Back to School – Time to think of Lunchbox Ideas!

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.        #CapriSunSchool #CollectiveBias

 

Munchkin is one fussy child when it comes to her lunches. So I can struggle with lunchbox ideas and healthy lunchboxes. I kept hearing about Bento Lunches, and seeing lots of really interesting images which made me curious about the whole thing and whether I wanted to have a go. I wasn’t sure if she was too old for Bento but it will be good practice for when Bee starts nursery/school.

At first I was scratching my head. What are Bento lunches?

Basically Bento is a word that originated from Japanese cuisine and in simple terms means a lunch packed into one box style container.

Ok, I can do that……. this shouldn’t turn into a disaster (usually my experiments do!)

Being keen to try out this style of lunch, I ordered some basic items to help in this Bento adventure.

Now to just get the food and attempt this.

So off we went to Tesco to purchase some lunchbox items and to get some Capri Sun Fruit Crush. We do drink Capri Sun occasionally but had not heard of the fruit crush variety until now.

Finding the Capri Sun was easy enough as they were located in the fruit juice/squash aisle.

And it was good to see they were actually on offer when we went! You can find details of Capri Sun offers, which includes a competition as part of a back to school promotion, on the Tesco website.

 

Bee of course got overexcited at the idea of ‘juice’.

 

Although I don’t like the girls having too much juice and squash, I do tend to put squash in Munchkins lunchbox to ensure she does actually drink something while at school. Otherwise her whole water bottle is likely to come back having barely been touched. What I like about the Capri-Sun Fruit Crush is that they have the following benefits: .

Capri-Sun Fruit Crush 200ml

• ‘Capri-Sun Fruit Crush is made with 75% Fruit Juice and 25% Spring Water‘
• ‘Capri-Sun Fruit Crush is 100% compliant with the School Food standards’
• ‘Every pouch of Capri-Sun Fruit Crush is 1 of your 5 a day’
• ‘Capri-Sun Fruit Crush is available in 3 delicious flavours: Apple & Blackcurrant, Apple & Pear, Tropical‘

I love the fact that they are 1 of your 5 a day. We couldn’t decide on what flavour to get, so we decided to try them all!

 

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to make a healthy lunch for Munchkin as she is quite fussy. However, as she is getting older she does seem happier to try more foods which is helping me make sure her lunch is not just junk food like crisps and biscuits. Although she does get crisps and biscuits as treats, I always ensure she has some fruit in her lunchbox and as she usually does not like cheese (except on pizza), she has a yoghurt most days.

The whole idea of Bento lunches is to pack all the food into one box. Some of the lunches I have seen are amazing, with character sandwiches, and fruit made into cartoon character shapes. Sadly I am not that creative just yet, so decided to keep it simple.

As Munchkin only really has cucumber in her sandwiches, I’ve decided to try to make her sandwich slightly more interesting and in the shape of a butterfly.

 

If I am honest, I don’t have the time or patience to make fancy foods every morning that look visually appealing. So my Bento style lunches are most likely going to end up looking half Bento and half a usual lunchbox, pretty much like this:

 

The pink box will be ideal to put things like carrots, cucumber and bread sticks. Also idea for fruit, such as grapes, orange segments, strawberries…basically any fruit your child likes.

And the boxes, along with Capri-Sun Fruit crush will fit perfectly into the insulated lunch bags.

I guess with more practice and patience I may end up with Bento Style lunches I have seen online!