grain free lunches for school?
 

Hubby and I have been half heartedly been doing primal and we plan on doing 80% primal for our whole family. Kids defenitely do better with no grains. Thu are 6 and 8. Problem is school lunches. The school is nut free (teachers
Will throw away any food with nuts) and the microwaves got taken away because of the teachers strike in bc Canada (against strike for teachers to supervise lunches so can't have microwaves inclassroom). I have been packing lots of hardboiled eggs and lunch meat but I am stumped on what else to lack. At home they love almonds, cashews, walnuts, apples and peanut butter etc but for school choices are limited. Also youngest son has to keep dairy to a bare minimum due to intolerance. Ideas?

Chicken stir fry ... Veggies, chicken, sauteed in Olive or coconut oil. Throw on some spices & its delicious:)

Cold though??

Chicken/turkey/ham salad or egg salad wrapped in lettuce? I use those a lot for my own lunches. Or actual salads with chopped meats in them.

Meats wrapped in lettuce are a great sandwich substitute. Hard boiled eggs are another good choice, or deviled eggs.

There's a recipe somewhere for spinach "bread" (basically spinach, eggs and pine nuts) that could be substituted for bread in regular sandwiches.

Personally, I can eat cold meat - like leftover roast chicken, leftover roast beef, or leftover ham - straight up without need anything to wrap it in. Add in some baby carrots or pepper strips and a piece of fruit, and you're golden.

Beef jerky is another possibility.

Or maybe dehydrated veggie chips (something big, like eggplant or beet or sweet potato) as "bread" for lunchmeat.

If you allow them any grains at all in their diet, school lunches may be a good place to let them have some bread. Depending on how old they are there may be social pressure to have a lunch that isn't too much unlike everyone else's.

edit: 6 and 8? Maybe not an issue yet, but middle school is coming up for the 8-year-old and it may become an issue then.

I try to eat paleo, though I will eat small amounts of a few high-protein grains (like quinoa and naturally harvested true wild rice), and small amounts of starchy veggies such as squash, sweet potato (not too often), and every once in a while waxy potatoes like reds and yukon gold.

I get noticeably unpleasant reactions to significant amounts of starches, grains or refined sugars (as well as to large amounts of even primal sugars and to any amount of wheat), so I experiment.

After finding coconut recipes using coconut foods (including coconut flour) and coconut bread and cake recipes on paleo websites, I started experimentin with coconut products (unrefined coconut oil, coconut butter, coconut milk, and coconut flour), and I've had tremendous luck with them all.


Coconut flour is a high fiber and relatively low-glycemic, low-carb flour; but I don't know the official paleo position on whether it's considered a food that should be eaten regularly, or just occasionally. I have to say that I've not noticed any problems yet (but I'm not eating much or often), but it's really nice to have a piece of bread or tortilla once in a while.

Coconut may or may not be considered a "nut" by the school (I wouldn't think so, because coconuts aren't botanically related to other nuts, and coconut allergies are much rarer than other "nut" allergies. Peanuts aren't really nuts either, but unlike coconut, they're a very common allergen).

My mom packed warm food for me when I was a kid. She put warm food in a thermos and it worked pretty well.

Mine too. I remember being excited when Mom bought a wide-mouthed for each of us, because until then, she'd just pack an extra-long iced-tea spoon, and I always felt like a dork trying to eat casseroles with a long spoon.