Source: LOHAS Weekly Newsletter
Published: Wednesday, November 01, 2000

Being a parent of an 8-year-old girl has allowed me to peer into the habits of other families that are struggling their way through the trials and tribulations of mealtime.

While all meals have their challenges—finding food that has good nutritional value, while meeting the definition of what tastes good to juvenile taste buds—I find that filling the lunchbox is uniquely so. It is the one chance my daughter gets to witness her peers eating all the horrendous “foods” that entice her when we stroll through the supermarket aisles.

Thus, the making of my daughter’s lunch has become an art form—a labor of love—that I proudly send with her to school each day, knowing that hers is far healthier than the Lunchables, baloney-on-white-bread and Fritos other kids come packed with. What constitutes nutrition can be a relative notion, but it is scary to me the foods that we, as a nation, are raising this generation of children on. And although I sometimes scoff at my own arrogance when judging what other parents feed their kids, I know it is vital to fill my daughter’s lunchbox with healthy foods she enjoys eating.

The easy answer to crafting the finest and healthiest lunchbox in the classroom is to put together from scratch fresh, whole foods and whole-food snacks. I am fortunate to have the luxury of time on my side, for I am not readying multiple children for school and then rushing off, after a drop-off at school, to a workplace. Still, how tricky it is to convince my daughter that those cute little pop-top cans of microwavable soup (with their dismal lists of ingredients) could not possibly taste as good as the packaging promises. Or that if I did ever let her pick out a Lunchables, that she wouldn’t find it as ultimately appealing as when she sees the other kids dipping the little whatever it is in the chocolate sauce and eating it with a handful of mini M&Ms. Boy, did the marketing geniuses do their homework with those monstrosities!

Although I know that the “lunchbox” foods on our supermarket shelves today use excessive packaging, the natural foods industry, with packaging issues in mind, could do a better job making kid-

oriented products and products aimed at lunchtime. I’d bet that even some of the parents who buy Lunchables might choose differently if healthier choices were available to them in the supermarket. Convenience goes a long way for most families, and healthy lunch items are clearly underdeveloped in the mass market.

Hey, I’m not saying I’m a proponent of the organic Twinkie. I don’t think that making copycat junk-food items out of organic ingredients is the answer. But do this: Visit your child, grandchild, niece or nephew during their school lunchtime. Take a look around at what the kids are eating. See if you feel as dismayed as I do when I visit my daughter during lunch. Then go back to work and get inspired to help fill our children’s lunchboxes with better, healthier and tastier foods.

Claris Ritter Lusk is the former marketing director of Albert’s Organics Inc. and served on the Organic Trade Association’s board of directors from 1996 to 1999. Contact:

clarisr@earthlink.net.