Jenn here. Yasmine asked me to blog today, and we thought back to school lunches would a great topic for me to do this time. *grins*

As many of you know I not only have a number of furbabies in my home, but I also have children. My baby is still in school and lunches are an issue we face yearly, as I know many of you face as well. As I mulled this topic over I realized that on the times my kiddo wants to take her lunch instead of buying that I not only take her dietary issues into consideration, but those of her classmates as well. We have known since she started school that these children have such severe allergies that even the smell of the foods can cause a reaction.  Due to this we’ve always kept their issues in mind when picking food that goes to school with her.

My daughter wants to be a chef when she grows up so I get her to help me with picking recipes and also making her lunches. I think this is a great way to get your kids involved in learning to make good and safe food choices for themselves when they grow up. Also, at least for my daughter, it seems to make them more willing to eat the food you send to school with them.

 I know it can be hard to find pre-made things for your child’s lunch that are safe for all in the room when faced with such severe allergies. So I have taken to doing research over the years to find options that my kiddo will enjoy that I can make myself. I expanded this research for this post to include some ideas for those who have many more dietary restrictions than we do at this time. I will provide links to some of my favorite sites from my research on this subject.

One of my favorite sites that I found during my research is called Kids With Food Allergies  they have a really cool interface for their site. Instead of looking for ingredients you want included in the recipe you can input what items you are looking to exclude from your search. They have a lot of really interesting and yummy sounding recipes on their site including this one that I plan to try soon:

Annika’s Very Best Chicken Pot Pie

 

The next three sites are actually blogs that I found where they had collected some really great ideas for gluten free/allergy free lunch box ideas. I liked a lot of the ideas and recipes they have collected together. They all include links to the recipes they use.

Cook It Allergy Free  actually has a printable list of ideas.

 

The Pretty Bee has collected some really great gluten free dairy free ideas for lunches.

Adventures of a Gluten Free Mom has some great lunch and snack ideas for your kids to take and even has information for 504 plans and downloadable teacher letters. These are helpful in many ways and she also has made her post on this printable as well.

There are many more sites out there that have ideas as well. These few sites are just a small taste of what the internet has to offer in the way of help for those of us with children with special dietary needs.

I wish all you parents and kids out there a wonderful school year!

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Back To School Lunch Issues
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8 thoughts on “Back To School Lunch Issues

  • 09/11/2016 at 10:00 pm
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    Oh, this is awesome!
    I am horribly allergic to coconut and since it is the “in” thing to eat and use right now, my life is pretty interesting, to say the least. If it gets on my skin, I get hives. If I ingest it, I my throat swells up and I have a hard time breathing.
    Because it is not considered an allergen, it is put in foods and drinks under many different names. I have found more than 20 different names so far that are actually coconut based. The worst, however, is needing to avoid “natural flavors” because this can be anything that isn’t considered an allergen.
    Now, I don’t consider it anyone’s problem but mine and don’t expect someone else to watch out for my allergy, but I am an adult. Kids don’t always remember to check everything they eat for a problem item. Also, like you said, even being around some items can be a problem.
    Thank you for being amazing about something that can harm someone else without others even being aware of the problem.

    Reply
    • 09/11/2016 at 10:45 pm
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      I am allergic to oranges (my daughter inherited this allergy) and have found that “natural flavors” a lot of times means orange was used. So I totally get where you are coming from on avoiding things because of that. My allergy started out as an intolerance but as I’ve gotten older it has changed to a full on allergy. I can’t even be in the same room someone is eating an orange in because of the reactions. I think that has helped me to be more mindful of others and I am trying to teach my daughter by example on this. 🙂

      Reply
  • 09/11/2016 at 12:43 am
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    Thanks for the post. It’s so hard for people to realize food allergies, even in business environments. It’s nice when people are aware of others around them as to try and definitely remain safe. I’ve met so many people that get bent out of shape when someone has so much as a peanut allergy in their child’s class and so on. And I’m definitely checking these out just for my own lunches.

    Reply
    • 09/11/2016 at 4:42 pm
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      I’m glad that you all enjoyed the post and that the sites have been helpful. 🙂

      Reply
  • 09/10/2016 at 5:32 pm
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    I absolutely love your ideas. I only wish the horrible school we’re currently stuck sending our children to (it’s bad in pretty much every way) would actually provide a microwave so that our children could warm foods they chose to take for their lunches. Sadly, they refuse to do this, forcing us to stick with sandwiches or have our children eat cold foods. It’s been an unpleasant experience after having been to a better school district. 🙁

    Reply
  • 09/10/2016 at 2:20 pm
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    All of these sites are wonderful. Thank you for taking the time to share.

    Reply
  • 09/10/2016 at 1:13 pm
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    Thanks for the sites! I have been looking for good healthy recipes for my daughter.

    Reply
    • 09/10/2016 at 1:44 pm
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      Glad to be of help. 🙂

      Reply

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