School Lunch

I think we all know that Burgers and Pizza at school are easy at lunch time, but we also know that its not healthy also. What do you guys bring to school at lunch time? Or does your school have healthy choices on the menu?

For me when school starts up I am going to bring a turkey breast sandwich with an apple and some water. That should keep me good for a while. What about you guys?

I love whole wheat pitas. They're amazing! You can put whatever you want in them, so I never get bored. My favorite lunch is a pita with vegetable hummus, spinach, chopped bell peppers, and bean sprouts.

Hummus is low in both calories and fat, but high in protein and tastes DEEEEELICIOUS, which makes it perfect in absolutely every way (in my opinion anyway ;D)

All my school has is greasy pizza, and some random hot lunch, usually chicken tenders or nachos. The only thing they've done to make lunches "healthy" is to jack up the prices of ice cream and the crap in vending machines. The salads have a ton of ham mixed in and are drenched in dressing. 

OMG. I feel that if school lunch is going to be unhealthy, at least it should taste good. If I want to waste my calories, I'm going to do it on delicious food. BUT...school lunch sucks. I bought a turkey wrap but when I bit into it, it was smothered in ranch dressing. Ranch dressing might be a good ingredient to provide a little "kick", but there was WAAAY too much.

We have hot lunch, which is usually fairly unhealthy but there's a yummy option, and then the "sides" which are like salads and fruit. You can also get a sandwich or a wrap - beware the wraps! I bought a PB&J sandwich, but it was like a triple-layer monstrosity! Three slices of bread! I only ate half...

And then there's a la carte, which has things like baked chips, yogurt, Smucker's sandwiches, baggies of carrots, and...cookies! I like a la carte, but it's expensive.

Are you serious?! They serve pizza and burguers in your school? Wow, I'm really surprised. Do you live in America? I'm not judging at all, but I live in Portugal and NO WAY they would serve such things, they don't even allow chocolates and pastry at my school. It's all organic and cooked (or even raw).

I like my cereal bread with butter and maybe some cheese or ham in it, but I usually buy at school, I don't bring it from home :)*

I bring my lunch.

fruit salad- (usually 1 cup, strawberries, watermelon, and honeydew)

a fruit to go bar

a special k bar

and some almonds.

my school does have "healthy" options but they really aren't. its basically baked chips, and build your own sub.

Original Post by veggie_head:

I love whole wheat pitas. They're amazing! You can put whatever you want in them, so I never get bored. My favorite lunch is a pita with vegetable hummus, spinach, chopped bell peppers, and bean sprouts.

Hummus is low in both calories and fat, but high in protein and tastes DEEEEELICIOUS, which makes it perfect in absolutely every way (in my opinion anyway ;D)

All my school has is greasy pizza, and some random hot lunch, usually chicken tenders or nachos. The only thing they've done to make lunches "healthy" is to jack up the prices of ice cream and the crap in vending machines. The salads have a ton of ham mixed in and are drenched in dressing. 

 Pita's are great! I love them too! As for hummus I heard alot of great things but I never tried it. :o I can't find any in the store. I'd love to try it.

Yeah same here! The salads in my school are WAY over portioned and has added cheese and ham in them which they serve with mad ranch dressing. Your going to make a better choice choosing the hamburger or pizza.

I bring my own lunch, it's so much tastier and cheaper anyway.

1. Bread: Pita, Wrap, Bagel, Sandwich, Bean Salad
2. Protein: Chicken, Crabmeat, Tuna, Egg, Turkey
3. Crudites: Carrots, Pepper, Cucumber, Pickles, Celery...
4. Protein bars: Clif, luna, lara, kashi...
5. Nuts: Cashews, Soya nuts, Almonds...(with a green apple :D)

They don't serve junk like fries in the cafeteria, but there's a little snack bar near the cafeteria that sells:

1. Muffins (which are very good, by the way lol)
2. Brownie muffins (which are just brownies baked in a muffins tins, so it's like 3-4 servings of brownies)
3. Baked chips
4. BIG cookies (bigger than a CD)

And most of the people go there or eat out (Subway, Italian/Chinese/Greek restaurants, Hamburgers, Poutine, Fries, you name it.)

Original Post by nataschab:

Are you serious?! They serve pizza and burguers in your school? Wow, I'm really surprised. Do you live in America? I'm not judging at all, but I live in Portugal and NO WAY they would serve such things, they don't even allow chocolates and pastry at my school. It's all organic and cooked (or even raw).

I like my cereal bread with butter and maybe some cheese or ham in it, but I usually buy at school, I don't bring it from home :)*

 Yes, I live in america. I guess I always grew up that way. But dang, I seriously wish we had an all organic section in my school. That would be AMAZING, like seriously.

Anyways, yeah I would buy at school too if I had those options (:

Well, at my school, lunch is included, so we have a whole bunch of things to choose from in the cafeteria. There is whatever the "hot" lunch is that day, a deli bar, a drink station, and a salad bar. There is also something for dessert everyday, too, but I tend to skip it. Usually I will make myself a turkey-or-tofu sandwich on whole wheat bread with an excess of vegetables, and a side salad. I usually have issues with sneaking protein in my lunch at school (the turkey tastes NASTY, but it's the only thing I like there), so I'll hide it in-between some peppers or onions. Oh, and there is a soup station, too. And if all else fails, you can see numerous people sneaking pb+j sandwiches out to class. :P

Yeah, I'm not into the radioactive waste my school serves either lol. I'll usually pack for more than just a simple lunch, but for several snacks throughout the day (I'm not sure if you all do the 6 meals a day thing). Here's what I usually bring:

1. 1 or more fruits (sometimes some peanut butter or nutella in a container for dipping)
2. A veggie or a small salad
3. Some mixed nuts
4. Yogurt, cheese, or some other dairy product
5. Sandwich (just about any type I feel like having that day, but most commonly PB&J)
6. Protein bar
7. If I'm running out of ideas or there isn't much to choose from in the house, I'll pack some leftovers from the night before.

Keep in mind, I spread this out through the day. I don't eat this all at one sitting lol. If I'm feeling extra hungry that day, I might throw in some extra stuff, such as dried fruit or some rice or beans (just be sure to bring beano!!!! :P ). In fact it's quite seldom I'll follow my list exactly without throwing in a bunch of extra stuff.

I usually end up eating the same things every week. It's very routine lol, but I don't get bored.

1. Sandwich (turkey, tuna w/ light mayo, natural peanut butter, or chicken) or a Wheat Bagel with light cream cheese
2. piece of fruit (usually an orange, apple, or grapes)
3. other snack (fiber one bars or 100 calorie packs most of the time, but sometimes I have something less healthy like cookies or whatever as a "treat")
4. water or iced tea

that's typically it, but every so often I'll buy a soft pretzel because I love them. sometimes I'll drink a Diet Dr. Pepper, but that's VERY rarely. even if I wanted the hot lunch it's not worth it, because the lines are always so long.

My school doesn't even have a cafeteria that prepares food, believe it or not. We just have a certain "restaurant" (fast food) of the day. It's typically Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Chik Fil A, Taco Bell, and Papa John's. The only type of other foods they have for sale is a snack bar that sells sodas, candy bars, chocolates, Poptarts, and snack cakes. Needless to say, I always pack my lunch.

I try to include the following...

• A protein (chicken, tofu, eggs, tuna, yogurt, shrimp, etc.)
• A whole grain carb or starch (corn, brown rice, whole wheat products)
• A healthy fat source (trail mix, nuts, nut butter, olive oil, avacado, etc.)
• A variety of vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, green beans, peas, etc.)
• A legume (beans, lentils, etc.)
• And sometimes little "extras" too (salsa, cheese, etc.)

Much better than a Big Mac with fries and coke.

I live in Australia so we don't have such a focus on school lunches from our refectory. However, the options are pretty gross and oily and calorie crazy anyway - and being a vegan I couldn't eat most of it even if I wanted to: there's stuff like buttery, oily curries with fried poppadoms, quesadillas with cheese and chicken, deep-fried meat and cheese spanakopitas and samosas, brownies, cupcakes, pasta carbonara, pizza twists, mini-pizzas with an egg yolk in the center... ugh YUCK. And then there's the ice cream fridge and the soda machine. EW. The only things I can buy are fruit salad and wheatgrass juice shots. The fruit's always mangy and the wheatgrass is nice and full of vitamins and B-12, but $3.70 for a tiny little shotglass full. No thanks.

Anyway, every single day I obviously take a packed lunch (we mercifully have a student fridge and two microwaves, yay!).

For morning tea:

I usually take a serving of fresh fruit and some form of fat, with either raw veggies or dried fruit to make up the rest of my calories (this is usually anywhere from 100 - 150 cals). This week it's been watermelon balls with goji berries and almond butter, or a little carrot instead of the berries and tahini instead of the AB, and today it's a kiwifruit and a home made pumpkin muffin (NOTHING bad in it, very nutritious and it's a serve of whole grains. Literally no sugar, only fat in it comes from one tbsp. vegan butter because I need to up my fat intake).

For lunch:

ALWAYS salad. But man is it a good salad. I start building it by grabbing a few big handfuls of baby spinach leaves, then I add thinly sliced cucumber, raw sweet yellow corn kernels, slices of pepper (usually red or yellow, sometimes raw, sometimes roasted - today I have BOTH!), bean sprouts (two kinds), sometimes roast onion slices if we have any (red onion's SO sweet and nice when it's roasted), a protein (sometimes nuts, sometimes beans, and sometimes BOTH - today I have shelled pistachios), a whole grain (quinoa or barley are my faves!) and a nice big scoop of hummus! SO yum. Seriously, try it - it fills you up sooo much for between 200 - 300 cals :)

My school mostly serves greasy pizza, chicken tenders, nachos with chili cheese, cookies the size of my head, and what would be equivalent to super size fry at mcdonalds. Its disgusting. I could bring my own lunch, but the problem is I eat like every couple hours and I'm usually starving by 9. My lunch isn't until 1 or so. So I bring fiber bars, fruit snacks, or bags of whole grain cereal to snack on in the morning. And then at lunch I just go to the vending machine and get baked lays or sun chips. I know thats not the healthiest, but its better than going through the lunch line. I just eat a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread when I get home.

i ALWAYS bring my lunch. Our school offers nasty, unhealthy options and I'd much rather bring my lunch, and eat a leisurely lunch outside rather than waiting in a disappointingly huge line and getting food that's gross and eating it in about 5 minutes!

I always have a sandwich (typically turkey on light bread), fruit, and a bottle or so of water!

Sometimes my mom gets us (my brother and I) sushi from the grocery and I usually have veggie rolls.

During my senior year of highschool last year i started losig weight, so i would always pack a healthy sandwitch with a banana and some fruit and granola bars for snacks. I would never eat from the menu, it wasnt any good, plus i have found hairs in my cafeteria food plenty of times. So i totally cut that disgusting crap OUT.

Ew, i would always pack a sandwitch and some fruit in the morning and i would be good to go.