How to Choose a Lunch Box

By eHow Parenting Editor

Your choice of lunch box reflects your inner self. Are you strong and quirky like an old metal lunch box? Light and colorful like a plastic lunch box? Or soft and cozy like a lunch bag? Here are some things to consider when choosing your lunch box.

Things You’ll Need:

  • Brown Paper Sacks
  • Lunch Bags
  • Thermoses
  • Napkins
  • Plastic Food Containers
  • Plastic Forks
  • Plastic Spoons
  • Ice Packs
  • Lunch Boxes

Step1

Consider what you'll use the lunch box to carry. Use a tough metal or plastic lunch box to protect foods that can bruise, break or smush. If you plan to pack your foods in plastic containers, a soft lunch bag is fine.

Step2

Choose a lunch box or lunch bag that is large enough to accommodate all your items without having them move around when jostled.

Step3

Consider how you'll be handling your lunch box. If you'll have to fit it in your backpack or book bag, a hard exterior will keep your food from being squashed.

Step4

Purchase a soft-bodied, insulated lunch bag if you'll be carrying items that need to be kept cool or hot. Few hard-shell lunch boxes offer insulation.

Step5

Purchase an insulated beverage container (either with the lunch box or separately) just in case you decide to bring along a little soup, coffee or another beverage.

Step6

Think about the image you'd like to project to your coworkers and companions, and choose your lunch box accordingly. Most plastic and metal lunch boxes will carry images of some sort, including superheroes, cartoon characters and even political figures.

Tips for a healthy lunchbox


Read our tips on making successful sandwiches, adding something a bit different to lunchboxes and choosing healthier options.

On this page

Making sandwiches

Something different

Healthier alternatives to sweets

Drinks

Reducing salt, fat and sugar

Making sandwiches

Try to keep a selection of breads in the freezer for sandwiches. Then you can just take out what you need for one day's lunchbox and defrost it on a plate or in the microwave.

Using a different type of bread each day can make lunchboxes more interesting. Try granary, wholemeal and raisin bread, multi-grain and seed rolls, mini wholemeal baguettes, bagels and wholemeal pitta.

If your child refuses to eat brown bread at first, try buying 'whole white' sliced bread (white bread made with one-third wholemeal flour). Or you could make a sandwich from one slice of whole white bread and one slice of wholemeal/brown bread.

  • Always try to add a little salad to a sandwich.
  • To avoid soggy sandwiches, make sure that you dry salad with kitchen paper or a salad spinner before you add it to the sandwich. Or you could put cucumber sticks and cherry tomatoes in a separate sandwich bag.
  • Try to use less butter or margarine and avoid mayonnaise if you can, or use lower-fat versions.
  • Pick low-fat sandwich fillings, such as lean meats, including ham or turkey, fish (such as tuna or salmon), cottage cheese, Edam, mozzarella, or sliced banana.

Something different

On cold days, you could give your child some soup in a vacuum flask, with some wholemeal or granary bread. If you have time, you could make your own soup - tomato, chicken and sweetcorn, and vegetable soup are healthy options that are quick and easy to make. You could add lentils and barley to thicken the soup but try to avoid adding salt. If you buy soup, try to choose varieties that are low in salt.

  • In the summer, salads are light and refreshing and full of essential vitamins and minerals. Try to include a variety of different salad vegetables - for example radish, grated carrot, spinach, tomato and spring onion. You could also sprinkle an assortment of seeds over the salad (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and pine nuts) or dried fruit such as sultanas, raisins or chopped apricots.
  • Make a rice salad using cooked brown rice and lentils - you could add chunks of cooked aubergine, pepper slices, chopped spring onions and pieces of cooked turkey or chicken. Pasta salads are also a good option. Try mixing cooked pasta with tuna and avocado, or chicken, sweetcorn, cherry tomato and spinach leaves.

  • Home-made pizza is also a great choice. Why not make a pizza together for an evening meal and save some for the next day's lunchbox? On the pizza base, put a tomato and basil sauce/paste, mozzarella cheese and plenty of chopped vegetables - peppers, onion, mushrooms and sliced courgettes. You could also make a mini pizza using a wholemeal muffin cut in half and topped with vegetables or ham. Toast this under a grill for a couple of minutes for a fun and different snack.

  • Try adding a slice of home-made Spanish omelette with potato, courgette and tomato, or broccoli and tomato quiche. You could also have these for an evening meal and then save a bit for the next day. If you make your own quiche, don't add salt. If you buy quiche, try to choose options that are lower in salt and fat.
  • Don't forget to add some vegetables to your child's lunchbox, such as cherry tomatoes, or sticks of carrot, cucumber, celery and peppers. Raw sugar snap peas are also a good choice because they are naturally sweet and crunchy.


Healthier alternatives to sweets

Fruit salad makes a great dessert. You could make an exotic version with blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and grapes, or a more traditional version with apples, bananas, grapes and oranges. This will count towards your child's five daily portions of fruit and veg.

  • Try adding a handful of dried fruit, such as raisins, apricots, figs or prunes - these can also count as a portion of fruit and veg and this is a way to encourage your child to try new foods.

  • Try different desserts, such as stewed fruit (without added sugar). You could add a spoonful or two of natural yoghurt to the fruit, or sprinkle some rolled oats and seeds on the top for extra crunch.
  • Instead of cakes, chocolates and biscuits, try scones, currant buns (without icing) and fruit bread.

  • Make sure that your child gets enough calcium by adding a slice of cheese, yoghurt (preferably sugar-free or low in sugar) or rice pudding, choosing low-fat versions where possible.


Drinks

Always include a drink to go to keep your child hydrated and help them concentrate. Go for still/sparkling water, semi-skimmed or skimmed milk, or unsweetened fruit juice.

Add a fruit smoothie made from natural yoghurt, mixed berries and maybe a dash of honey, or maybe a home-made milkshake (try mixing semi-skimmed milk with puréed strawberries or raspberries).

Reducing salt, fat and sugar

When you're choosing foods for your child's lunchbox, always try to watch out for the levels of salt, fat and sugar. If you're buying foods, you can find out how much salt, fat and sugar they contain by looking at the label.

Reducing salt

  • Always check food labels for the salt or sodium content. If sodium is listed and you want to convert this to salt, you multiply the sodium figure by 2.5.
  • A product is high in salt if it contains 1.5g or more of salt per 100g or 0.6g or more of sodium per 100g. A product is low in salt if it contains 0.3g or less of salt per 100g or 0.1g or less of sodium.
  • Cut down on foods that are often high in salt, such as processed meat, cheese, and smoked fish.
  • If you make your own foods (e.g. pasta, quiche, and bread) for your child's lunchbox, try to use less salt or leave it out altogether.
  • When making sandwiches, go easy with sauces and pickles because these are usually very high in salt.

Reducing fat

  • Always check the food label for fat content. As a guide, a food is high in fat if it contains 20g or more of fat per 100g and is low in fat if it contains 3g or less per 100g. A food is high in saturated fat (also known as saturates) if it contains 5g or more per 100g and is low in saturated fat if it contains 1.5g or less per 100g.
  • Use butter, margarine, mayonnaise or salad dressings sparingly, because these can be high in fat, or choose low-fat spreads instead.
  • Use full-fat cheese or cheese spreads sparingly.
  • Watch out for meat pies, pasties, fried foods and salami, because these tend to be high in fat.
  • Choose lean cuts of meat and take the skin off chicken.

Reducing sugar

  • Always read the label of any food you are buying for your child's lunchbox. Some foods can contain sugar that you might not expect to contain it.
  • A product is high in sugar if it contains 15g or more of sugar per 100g. A product is low in sugar if it contains 5g or less per 100g.
  • Watch out on the ingredients list for other words used to describe sugar, such as sucrose, glucose (syrup), fructose, hydrolysed starch and invert sugar. The higher up the ingredients list they come, the higher in sugar the foods are.
  • For drinks, go for still/sparkling water, semi-skimmed or skimmed milk, unsweetened fruit juice and/or smoothies or yoghurt drinks, rather than squashes and sweet fizzy drinks.
  • Instead of sweets and chocolate, give your child fresh or dried fruit to snack on. Alternatively, you could try sunflower and pumpkin seeds or vegetable sticks and cherry tomatoes.
  • If you bake at home for your child's lunchbox, cut down on the sugar that you add. Try using fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, raisins or fruit purées to add sweetness.

Sunday, 20 December 2009

School Lunch Laws Are Unenforceable, Says USDA

GOOD Blog > Nikhil Swaminathan on December 17, 2009 at 8:07 am PST

school-lunchMore disturbing news as USA Today continues its exposé on the abysmal state of school lunches. The headline of its most recent article: 26,500 school cafeterias are not properly inspected, leaving U.S. children susceptible to foodborne disease pathogens, such as norovirus. That's roughly 30 percent of schools in the U.S.

The National School Lunch Program mandates that school cafeterias, which serve 31 million students nationwide, be inspected twice during a school year to make sure their facilities and storage practices are up to snuff. The USDA, according to the piece, admits its "the rule is almost impossible to enforce." That's because the language of the law requires that states report how many of their schools are failing—and not which ones are the health hazards.

The paper does include a template for fixing the status quo, in the form of the Westchester County, New York school district. In response to 16 percent of its schools getting tagged with failing to meet inspections, its health department fired its food supplier and renovated the kitchen of its most infamous school. Now, only one cafeteria in the district wasn't up to par.

The problem with all this is that, like Jack in the Box, these template institutions are waiting until they're fingered as failures before they step up to become paragons of safety. USA Today reports that there have been at least 23,000 foodborne disease cases linked to school cafeterias during the decade from 1998 to 2007. Put in perspective, that's actually not a huge number; but it's 23,000 more than is acceptable.

Photo by Flickr user bookgrl.
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Friday, 20 November 2009

Taiwan mandates recycling of PLA containers

By Mike Verespej, Plastics News
Posted 19 November 2009 9:54 am GMT

Bioresin manufacturer NatureWorks says the Taiwan government’s plan to mandate recycling for bottles and containers made from polylactic acid is a directive that could help drive the recycling of products made from PLA in that country.
“It is forward-thinking,” said Steve Davies, director of communications and public affairs for the Minnetonka, Minn., which makes nearly all the PLA sold globally at its plant in Blair, Neb., which has a nameplate capacity of 300 million pounds. “It sets the stage for recyclers to separate and recycle PLA” in Taiwan.

But Huang Chien-Ming, president of Taiwanese PLA compounder and machinery maker Minima Technology, believes that the Taiwan government should focus on building up the country’s composting infrastructure instead of trying to recycle PLA containers.

Stephen Shu-hung Shen, minister of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration, said Taiwan will officially list PLA containers as recyclable items by the end of November, and put into place arrangements for PLA recycling by March 1.

He said the agency will ask beverage and food manufacturers to clearly mark containers and bottles made from PLA.

“This is a top-down government directive that would drive PLA recycling,” said Davies in a phone interview. “I am glad the Taiwan EPA has placed a foot on the ground” with this planned initiative.

A green policy adopted in Taiwan in 2003 placed restrictions on the type of disposable containers that could be used, but most non-plastic materials, including PLA, have been exempt from that directive.

There is only a limited amount of mechanical recycling of PLA today in Taiwan, including one such operation at NatureWorks’ Taiwan distributor for non-fibre applications, Wei Mon Industry Co. Ltd., in Taipei City, that is used to recover PLA material from its thermoforming partners.

Recycling of PLA has several challenges because it looks identical to conventional plastics and it requires the use of expensive near infrared technology or black light marking to distinguish it at recycling stations.

Davies said Wei Mon supplies a network of more than 100 plastics converters in Taiwan and has very close relationships with six to 10 large converters.

“Wei Mon is in discussions with those companies and with high-volume recyclers” in each of Taiwan’s counties on how to best recycle PLA, he said.

Estimates of the amount of PLA used in Taiwan vary widely with NatureWorks estimating it to be 15,000 metric tonnes and the Taiwan EPA estimating it to be 15 million metric tonnes. Davies said two-thirds of the PLA containers made in Taiwan are exported to other countries, including the U.S.

“In terms of plastics in Taiwan, we represent a small fraction,” Davies said.

Dan Sawyer, manager of the Asia Pacific operations for NatureWorks, said brand owners globally are starting to take steps to clearly identify PLA containers. Companies in the US and Asia are beginning to use brown or green stripes on their packaging as a visual aid for recyclers, Sawyer said. “There are some systems starting to develop because it is in the best interest of brand owners to have a simple scheme.”

In addition, NatureWorks said it supports proposed changes by ASTM International to the plastics industry resin identification code that would create a separate category, number and recycling symbol for PLA.

Huang, meanwhile, said recycling PLA might cause problems with PET recycling because of the difficulty in separating the two materials. He also argued that recycled PLA loses its properties quickly compared to traditional thermoplastics.

Speaking at the EcoExpo Asia show in Hong Kong last month, Huang also argued that recycled PLA loses its properties quickly compared to traditional thermoplastics.

“After the second recycling [cycle], the performance will decrease a lot for biodegradable materials,” said Huang, who is also past president of the Environmentally Biodegradable Polymers Association in Taiwan. He said he was speaking for his company, and not as a representative of the association.

Davies said that NatureWorks believes there is room to both recycle and to compost PLA products.

“From our experience, there is not one single answer,” Davies said. He said composting makes sense for PLA products “heavily contaminated with food. But where the product is relatively clean, it makes sense to recycle and reuse the material because you can recapture some of the energy that was put into making the product.”

Long-range, Sawyer said that he believes Taiwan will have a “recycling material fee” for all plastics.

“We see a system developing that calls for extended producer responsibility where producers — the material importers, the converters and the brand owners — have to bear the cost of recycling.”

Plastics News Asia bureau chief Steve Toloken contributed to this report.
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Monday, 16 November 2009

Kids' Lunch Boxes 'Full Of Sugar And Salt'

Lulu Sinclair, Sky News Online
Children's lunch boxes may contain the equivalent of more than 12 teaspoons of sugar, according to one consumer group.
Kids' Lunch Boxes 'Full Of Sugar And Salt'
11:44am UK, Monday November 16, 2009
Lulu Sinclair, Sky News Online
Children's lunch boxes may contain the equivalent of more than 12 teaspoons of sugar, according to one consumer group.

Which? magazine assessed the nutritional content of several popular lunch box treats, and found some were "full of salt and sugar".
Snacks such as Dairylea Lunchables Ham 'n' Cheese Crackers contained 1.8g of salt, which is more than half the recommended daily amount for a four to six-year-old child.
A 200ml Robinsons Fruit Shoot orange juice drink was found to contain 23g of sugar, which is equal to almost five teaspoons.
Kellogg's Frosties Cereal and Milk Bars contained seven different sugars, which together made up almost a third of a 25g bar.
The consumer group is calling for tougher rules on products that make health and nutrition claims to help families choose healthier food.

"Parents should be able to pick out healthy products for their kids' lunch boxes but what you see isn't always what you get," said Which? editor Martyn Hocking.
"Some products give the impression of being healthy but are full of salt and sugar. The best way to beat the lunch box baddies is by checking the nutrition and ingredient information.
"We'd also like to see the rules on health and nutrition claims made tougher so that there's less confusion on the supermarket shelves."
But the food and drink manufacturing industry has hit back at the report, saying it seemed to be based on "flawed thinking".
"We haven't fully digested this particular magazine article, but on first reading it seems to be based on some flawed thinking and an apparently random survey," said the Food and Drink Federation's Julian Hunt.
"Retailers and manufacturers provide a wide variety of tasty products designed to fit a range of consumer needs and different eating occasions.

"Critically, we are also leading the way when it comes to the provision of clearer nutrition information on products so that busy mums can make better informed choices about the food and drinks they want to buy for their families when in the supermarket."
A spokesman for Robinsons Fruit Shoot drinks said: "We provide clear nutritional information on packs so that parents can make an informed choice about what suits them and their families."
School Food Trust chief executive Judy Hargadon said: "Our research also shows that packed lunches often aren't as nutritious as the well-balanced school lunches that almost three million children are now eating on a regular basis."
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Kids' Lunch Boxes 'Full Of Sugar And Salt'

Lulu Sinclair, Sky News Online
Children's lunch boxes may contain the equivalent of more than 12 teaspoons of sugar, according to one consumer group.
Kids' Lunch Boxes 'Full Of Sugar And Salt'
11:44am UK, Monday November 16, 2009
Lulu Sinclair, Sky News Online
Children's lunch boxes may contain the equivalent of more than 12 teaspoons of sugar, according to one consumer group.

Which? magazine assessed the nutritional content of several popular lunch box treats, and found some were "full of salt and sugar".
Snacks such as Dairylea Lunchables Ham 'n' Cheese Crackers contained 1.8g of salt, which is more than half the recommended daily amount for a four to six-year-old child.
A 200ml Robinsons Fruit Shoot orange juice drink was found to contain 23g of sugar, which is equal to almost five teaspoons.
Kellogg's Frosties Cereal and Milk Bars contained seven different sugars, which together made up almost a third of a 25g bar.
The consumer group is calling for tougher rules on products that make health and nutrition claims to help families choose healthier food.

"Parents should be able to pick out healthy products for their kids' lunch boxes but what you see isn't always what you get," said Which? editor Martyn Hocking.
"Some products give the impression of being healthy but are full of salt and sugar. The best way to beat the lunch box baddies is by checking the nutrition and ingredient information.
"We'd also like to see the rules on health and nutrition claims made tougher so that there's less confusion on the supermarket shelves."
But the food and drink manufacturing industry has hit back at the report, saying it seemed to be based on "flawed thinking".
"We haven't fully digested this particular magazine article, but on first reading it seems to be based on some flawed thinking and an apparently random survey," said the Food and Drink Federation's Julian Hunt.
"Retailers and manufacturers provide a wide variety of tasty products designed to fit a range of consumer needs and different eating occasions.

"Critically, we are also leading the way when it comes to the provision of clearer nutrition information on products so that busy mums can make better informed choices about the food and drinks they want to buy for their families when in the supermarket."
A spokesman for Robinsons Fruit Shoot drinks said: "We provide clear nutritional information on packs so that parents can make an informed choice about what suits them and their families."
School Food Trust chief executive Judy Hargadon said: "Our research also shows that packed lunches often aren't as nutritious as the well-balanced school lunches that almost three million children are now eating on a regular basis."
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Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Search on for Somer Thompson's tote bag, lunch box

Monday, November 9, 2009
ORANGE PARK -- The Somer Thompson case made national headlines Saturday night as it aired on "America's Most Wanted."

During the program, two sketches were shown. Clay County deputies believe the tote bag and round lunch box with a pink pig design belonged to the 7-year-old.

Witnesses say they think she may have had the items with her when she was last seen walking on Gano Avenue.

Investigators say neither items have been found.

So far, authorities have received nearly 3,000 tips in Thompson's case, but no arrests have been made.

The Orange Park girl disappeared two weeks ago on her walk home from school.

She was found during an exhaustive search of a landfill 50 miles away, where trash from her neighborhood is taken over the Florida/Georgia border.

If you have any information on the case, call (877) 227-6911, or e-mail CART@claysheriff.com.
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