Kyle’s coworkers tease him (in a fun, non-mean way) about his healthy vegetarian lunches. Apparently he’s the organic, non GMO hippie of his office, just like I am in mine. 🙂
Now his colleagues are wondering when I’m going to start packing food for all of them. Which I’m considering a victory for veggies everywhere.
Thanksgiving leftovers on quinoa. Oatmeal & snacks.
Spaghetti. Crock-pot potato chowder (recipe coming).
Pita SB&J with organic Swanson sunbutter and home-made pluot plum jam.
18 Rabbits gracious granola packet with organic vanilla greek yogurt.
Scrambled mish mash made from the leftovers of a fried rice dinner (below), enhanced with a steamed and chopped sweet potato.
Rice, peas, broccoli, eggs, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Made for dinner, but with extra servings on purpose, for both Kyle’s lunch and mine.
Burrito with spinach, tofurky kielbasa sausage, avocado, and Sabra’s garlic salsa.
Breakfast quiche with brown rice, eggs, TVP & Sabra’s garlic salsa.
People always seem to love when I write posts about packing lunches and meal prepping. The truth is, it’s really easy as long as you set aside the time to do it. Don’t plan to do it in the morning before you go to work because that’s crazy and will never work. Pack things up the night before, when you’re making dinner for that night.
The best tip I can give is ALWAYS MAKE EXTRAS.
For this dinner I made spaghetti with marinara. I made his with organic whole wheat noodles and mine with De Boles GF brown rice noodles.
It wasn’t laborious in the least. I just made two huge pots of pasta, and served half for dinner and served the rest right into the tupperware for a meal the next day.
Left side is dinner, right side is pre-packed for work lunches. Top row is Kyle’s (hence the parm), bottom row is mine (with the nooch).
I don’t mind being his lunch lady. In fact, I like it. Packing his meals is far from a chore. I do it because I love him and I want him to eat nice balanced meals, with quality ingredients, a range of micro and macronutrients, and yummy flavors. Ever since he’s gone vegetarian, he’s been learning more and more about nutrition, asking me questions often and taking in all the info with enthusiasm. So I know it’s of interest to him (as opposed to a forced conversion). Makes me happy to see him satisfied and content.
It also makes me think about raising a kid (and how I’ll approach nutrition and diet with a baby boy). Obviously I’ve given it some thought – I mean, it’s ME – but at the same time, I’m still pretty unsure about a lot of stuff. Naturally, Kyle and I have discussed it as well. Will he be vegetarian? Vegan? Milk free? Dairy free? Etc. Similar to my birth "plan" I have a rough idea of what I definitely do and don’t want, but for most other things, I’m just going to wait and see.
I was a tofu loving babe, so maybe he will be too. I’ve certainly given him plenty of variety in plant based eats while in utero (which they say he can taste and will therefore prefer once he’s eating solids). Every time I go grocery shopping or browse a restaurant menu or plan out lunches and dinners, I think of what new things I can expose him to. Hummus was the most important, of course. :)
In the summer I was going melon crazy, while juicing with veggies and fruits on the regular. Basically, he’s been eating kale since he was days old. And of course there were those first trimester tomato cravings.
Once fall hit, I switched gears to roasted roots, like squash and sweet potatoes. And apples, naturally. FODMAPs be damned, I want my son to like apples.
But those are just the main players. I’ve made sure he’s tasted everything from dates, papaya, and hemp seeds, to nooch, ginger, and berries. And that’s all I can do. Fingers crossed it’s enough to make a mini hippie.
Of course it won’t be the end of the world if he doesn’t like brussels sprouts. But wouldn’t it be great if he did? 🙂
The great thing is that you’ll be exposing him to whole nutrition from the beginning. That takes away the fight most parents have when they try to introduce new or strange things later and constantly have to say “but it’s GOOD for you”.
I’m sure he’ll love veggies! I mean, look at Mama Pea’s daughters – they love their veggies and are vegetarian! And I would so pay you to be my lunch lady.
i’m one of the ones that LOVES your lunch posts! LOVE them. i think i just have to get into the mindset of making extra all the time. i love leftovers.
do you need to cook those tofurky kielbasas?
can’t wait for the crock pot potato chowder.
your meals always look great. your hubby is very lucky 🙂
It is totally do-able and not even that hard to make a kid love veggies. My girl just turned three, has never eaten meat in her life (she eats a lot of beans, tofu, tempeh, and eggs), and is a super-healthy little veggie-loving girl. She claims her favorite veggies are zucchini and peas and corn and cucumbers, but she will eat just about anything if it’s prepared soft enough for her to eat. She was begging for plums in the store yesterday and loves all the fruits, and she begged to try my green juice though she found it a little celery-heavy for her young palate. I could go on and on. Oh, one more – she LOVES olives and I swear it’s because I spent a month in Sicily while she was in utero and she got accustomed to all kinds of strong Mediterranean flavors!
Packing the next day’s lunch while you’re making dinner is brilliant – you’re already puttering around the kitchen anyway, and who wants to deal with that in the morning? Love that your husband has adapted to your hippie ways – I wish I could do that for my husband too because he’s definitely come around with healthy food, but he travels so much. Set food can be really…disturbing, so I send lots of care packages with almond butter, trail mix, bars, energy balls, etc. Many of those recipes have come from this blog lol.
I love good healthy lunches, hubby on the other hand will be happy with a tin of tuna and some crackers.
I feel the same way about making Seth’s meals–I enjoy it because he likes eating it, and I know that I’m keeping him healthy. While Seth is not vegetarian, he likes his veggies, hummus, tofu, etc. I think he gets some strange looks when I pack him spaghetti squash for lunch, but he doesn’t seem to mind 🙂
I agree with your packing up the lunches the night before…makes life so much easier. My daughter is 1 1/2 now and eats a plant based diet and has been for the most part since her intro to solids. I was all for a complete vegeterian diet for her from the start (since I follow an almost vegan diet) however had some issues getting my husband on board since he is far from vegeterian. I have done and continue to do a lot of research so that I knowledgable of the things that infants/toddlers leading veggie lifestyles can eat and may need at different stages of life. During my daughter’s 1 yr check up, her pediatrician noted what a well nourished/developing child my daughter was and confirmed that it was perfectly ok for her to not eat meat as long as I was incorporating protein, iron etc in other forms. This was music to my ears and what my husband needed to hear and it has since become “our” decision to raise our child vegeterian.
Wow veges! Great recipes!
you dont have to cook them. they’re basically like pre-cooked sausages.
glad you enjoyed the post 🙂
thats awesome! im sure this guy will be a hummus fiend then too 🙂
exactly!
its definitely a challenge when traveling, but it sounds like youre efforts are a great help for your husband. im so glad you get some ideas from my site 🙂
sometimes tuna and crackers is simply perfect though!
go you! i have no doubt that you can raise a healthy child on a balanced vegetarian diet so im glad your MD gave your convictions the stamp of approval in front of your husband. its funny how sometimes our significant others need to hear things from another source to believe it, but whatever works!!
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