Healthy School Snacks

This is the sort of food my kids get at school for lunch. They also get a tiny pot of fruit - about 4 or 5 pieces of mellon or fruit. Honestly, it is not awful, nor is it repetitive. We used to have 4 choices a month, A, B, C or D, with D always being vegetarian.  

Recently they changed their kitchen and now make the rice and veggies fresh at the school, and offer two choices a 'Meat Set' with two meat dishes and a 'Vegetarian Set' with one vegetarian dish.  Both are served with rice and veggies.  There are no repeated options in the month - which is pretty impressive!  I have to order a month in advance, and the cost is about 18 HKD a day (2.30 USD)  (I'll add a link or photo to a sample monthly menu from the school when I get it next month)

I read through the menu with the kids, and they pick what they want in advance - last month every week was 4x vegetarian sets and 1x meat set a week.  This month they went for vegetarian every day.  I don't have a photo of the new lunches yet, but according to my kids and some of the moms they are much better than before. 

The school is also going 'green' and requires the kids to each bring their own utensils - chopsticks, fork and spoon.  

The kids also can bring snacks to eat at recess or after lunch, but they often save them for after school.

We have two small plastic boxes for each of them.

• One usually has apples or grapes or carrots or similar
  
• The other usually has seaweed (plain nori), crackers, crunchy edamame, homemade goldfish crackers, Scottish oat cakes, or other filling foods
  
• Sometimes I throw in a cheese stick
  
• Occasionally they might get an extra treat like dried fruit or fruit roll up sort of thing we make at home.
  
• They often request these Cute Hard Boiled Eggs

And on days we have leftover rice and salmon I make them these Onigiri - Easy Japanese Rice Balls which they really like.

If they don't eat everything, I am not fussed - it is giving them healthy options to choose from, and if they are hungry enough, they will eat them. If not, no problem.

Related Links:

I'm lazy, and don't always manage to make homemade healthy treats every week.  I appreciate being able to buy some foods from iHerb, it saves me a lot of time and it feels like a real treat to the kids!  

Some of the more processed and convenient snacks I often buy:

Dry Roasted Edamame 
Tamari Seaweed Brown Rice Snaps
Vegetable Brown Rice Snaps
Inka Corn Snacks
Nori Maki Crackers
Freeze Dried Peas and Corn and More
Freeze Dried Fruits

For a very special treat, I make my homemade 'not so sweet raw balls' or just get these, and I cut the squares up even smaller into 4 small pieces and give them 2 little pieces:

Cacao Goji Superfood Power Snack
Citrus Chia Superfood Power Snack 

I use my dehydrator to make dried fruits and sometimes homemade fruit roll ups, but am also considering these healthy sort of fruit roll up stuff as special treats:

Cinnamon Spiced Beet Bars
Fruit Veggie Shreds Super Apple
Fruit Veggie Shreds Rooty Blues
Eden Foods Nuts, Seeds and Berries Mix

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