://lunchpail.knotice.com

Tips & Warnings

• The time-tested brown paper sack is an alternative to lunch boxes. Though it is practical - it never needs to be cleaned - it may not be the most ecologically sound choice.
• When purchasing a vintage metal lunch box, be aware of the lunch box rating system: 10 equals mint condition; a 9 has little apparent wear; 8 equals some wear or damage to the rim; a 7 will have a few dents, scratches and dings; 6 means dents, rust and chipped paint; a 5 will have serious damage.
• Lunch boxes often become collector's items, so hold on to yours even if you don't use it anymore.

Kids Konserve Stainless Lunchbox and Cool Eco Party Gear

Posted by: Meg In: Lunchbox Products

10% OFF COUPON CODE: xoxo

If you are in the quest for a non-plastic lunchbox, consider the stainless steel lunchbox offered by Kids Konserve. Their $42 Lunchkits include a recycled cotton sack containing a stainless drink bottle, 2 stainless steel food containers, a food kozy, cloth napkin, and recylced aluminum name tag. The lunchbox is plastic-free with the exception of the Food Kozy that provides a great alternative to ziploc bags. The Food Kozies are made of recycled, FDA approved plastic that is non-toxic, non-leaching, and recyclable PE plastic. All of the Kids Konserve products are Bisphenol-A (BPA) free.

After years of smelling stinky vinyl lunchboxes, I am a big fan of washable lunch gear. The Kids Konserve lunchbox is fully washable, with suggested cleaning as follows:

• Recycled Cotton Lunch Sack: Machine wash cold, line dry
• Stainless Steel Bottle and lid- Hand wash warm soapy water
• Round Food Containers and Lids – Dishwasher safe
• Napkin – Machine wash, machine dry,light iron or lay flat on top dryer to dry
• Food Kozy – Hand wash with warm soapy water

If you aren’t interested in the whole lunch kit, you can buy items individually or in sets. For instance, a set of 5 Food Kozies is $25. Plus, if you buy the lunch kit it is nice to know you can buy replacement parts for items that get lost or worn out over time.

Another cool item Kids Konserve sells is the reusable Party Pak for school classrooms, picnics & birthday parties. It contains a set of 25 7″ plates, 16 oz. tumblers, and forks, knives & spoons–all made from 100% recycled plastic yogurt containers! These seem like such a great idea to me since every kid get-together seems to result in an entire bag full of thrown away plates and cups. Since the party pack items are top rack dishwasher safe, they make cleanup easy, too! The 25 pack is $55 and they also sell a 12 pack for $35.

Kids Konserve has offered a 10% off coupon for purchases made through May 31, 2009. Visit their online catalog and enter coupon code xoxo. If you make a purchase or currently use any of their products, let us know what you think!

Lunch Box

By Brenda Layman Lunch on the go can be as tasty and nutritious as a home-cooked and served meal. Busy students and employees don’t have to depend on fast-food and cafeteria fare. With a bit of planning, lunches brought from home can make that midday break something special.
Convenient containers and insulated carriers allow greater versatility than ever when it comes to carrying food. Changing up the lunch routine with bountiful brown bag repasts or tempting lunch box fare provides healthier diets along with more enjoyable and cost-conscious eating. The best meals on the go meet certain criteria. They are nutritious, convenient, appropriately portioned, and appetizing. Instead of buying fast food, which can be expensive and high in fat, sodium, and calories, folks can control the quality of home-packed foods. It’s easier to ensure that foods prepared at home are kosher, organic, or locally grown.
Fluffy, white sandwich buns can be replaced with whole-grain bread. Fat-filled fries may, technically, be considered a vegetable, but crisp salad greens are a better choice for good health. Strapping young athletes can carry hearty meals that don’t leave them hungry, while children and others with small appetites won’t waste food they can’t finish. Best of all, lunches made at home and packed with care have an appeal that mass-produced meals can’t match. Pack Lunches that Maximize Nutrition Two good guidelines for lunchbox selections are to include at least three food groups and to avoid foods that are high in calories but low in nutritional value, like bags of chips or prepackaged sweets. Such foods take up a lot of room in the lunch kit, and they don’t pull their weight in terms of food value. Children tend to eat desserts and snack foods first and often they have no appetite for the rest of the meal. An inventory of the contents of a school lunchroom trash bin will yield shocking results. Sandwiches, vegetables, and fresh fruits are packed by loving parents, then carried to school only to be thrown out with the rubbish! Wasted money and lost nutrition can be minimized with a different approach. Lunches that contain a protein, a whole grain, and a fruit or vegetable, omitting salty chips and sweets, will increase the likelihood that hungry children will eat the nutritious food that is sent. When parents just can’t resist including a treat, a single small cookie or candy provides a little touch of sweetness without taking over lunchtime. Even better, parents can teach children to pack their own lunches, providing lessons in nutrition while encouraging independence and positive decision-making skills. A child who has created and packed her own lunch can enjoy both good food and a sense of accomplishment. Home Packed Lunches Allow Portion Control In restaurants, people with small appetites are often confronted with more food than they want, and end up wasting part of the large portions. When children encounter portions larger than their appetites demand, they usually just throw away the leftovers. Very young children may balk at eating anything when they are faced with portions that appear overwhelming. Folks with large appetites, such as teens, pregnant and lactating women, and people whose work or leisure activities are physically demanding, will find average cafeteria portions too small. In short, portion size is rarely one-size-fits-all. Packing lunches at home gives complete control over quantity as well as quality. Half a sandwich may be an appropriate serving for a young child or his petite grandmother. The high-school linebacker or hard-working builder can wrap up a hearty submarine sandwich stuffed with protein. Large portions of salads, fresh fruits and vegetables, and whole grain breads provide a lot of satisfaction with minimal calories. Packing Lunches Saves Money and Time Packing lunches at home is a more economical choice. Bringing lunch from home is less costly, whether it goes to school or to work. Foods can be bought in bulk or even home-grown, eliminating a great deal of expensive packaging and handling. Adults who don’t have children’s meals to consider will still be motivated to plan nourishing dinners that can double as lunches when they consider the savings involved. Keeping track of money spent in restaurants and cafeterias for just one month and comparing that figure to the cost of bringing lunches from home will reveal just how cost-effective lunch box repasts can be. When the cost of transportation to and from restaurants is added to the price of restaurant meals, their actual price is even higher. Enjoying the convenience of a packed lunch also yields extra time during the lunch break for an invigorating walk or just a few moments of relaxation. Appetizing Presentations Make Lunches More Appealing The Japanese have long regarded the packed lunch as an opportunity to create meals that are visually appealing as well as portable and healthful. Japanese lunch boxes called bento are popular with adults and children alike. A bento is a compartmentalized box. Traditionally, half of the box is filled with rice. The remaining compartments are filled with proteins such as egg, sausage, or fish, and vegetables. Apples or tangerines are frequently used for desserts. Apricot is often added to the box, as this fruit is believed to keep rice fresh. Japanese families prepare dinner meals with the bento in mind, taking care to include foods that can be put aside and packed for the next day’s lunches. Mothers take great care with the arrangement of food in bentos, frequently cutting sausages or other foods in patterns and shapes that resemble animals or flowers. People from other cultures can take the bento concept and make it their own. Using color, shape, and flavors in ways that stimulate interest and appetite, families can make lunch creation a fun, shared activity. Children will enjoy creating “Ants on a Log,” celery sticks filled with peanut or soynut butter and dotted with raisins. Using cookie cutters to make sandwich bread into fun shapes is another fun idea for children’s lunches. Bread scraps can be saved for poultry dressings or cubed and toasted to make salad croutons. Convenient Packaging Enhances Packed Meals Stylish, insulated food carriers hold lunch items securely without the traditional brown-bag issues involving bruised bananas or sandwiches that have been squashed flat by apples. Resealable sandwich containers, wide-mouthed insulated jars, and small, reusable containers for condiments and dressings make it easy to include non-traditional lunchbox choices such as tossed salads, soups, and sandwiches with juicy tomatoes and other moist ingredients. Departing from the old-fashioned trilogy of bologna, peanut butter, and cheese sandwiches opens up a whole new world of portable lunch selections. With the great containers available today, the sky’s the limit when it comes to dreaming up imaginative take-along meals. These containers also cut down on the trash that is generated from packaging on convenience foods and frozen meals. Entrepreneurs Tammy Pelstring and Amy Hemmert have developed a company called Laptop Lunches. The two women met in a new mothers group in 1995 and became friends and jogging partners. In 2001, they realized that there was a need to provide convenient alternatives to the commercially packaged foods that children were bringing to school. They imagined convenient, economical food containers that would be appealing to kids. After conducting a nationwide survey and finding strong support for their idea, they developed Bento-ware. Bento-ware is manufactured in California from plastics that are FDA-approved for food use. The outer containers are fitted with smaller containers to hold different foods. A website and newsletter compliments the containers by providing recipes, menu ideas, an online store, and a wealth of other information to keep Bento-ware users happily packing attractive, tasty, nutritious, and nearly waste-free lunches. For more information about Bento-ware, visit their website at http://www.laptoplunches.com/ContactUs.html. The site is also a great source of lunch suggestions that anyone can use, whether or not they decide to purchase Bento-ware. What makes a bento box differ from a plastic tub of leftovers is presentation, not the container. Planning meals so that leftovers are available for lunches is both clever and economical. When the whole family joins in the planning, important lessons about wise use of time and money are learned. Creating lunches from a variety of fresh ingredients also gives meals a pleasing appearance. Fruits and vegetables, not packaging, provide appetizing color. Convenience foods often rely on attractive, colorful packaging for visual appeal. The food inside rarely compares to the “serving suggestion” pictured on the box. With lunches packed at home, the food inside will be exactly as expected. Anticipating a lunch that is guaranteed to look appetizing, taste good, and satisfy hunger without straining the budget makes lunch more than just a food break. Packing well-planned meals can make lunchtime a pleasant oasis in anyone’s busy day. Brenda Layman is a freelance writer who lives in Pickerington, Ohio, with her husband of 29 years, Mark. She is a fishing enthusiast (fanatic?) who firmly believes in the healing power of the human spirit. When she is not on the water or in the woods, Brenda spends her time writing for Greenmaple Wellness Inc. and Ohio Valley Outdoors magazine. Brenda is also the author of Song of Joy, a Guide to Recovery from Sorrow.