Turn your child’s school sack lunch into something both healthy and creative. With an easy-to-read setup, The Mix-and-Match Lunchbox adds variety to your homemade lunches.
The spiral binding and split pages allow for thousands of possible combinations! Just pick one recipe from each category (protein, grains, and fruits/vegetables), and you can be sure that every lunch contains a healthy balance of taste and nutrients.
The Mix-and-Match Lunchbox is a really great book for parents hoping to avoid lunch packing fatigue or who want to employ the help of their children in packing their own lunches. It has a really fun tone to the introduction which breaks down the types of food you should be including and what to look for and what to avoid. There was some really great information in there and I loved that they do include whole grains – including wheat. I’m personally not a fan of the current pseudo-science that says grains are bad for us.
She also goes into the type of lunch supplies you should have on hand – they even mention EasyLunchBoxes – which I am a huge fan of. I have some of them I bought for myself when I was working outside of the home and they were fabulous. Totally recommend them myself!
They even outline how to get started with some great tips for making healthy lunches including how to plan, make ahead and assemble everything and even some great tips for keeping food fresh, hot or cold so it remains appetizing for your child come time to eat.
They do touch on organic food though and totally lost me by repeating pseudo-science based myths like the dirty dozen – which is entirely myth based for a slew of reasons including the facg that organic farmers still use pesticides and well, I could go on at length about it but here is why the whole dirty dozen myth is … a myth and completely safe to ignore. I will just say that if you like to support organic farming, then go for it, if you have no problem with conventionally farmed produce and can’t afford organic, then don’t feel guilty about it. A regular apple is just as healthy for your child as an organic one and that is the truth.
The recipes themselves are great – full of fresh ingredients, and a good variety of different ideas. The inside of the book is spiral bound with the pages split in three horizontally with the recipes categorised by whole grains, protein, and fruit & veggie. This format makes it really easy to flip through and plan out a whole healthy lunch.
The one other thing I do not like about this book is the inclusion of peanuts and peanut butter based recipes. Peanuts are banned in literally every school in North America. One of the reasons I would be likely to pick up such a book would be to find healthy protein alternatives to my kids favourite sandwiches – peanut butter and honey. So it was a little disheartening to see peanut butter sandwiches included – although to be fair they do include other delicious sounding sandwich ideas along with enough non-peanut ideas that it can be overlooked.
Overall – I would recommend The Mix-and-Match Lunchbox this book for parents looking to expand their lunch packing horizons.
Elizabeth Lampman is a coffee-fuelled Mom of 2 girls and lives in Hamilton, Ontario. She enjoys travelling, developing easy recipes, crafting, taking on diy projects, travelling and saving money!
kathy downey
Monday 12th of September 2016
Thanks,this sounds like a very interesting book !
Laurie P
Tuesday 6th of September 2016
I think we need this :)
Judy Cowan
Tuesday 6th of September 2016
Sounds like a handy book to have to help switch up those boring lunches.
Lynda Cook
Tuesday 6th of September 2016
This looks like a great book to have, and one to go through with your kids!!
Laurent L
Tuesday 6th of September 2016
This sounds like a great book. My sister and brother are always complaining about lunches. I'll mention it to them. Me, I'd have pizza every day LOL.