My, the lunch box experiment:

What happens if you give the pickiest eater in the world access to different snack options for a month? They turn up their nose and ask for butter toast like they have been for the last 365 days and you end up having to tell the lunch box people who generously sponsored a months worth of snacks to you, that perhaps they should find a kid with a more refined palate…mine thinks a roti with ice-cream is a thing.

Thank goodness that didn’t happen by some miracle our experiment was a success…well sort off…

So what is the lunch box?

I’ve told you about the diabetic option before and how it was a game changer for us. The kids option is pretty cool too. You get 21 lunch bags delivered to your house (cost is R729/R680 and includes delivery) then every day you toss one into your kids school bag with the addition of a perishable item from your pantry (for those of you who have such things, I have a cupboard with wonky hinges). A sandwich or yogurt pairs great with the lunch box and your kid is sorted for the day.

Does it make financial sense?

The other day I went to buy food and I swear the cashier must have scanned her chair and  counter as well because the money I gave her and what I was leaving with made no sense. Life is expensive!!! These bags work out to roughly R30 each. That includes three high quality, healthy, snacks and a juice/water. The snacks aren’t tuckshop lollies, nope it’s mostly local brands (local support local) and includes things you would be spending big bucks on if you bought it individually. I’m talking nuts, biltong, health bars, rice cakes and dried fruit bars. Also you can pronounce every item on the ingredient list which is big for me, my kid eats soooo little I can’t still be making that little be junk.

What did the boys think?

Caleb is an amazing eater. I like to cook for him because he gobbles it up and says please can I have more-the bio kid says, “just make the toast already”. Caleb has sushi with me! He asks his mom for a bowl of peas and corn (fellow mom’s of picky eaters, be jealous with me) So the lunch boxes were a no brainer with him. He is only at edu-care till 12 so you don’t even have to add anything. Just ;”here is a bag of healthy treats for you to try”and he loved it. It saved time and money and we were sure that he was eating well.

Aidan on the other hand. My vegetarian with the extremely sensitive sense of smell…things went down differently and I was pleasantly surprised.
No he didn’t magically eat everything (hahahaha) guys I’m not going to sit here and type out lies into the internet. He didn’t love it all BUT I can honestly say with real, no jokes, I wasn’t paid for my opinion, honesty that these lunch boxes opened up a new world for us and that he has doubled the amount of “approved snacks” in a month

How did the picky eater deal?

Each night we would open a bag. The biltong was a no go (Rob and I sure didn’t let that go to waste) the rest he would taste because I told him the lunch box lady wanted his opinion and much like his mom, he loves giving his opinion.

The thing with the bags are…the contents differ daily so you are exposed to snacks you wouldn’t even look at in the store. Some things usually only come in bulk and you are so over throwing good money after bad that you don’t even venture into that direction. You stick to what you know … Mini Cheddar’s , apples and guava rolls… But due to the variety in the bags we have more options, I now know he loves oat biscuits with yogurt topping, airpopped popcorn, mini rice cakes, dried fruit cubes, seed bars(but only half because I prefer mommy’s) … I also know he won’t eat pecan nuts because they look like brains (a story for another day)

Some days he took a whole bag of new exciting things other days I had to trade with him…apple slices (if you soak them in salt water before packaging them they don’t go brown #bonustip) for peanut butter bombs or blocks of cream cheese in exchange for biltong.

The verdict

If your kid eats like an actual human person this is so great. I calculated that there is a minimum R10 saving per bag if you look at it item for item. It is super convenient and you know what they are eating. If your kid is a pain when it comes to food this might be a great month long experiment where you get to test them on a variety of items and if they turn up their nose to anything the items are portion controlled and healthy so Mom can snack on it without feeling guilty…

Would you try something like this?