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Kids and Daycare


msssjenna

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me and my husband are currently on Day 8 of our first Whole30. We both agreed that our kids would follow what we eat at home, but continue to get the overly-processed foods at daycare.

I have gotten halfway through the book and now my mind has changed as to allowing what the kids to eat. We eat breakfast at home, but they get 2 snacks and lunch at school. Snacks are chips and salsa, veggies & ranch, cheeze its, etc. Lunch is okay, they always serve 1 serving of vegetable and 1 serving of fruit (heavily sitting in syrup) + protein/carb food.

I want to change what they eat but I dont know if we can afford to pack their lunch every day. (2 kids). I also dont want them to be angry and knowing the school, they will give in and let them have anything. I dont know if I can say they have a sensitivity now (theyve been going there for 3 years). I dont want my kids to feel left out, but I would love for them to start eating better when they are not at home.

Any suggestions?

Here is the USDA food program they follow:

http://www.providers...%20children.pdf

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We have one child in public school an one in a sugar-free preschool and they have been w30/paleo/grain/sugar free for 3 months or so, which necessitates packing all of their food. Two snacks and lunch each day (though the preschooler only goes 4 days, some weeks less). It's way more expensive than the school provisions but the payoff for our family is well worth it. Avoiding grains is my #1 concern, USDA bases the whole diet on them. My #2 problem is the lack of healthy fats and at a close #3 is the processing and sugar content. I did not think twice about telling my sons teacher (mid-year) that he was no longer allowed to eat the communal am snacks and that he needed to only eat what was packed from home due to "food intolerances". Next year hell have a dr note. I think he sneaks things sometimes (we caught him only once) but for the most part the kids eat their meats and veggies and nuts and just go on with their day. We teach them a lot and lead by example. We didn't wishy-wash, we all went whole-hog.

Packing the lunches has gotten simpler too. Am/pm snacks are usually fruit and nuts (not ideal for the w30 meal template but light years above goldfish crackers) and lunch is bento style- a cut up Applegate hotdog, lunch meat or cold chicken, maybe a little dip or ketchup (I let em hve organic ketchup), raw veggies, olives or avocado or more nuts, sometimes a date for a treat but not everyday. My little one loves cold baked sweet potato in his. The kids love their little food containers and lunch boxes, they have stainless steel cutesy water bottles too. Next year I will invest in Lunchbots or something similar.

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My son, 5, in public pre-k, is very picky. He won't eat food that touches other food, has a speck of pepper in it and you'll recently lived mostly on chicken nuggets (Applegate, but still not amazing protein source) and occasionally beef when we eat it for dinner. Oh and bacon in the mac and cheese we get in our neighborhood. Otherwise: all processed carbs.

No eggs, no cooked veg. He doesn't dip things so that's out. He will occasionally eat deli turkey.

Like you I started out just focusing on the grown ups, but I also started feeling really bad about feeding my kids processed crap. I try to buy organic, but the crackers and sweet things are still not great for them.

I didn't go whole hog W30 for my kids, but I did stop buying cereal. That led to eating "meat cakes" for breakfast. And talk about food that makes you strong and happy instead of tired and sad and mad. (He also has had significant behavior issues.)

When he started pre-k, I would pack him a lunch with carrots and humus, crackers and cheese, pirate booty. Then I got off-track and let him eat the school lunch. They have a grant for "healthy" food but I didn't know what he was eating. he was coming home famished. Now he will eat a thermos of chicken soup. Or a "meat cake" wrapped in foil. I also do the bento style lunch. I try to focus on having some protein (I still give him carrots and humus sometimes--baby steps), some fruit, veg and fat (olives or our homemade Larabars/wallerbars).

I use these: http://www.amazon.co...aw/d/B003JHREL4

And have one of these

http://goodbyn.com/

I'd also like some Lunchbots. For myself as well.

I wondered if we'd be struggling for a long time over food but little by little it sinks in. Now my former junkfood-addict son will come home and tell me his friends said his homemade Larabars and foil-wrapped meat cake is "weird." But then he says, "but they are eating junk! Just all junk! And I'm going to be strong."

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Thanks to both you. All 3 of my boys go full time, 5 days a week. The baby is still eating the purees I make him, so I'm not worried about him. I have ate lunch with both of them at school and one thing I noticed is my 5 year old has at least 2-3 servings of food at lunch. Granted, their servings are small but that boy can eat.

I guess I am clueless as to what for them to take. I eat the same thing every day but I am okay with boring meals. Beets - can you give me the recipe for your meat cake?

Now that I think about it, I'm sure the school wouldnt mind following my directions. Heck, there is one kid who will only eat macaroni and cheese for lunch. every day. Talking to my kids and having them go with me to Target to pick out a cool lunch box will be exciting.

Another path I will have to cross is to get my husband to agree to feed the kids homemade meals .. Blah.

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Oh the kids just call it a "meat cake."

It's just a ground beef or lamb patty with a little salt sprinkled on top. :D

I feel like my kids eat all day long at home. The only thing that helps is loading them up in fat and protein at breakfast. Enter the meat cake.

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Reading your conversation has me thinking. We're going to enroll our little guy in preschool in the fall and I've been wondering what to do. The more we eat this way, the more I don't want to change anything, but nor do I want to make waves at the school or have my kid feeling different. It's good reading what others go through and the decisions they make and the way they work around things. I'm hoping my kids want to keep eating like dinosaurs because that makes it easy - all I'd have to do is buy some cool lunch boxes for them (lunchbots or goodbyns), but if they don't want to eat like dinosaurs, then I'm unsure what to do. Force it? Make it a choice? Not care? We're in a community where nobody else would be bringing something from home, but the food from the school is laden with salt and sugars and empty sludge.

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EandK, my kid is in pre-K. He is very concerned with wearing "cool" t-shirts (superheroes or Star Wars or scary dinos), which is to say he definitely cares what other kids think.

But if you start him early then it'll feel normal. He good thing is that kids can't take PB&J sandwiches anymore, lots of kids have gluten-sensitivities, so it's not that weird to be eating a turkey roll-up. Yeah, even the "healthy" lunches are full of fluorescent pink 22g of sugar "yogurt." But you do the best you can do.

I personally am ok if my kids aren't 100% w30 or even paleo. Im focusing more on eating more good stuff than eliminating. I like the idea of feeding them what you want at home and letting them make their own choices outside the house. (Not in their lunch, but at someone else's house or, say, a restaurant.) This gives them a little bit of control, which goes a long way--in all things!

I'm pleasantly surprised by how quickly my kid has internalized some of the things I've been saying like, this food makes you strong.

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Have you ever thought of packing them Bento boxes? Those are always a big hit with kids because it provides a lot of variety, are really easy to pack, and there are a lot of options to make them super cute.

Here are a few great links:

A week of Paleo School Lunches: http://nomnompaleo.com/post/30267255011/a-week-of-paleo-school-lunches-part-1-of-5

Real Food Lunches: http://paleoparents.com/featured/primal-kitchen-getting-buy-in-for-real-food-lunches/

Also, if you type in "Paleo Bento" into Pinterest there are literally hundreds of ideas. You can buy reusable containers like laptop lunches which come in really cool colors, and some bento produce cutters even feature special characters like Mario and samurai :)

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This is where food allergies actually help. Neither my son nor his school ever question that he will bring lunch from home because of multiple (non-life threatening) food allergies. It's my sliver lining. That said, I do try to make his food look like what others eat because he doesn't like to be too different, either. And, because his allergies are not life threatennig, I let him make the choice when it comes to birthday treats, etc, at school. He can choose to eat the cupcake and get a tummy ache or choose to eat the snack I packed an not have a tummy ache. He's almost 9 and is old enough to start making those choices. He knows that a cupcake will give him a small tummy ache and ice cream will give him a big one. When he was a toddler in preschool, though, I didn't let him make the choice and he didn't fight me on it very often. We had a great preschool teacher who would sit with him while they ate their sunbutter and jelly rice cakes together. :D I really don't want him to be neurotic about food. I want him to know what good-for-him food is and feel empowered to make choices based on how he feels. I'm hoping that will keep him from completely rebelling into sugar and junk (and beer) in college. LOL

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Pjena, I felt the same way you did about food allergies (my toddler has a gluten sensitivity) until I found out the director at our daycare was feeding V her [the director's] self determined 'gluten free' diet with things we had told them V could have only occasionally because she, essentially, didn't like the fact that we had told her giving V a gluten free version of her crappy food was not going to work for us. In fact, we got into such a fight with the daycare I had to report them to NAEYC (national child care accrediating agency), the state food progam and licensing agency, as well as the director's boss and, when the boss wouldn't do anything, her boss' boss. It was totally worth the fight though, and we are much happier.

Msssjenna, we try to eat as much organic stuff as we can, but if it seems like we're spending a huge amount on food, we'll just go with non-organic choices. I have found that organic fruit is rarely worth the cost, but eggs and some meat is. And my toddler gets leftovers for lunch every day; we don't do special lunches. That cuts down on the cost a LOT. If you try those two things you might have some luck.

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Robin - that's awful! We've been lucky. We went the simple route and brought all of my son's food to daycare and luckily, they respected that. The director just helped him feel happy about his "different" food. I don't trust other people to read labels and know what is ok or not. And, I don't like to put that burden on them, either. It was so much easier to just pack food.

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