Reuseable Sandwich Bags

I just heard about this product and thought I'd share. I haven't tried them so I'm not endorsing but for those of you wanting to avoid the pollution and cost of plastic baggies, this sounds like a good option.

Lunchskins are reuseable cloth bags that are dishwasher safe and free from BPA and lead. They come in snack size, sandwich size, and sub size.

I also understand there is a free shipping special right now:

Just in time for back-school shopping, you can purchase LunchSkins, the reusable, dishwasher-safe baggies with FREE SHIPPING. Just enter code BTS2011 and you’re all set to make those healthy lunches on the go.

If anyone has tried these, please let me know how you liked them. If I get some, I will post a review.

Gluten-Free Ginger Peach Corn Muffins

Once again, putting off grocery shopping has forced me to be creative with surprising results. I was in the mood for muffins but since I didn't have any wheat flour, I tried brown rice and corn flour. And it was yummy--and not only are these muffins vegan, but they're gluten-free as well. I already made a second batch to freeze for school lunches.

Ginger Peach Corn Muffins (Gluten-free)
Sweet, spicy, and moist.

3/4 cup corn meal
1 1/4 cups brown rice flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup nondairy milk
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 peaches, diced
3 tablespoons diced candied ginger (found this at Trader Joes)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil 12 muffin tins. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and corn meal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, vanilla, milk, and vinegar. Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir just until combined. Fold in the peaches and ginger. Pour into muffin tin, filling each cup about 3/4 of the way full. Bake 30 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before removing muffins from tin. Serve warm or room temperate. Cool completely on a wire rack before store in a covered container. These freeze great too!

Makes 12

Summer Baking

We are enjoying The Sono Baking Company Cookbook to bake up some goodies featuring fruits and veggies from our garden and farmers' market. We adapted the recipes to use whole wheat flour and a lot less sugar (the original recipes are very sweet).

Emily made the Blueberry-Nectarine Buckle (we added strawberries too). And here is my variation of the Zucchini Carrot Muffins (the original recipe was Zucchini, Carrot, and Cranberry Muffins, which I'm sure is delicious . . . but we loved this version).

Zucchini-Carrot Muffins
This makes 12 large muffins . . . you might want to make these as mini muffins to add to school lunches. These freeze very well.

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup natural granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup oil (safflower, canola, etc.)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup grated carrots (about 2 carrots)
3/4 - 1 cup grated zucchini (about 2 zucchini)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Oil a 12-cup muffin pan. Sift together flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices. In a large mixing bowl, whisk sugars, oil, and eggs together until smooth. Stir in zucchini and carrots. Stir in flour mixture just until combined. Divide batter into the 12 muffin cups. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until tester inserted in center comes out dry. Let cool 10 minutes. Using a table knife, gently remove muffins from tin and place on a wire rack to cool.

BPA-free plastic containers

I LOVE my new Preserve BPA-free plastic containers that I got at my local health food store. I hadn't been able to find stainless steel one I liked for my daughters and forget using glass containers in their lunch boxes (tried it once with very bad results, including a call from the school office . . . bad mother!).

Anyway, these are great and not very expensive. I love the screw-on lid that doesn't leak and is easy for the kids to take off and put back on.

Need new lunchboxes

School is over for the year . . . YAY! Maybe I'm slightly anal but I'm already thinking about next year. We went through two lunch boxes this year for each of my daughters . . . and I really want to find something good for next year. One that is not too big, not too small and that will last.

A few that I've tried are:

- Laptop lunchboxes: We used these for a couple of years and they were great quality but as the kids got older, the little compartments became too small. Also, my kids most days eat a hot lunch out of a thermos. So, we need something that will hold a thermos, a kleen kanteen water bottle, plus a couple of small containers for side dishes.

- Pottery Barn: We got nice looking lunch boxes from Pottery Barn. They actually looked similar to the case for the laptop lunch (but bigger) and fit everything fine, but they fell apart after a few months.

- Small cooler style lunch boxes: We had trouble our fitting water bottles in these.

Please comment if you have a lunch box you really like.

Book Review: Vegan Lunch Box Around the World

For even more lunch box ideas, check out my book review of Vegan Lunch Box Around the World.

The HOT Lunch Box

Check out The HOT Lunch Box in the November issue of VegFamily Magazine. I had such a good response to my post about using thermoses that I expanded into a full article -- recipes included too.

Lunch Box Thermoses

With the weather turned cooler, I'm really using thermoses for my daughters' school lunches. Not only do they get a healthy, hot lunch every day, it's so easy to give them dinner leftovers or soup. 

Here's a few tips:

- Get a smaller thermos. I really like the 5-inch high thermoses. They are the perfect size for kids and fit easily into any kind of lunch box. The last couple of years I was using the thermoses sold by Laptop Lunchbox but not only was they expensive, even the smaller size is just too tall. My kids don't want that much of any one item and it's harder to eat from that tall bottle, especially for younger kids. And, if you don't fill the thermos all the way, the food cools down too fast. (The smaller Laptop Lunch ones are great for adults though.)

- Get a stainless steel thermos--plastic leaches chemicals into the food when hot food is put into it (which is why I don't recommend the 'heat and go' type thermoses).

- Fill the thermos with hot, hot water while you are heating the food. This will help the thermos to heat up and the food will stay hot longer.

- If heating food in the microwave, I find out how much food fits in the thermos by filling it with water and pouring it into a measuring cup. Then when heating food in the morning, I fill the measuring cup to that level (my thermoses hold about 1 1/4 cups of food) and just nuke that. Never microwave in plastic -- chemicals leach into your food. Or of course, you can heat the food in a pot on the stove.

- Don't forget to pack a fork or spoon. (Woops -- have done that several times. Sorry kids!)

Healthy Lunches that Kids Like

Listen to my soundbyte for some ideas for healthy lunches that your kids will like. For more recipes, try these cookbooks:

 The Vegetarian Mother’s Cookbook and Simply Natural Baby Food by Cathe Olson

These books have lots of recipes for sandwiches, soups, muffins, cookies and crackers made from whole foods. There are also great breakfast recipes that can be used in lunches like pancake mix, French toast, muesli, and scrambled tofu.

Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair

Lair has tons of whole foods recipes and a great section on packing lunches.

Vegan Lunch Box and Vegan Lunch Box Around the World by Jennifer McCann

These books, by the creator of Vegan Lunch Box Blog, have innovative and delicious ideas for the lunch box (though most take quite a bit of prep).  All the recipes are delicious and very well tested.

The Vegetarian Family Cookbook by Nava Atlas

This is a great all around cookbook. The book includes a section on sandwiches, wraps, and school lunches.

Vegan Deli by Joanne Stepaniak

This book is full of salads and soups – perfect for the lunchbox or picnic.

Take action to improve school meals

Here's a letter I just sent out to a list of people involved in revising the Child Nutrition Act:

When revising the Child Nutrition Act this year, I ask you to please consider that good nutrition will actually help our children succeed in school. The food that kids eat affects their mental as well as physical well-being.  

Schools need increased funding so they can get away from cheap processed food and start serving whole foods that are free of pesticides, genetically-engineered ingredients, chemicals, dyes, factory farmed meats, and foods that are not loaded with sugar and sodium. Optimally, the Act would provide incentives that will encourage school food service departments to meet these higher nutrition standards.  

Lunch should be a learning opportunity for children just like every other class they attend--a time when they learn about real food and good nutrition. As obesity continues to rise and many children are being left behind in academics, it's imperative that children be fed nourishing, wholesome, healthful meals. Thank you for considering my statements.

If you want to let legislators know what you think, go to this link and they'll email your letter to the appropriate people.

Improve School Meals

Check out this video about the politics of the school lunch program and sign a petition to improve the nutrition and healthfulness of school food offerings.

Eco Lunch Boxes!

As much as I love my kids laptop lunch boxes, I hate that they're plastic--even though they are not the kind of plastic with lead or phylatales . . . . Anyway, here is a new lunchbox on the scene. Stainless steel lunch box with stainless steel water bottle. It doesn't have those nice compartments like the laptops, but it does come with a nontoxic reusuable plastic sandwish wrapper.

Check it out at: http://www.oeconline.org/our-work/kidshealth/schools/the-eco-healthy-lunchbox-kit

Are you an Angry Mom?

Are you fed up with the offerings for school meals in your district? I know for me, I would love not to have to pack my kids a lunch every day - but as long as our school continues to feature processed, frozen and reheated foods high in sodium, hydrogenated oils, and high fructose corn syrup (not to mention chemicals, preservatives, and pesticides), I don't feel I have a choice. I am on the wellness committee for my district but change is painfully slow.

There are places where things are happening however. If you haven't seen the excellent movie Two Angry Moms which is shaking up the public school lunch community, I highly recommend it -- I've already seen twice! These moms traveled around the US to find schools radically changing their lunch programs. For more info, go to http://angrymoms.org/ .

On March 24, the producers will be featured on The Rachael Ray Show - go to their web site for more info: http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/ and the movie will be shown on March 30 at the Kent Film Festival in Connecticut, for times go to: http://kentfilmfestival.org/ .

Meat from sick animals served at schools

The USDA is investigating Chino, CA company Hallmark after release of a video showing workers using illegal practices on sick cows to get them into the slaughterhouse. Federal and California law prohibits the slaughter of "downer" cattle - cows that cannot stand or walk - to protect the human food supply from eating the meat of unhealthy animals. Several studies have shown a correlation between meat from downer cows and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly know as Mad Cow Disease.

Employees at Hallmark were shown using forklifts to pick up and roll animals too weak to stand and, much worse, shooting high pressure water sprays into the nostrils of cows and repeatedly shocking them with electricity so they could get the animals to get up and walk past the inspector assigned to monitor that only healthy cows were slaughtered.

Beef from the Hallmark slaughterhouse is distributed by Westland Meat Co. (also of Chino). According to the USDA, Westland sold 27 million pounds of meat last year to federal food and nutrition programs including school lunches and meals for the poor and elderly.

For more info, check out the article in the LA Times at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-humane31jan31,1,7693001.story?ctrack=3&cset=true

Farm to School Programs

My article 'Fresh Food Nation' published in Mothering Magazine gives information about existing farm to school programs around the US and suggestions on how to start one at your school. It was just put online at http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/food/fresh-food-nation.html

School Lunch Ideas

For ideas for lunches to pack for your kids, check out my article in VegFamily Magazine at http://www.vegfamily.com/whole-family/lunchbox.htm . Also in this issue, get tips for getting your kids to eat more veggies at http://www.vegfamily.com/marriage-family/eat-vegetables.htm .

Rethinking School Lunches

As childhood obesity and related disease continues to rise, it's becoming clear that we need to take measures to improve the health of our nation's kids. Most children spend a good part of their week in school or preschool, so that is an obvious place where changes can be made. Most school meals are apallingly unhealthy with entrees such as corn dogs, pizza pockets, and chicken nuggets (all loaded with sodium, fat, and chemicals) - and usually served with french fries for a vegetable.

Check out the March/April issue of Mothering Magazine where I have an article (School Food Renaissance) outlining how parents can have a say in their school's wellness policy and work toward changing the school lunch period to become another learning period in the day where children learn about good nutrition and eating habits.

I will also be hosting an online chat for Mothering on March 8, 2006 at 10 am PST (1 pm EST). The web site is www.mommychats.com and you can find more information about the chat on my site www.simplynaturalbooks.com or on www.mothering.com.

On the resource page of my web site, I also list many links to organizations and programs that can help you get healthier foods into your school. Many schools around the state have already started garden-to-table and other programs. Where I live in San Luis Obispo County, there is a new group working for change called SLO Grown Kids. If you are interested in finding out what this group is doing, contact rwilvert@sbcglobal.net or trevor.emelia@mindspring.com.