Healthy Back to School Lunches for the Real Food Family

It's that time of year again.  School lunches.  Whether your family homeschools or your children go to school (or if you pack your lunches for work!), it's always nice to have a game plan; especially if you are a real food family.  Real food, although it does not need to be extremely time-consuming, does take more time than grabbing a packaged something-or-other.  A little bit of planning makes real food meals happen with no stress.  Preparing healthy packed lunches can be a daunting task; but I promise it's not and quickly becomes a happy rhythm to dance to.  In hopes of keeping things short, sweet, and to the point, here are some posts I have written throughout the year on this subject. By the time you are done reading, you will have resources to pull from to find many easy, healthy recipes and everything you'll need to pack your yummy lunches in that won't break the bank or destroy God's beautiful planet.

• Equipment.  If you want to send nourishing, non-pre-packaged lunches with your children to school, you will need something to put them in.  I have compiled a list of what has been very handy and useful for our family in this post.  
• A note on snacks.  The only lunch-packing problem we came across last year was the unease at snack time (this kids had to bring their whole bento box containing their entire lunch to snack time because it was all in one container).  So we invested in these dishwasher safe, easy-to-open, leak-proof snack containers.  My children breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing them (they're cute!) and discovering how easy it was to open a close the leak-proof lids.  Their sizes are perfectly portioned to fit nourishing snacks like fresh fruit slices, grapes, berries, nuts, cheese, cookie dough bites, or even homemade yogurt, applesauce, or apple chips.
• Complete Lunch Plans.  Back in January, I wrote a guest post that includes a game plan, how to stock your kitchen for healthy-packed-lunch success, and several complete lunch menus, chock full of the recipes needed.  Browse through that post here.

What are some things your family likes to pack in lunches?

I'm sharing this at Simple Lives Thursday.