School Lunches - Philadelphia,PA

just wanted to add... they also make "reduced sugar" varieties of the instant oatmeal!!! even ACME has reduced sugar Apples and Cinnamon in their own store brand.

A great snack is Fruit Ripple Apple Crisps. they are crunchy like potato chips, but made just of apples, juice and cinnamon. each individual pack is only 50 calories... my girls LOVE it!

Breakfast around here is scrambeled egg with cheese. I mix it all up in a small glass bowl and micowave for 1minute 10 seconds. While it cools I microwave a few brown and serve turkey sausage and in under 5 minutes they have a healthy quick breakfast. Fruit is always on the side. Another favorite is bagels with snow(cream cheese) or peanut butter which gives them some protein to see them through. If we are running behind I pop some mini eggos in the toaster and then top them with cream cheese and jelly or p'nut butter and jelly and make mini sandwhiches they can eat on the run(my kids have no idea syrup is out there). Some days they just ask for spray butter on the eggos. They always have either dried cranberries or rasins for on the go fruit.
Lunch is either turkey or ham wraps(just a piece of meat with a cheese slice rolled in it), a p'nut butter wrap (I buy whole wheat wraps and use them instead of bread), yogurt and a string cheese. There are great string cheese made by Frigo they are light so they get 9 grams of protein but only 2 grams of fat. My children also love Italian wedding soup for lunch if they are home. If you aren't familiar with it it has meatballs, pasta and spinach in it.
For snacks they love any type of fruit, carrots, green pepper, cucumbers or some whole wheat crackers with a string cheese. Hope this helps.

If you make a big batch of pancakes you can freeze them in daily portions and then microwave/toast them in the morning. To mix it up you could add fruit (fresh/frozen) like blueberries, raspberries, or a little apple sauce and cinnamon. You could also buy tortillas at the grocery store and use them to make breakfast burritos/wraps for lunch. For the breakfast burritos you could cut up whatever veggies you want to add the night before and then scramble some eggs in the morning, add the veggies and some cheese, and wrap it up :) For the wraps you could use lunch meat, tuna salad, chicken salad, grilled chicken, egg salad... etc. Also fruit with yogurt and granola is a quick and very tasty breakfast/lunch.

I know how you feel. I am in the same rut right now. Here are some things that my daughter likes. Feel free to share more of your meal plans too.

Oatmeal is great for breakfast. You can buy the single packets of it and there is a variety of flavors. It will hold them over and it's really healthy. I also keep frozen waffles. Yogurt and fruit is always good. You can also add granola to the yogurt for a twist.

My daughter tends to take cereal with a banana for breakfast most days. Every once in a while we treat to McDonald's pancakes. When she eats here at home, I buy the frozen french toast sticks, pancakes, waffles and even the instant Quaker oatmeal.

Lunch she enjoy the little heat ups (you can get them for 88 cents at Wal-mart), a peanut and butter sandwich, bologna and cheese, sometime's plain cheese, or a lunchable.

Snacks: canned fruit, fresh fruit, Whales (they are like Goldfish, only cheaper), peanut butter crackers, Utz chips in the snack bags (1.19 @ ShopRite), Little Debbie Brownies, Sensations by Tastykake (they are sugar-free), animal cookies, or baby carrots--to name a few. I try to put a sweet and a fruit. The school has her eat her main food (sandwich or heat up), then her fruit, then her sweet.

Hope this helps.