3 Days Until School: How to Pack a Healthy Lunch

It’s tempting to pack potato chips and cookies into school lunch sacks because it’s convenient. But nutritionist Silvia Veri, R.D., says there are plenty of handy healthful snacks at the grocery store, too; you just have to know what you’re looking for.

Veri, who works at the Health System Weight Control Center, came up with a list of school lunchbox snacks based the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new food icon, MyPlate.

MyPlate replaced the food pyramid in June as standard for understanding what food types we need to consume to live a healthful lifestyle. The plate is split into four sections, for fruit, vegetables, grains and proteins. A smaller plate is for dairy.

Veri came up with the following lunchbox snacks recommendations. Keep in mind MyPlate, and choose snacks from each group.

Dairy

• Chobani Greek yogurt—Champions (can find at Costco)
• 4-ounce containers of Breakstone cottage cheese
• Cheese stick

Grains

• Kashi granola bars
• Kashi whole-grain crackers
• Larabar

Fruit

• Prepackaged apple slices
• Prepackaged bags of blueberries (available at Costco)
• Fruit cups
• Whole fruit

Vegetables

• Raw veggies from a veggie tray (i.e., sugar snap peas are a new favorite), dip in hummus
• -San Crunchy green beans

Protein

• Planter’s individual packages of nuts or trail mix
• Peanut butter or almond butter on celery with raisins (ants on a log)
• Beef jerky
• Hard-cooked eggs

For more information on MyPlate, visit choosemyplate.gov.

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