Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 07:08 AM
There’s nothing like a healthy lunch to make me feel good. That is something I’m trying hard to pass along to my kids as well.
Here’s a sneak peak inside two lunches that went out the door at our house today.
First, my son’s lunch for school.
In his Transformers lunch box, you will find:
- Ham and Cheese sandwich on Freihofer’s 100% Hearty Whole Wheat bread (NuVal score of 33 for Freihofers)
- Chobani Champions Strawberry Banana Greek yogurt (not yet scored – I am eagerly awaiting the score on this new Chobani product for kids)
- Del Monte Fresh Cut Green Beans with No Salt Added (NuVal Score: 100)
- Horizon Organic Reduced Fat Milk (NuVal Score: 55)
- One Lunch Box Note reminding my son to pay it forward
More about those Lunch Box Notes later in this post!
He also took some Chocolate Teddy Grahams (NuVal Score of 25) and a Minute Maid Fruit Falls (NuVal Score of 41) for his afternoon snack. It’s always a challenge to pack something that will sit in his warm backpack until the 2 pm snack time!
I took some extra time to pack a nice healthy lunch for myself as well.
This is actually my morning snack and lunch. I eat a lot of food!
Morning Snack
- Strawberries (NuVal Score: 100)
- Chobani Fat Free Plain Greek Yogurt (NuVal Score: 94)
Lunch
- Romaine Lettuce (NuVal Score: 100)
- Red Leaf Lettuce (NuVal Score: 100)
- Cucumber (NuVal Score: 93)
- Cocktail Tomatoes (NuVal Score: 96)
- Goya Cannellini Beans (NuVal Score: 57)
- Dressing of Olive Oil (11), Balsamic Vinaigrette, Kosher Salt and Black Pepper)
- Cedar’s Red Pepper Hummus (NuVal Score: 61)
- Central Market Toasted Whole Grain Wheat and Flax Crackers (NuVal Score: 36)
- Orange (NuVal Score: 100)
- Ghiardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips (NuVal Score: 8)
I was a little disappointed by the score on the Cannellini beans. I thought they would be higher. I’ve been spoiled by the Beans That Scored 100!
Those Central Market Toasted Whole Grain Wheat and Flax Crackers were a great find!
The average score for crackers is a 16. So a cracker that scores a 36 is great. And they taste great too! I found them on my last visit to Price Chopper.
Packing a healthy lunch is no easy task! And in my case, it takes a lot of containers. My lunch bag was bulging!
Today’s Bonus Giveaway
As you know, I usually reserve giveaways for Trade Up Tuesday, but the nice people at www.sayplease.com were kind enough to send me some Lunch Box Notes to give away after I wrote about them in Two of My Favorite Things. They sent me Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Lunch Box Love for Kids:
I love these notes! There are even some blank ones inside so that you can personalize your message. And if you are not a Mom, you could win these and give them away to a Mom that you love for Mother’s Day. Also check out their site for:
- Lunch Box Love for Girlfriends
- Lunch Box Love for People You Work With
- Lunch Box Love for Those You Appreciate
To enter, leave a comment below telling me what’s in your lunch bag today. You can enter twice by leaving a second comment with the NuVal score for something in your lunch bag. Check out the NuVal site for some sample scores. I’ll pick one winner at random by 7 am EDT Friday. Good Luck!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Chobani, Crackers, Lunch, Salad, bread, tomatoes
Tags: Lunch Box Love
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 06:52 AM
Welcome to Trade-Up Tuesday – a weekly feature here on A Better Bag of Groceries. Every Tuesday, I tell you about a Trade-Up I’ve made since learning about NuVal and there is always a GiveAway for one lucky commenter. Today’s topic: Arnold Grains and More Bread.
The score for Arnold Flax & Fiber bread caught my eye when I was visiting a Price Chopper store over a year ago. Who could miss that Rock-Star score of a 48. While a 48 might not sound so high on a scale of 1 – 100, when you are talking about bread, it is. The median score for bread (half score above it, half score below it) is a 25. So, when you see most bread scores hovering around the mid-20s, a 48 sure stands out. So, I started buying it. It makes terrific toast. And one slice is enough for me.
While the crown, sash and flowers go to Flax & Fiber, Miss First Runner Up is noteworthy as well. After all, if Flax and Fiber is unable to fulfill her duties, Arnold Double Protein could easily stand in with a top-notch score of 35.
Last week, so many ABBG readers commented on Trade-Up Tuesday that they would like to try Flax & Fiber. So, here’s your big chance! All you need to do is leave me a comment answering the following question: what would you most like to put on top of your Arnold Flax & Fiber or Double Protein bread? Also, check out the bread scores at www.nuval.com if you get the chance. Interesting stuff! One lucky commenter will win both breads and some goodies from the NuVal prize closet. The contest closes at 11:59 pm Eastern time tonight. Good luck to all the lovely contestants!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: bread
Tags: Arnold
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 01:08 PM
Don’t you just love all those “Back To School” segments that permeate the airwaves at this time of year. My husband and I saw this short Healthy School Lunch piece on our local Boston NBC station Monday night. While I admire Molly’s nutritious choices and creative presentation, I just can’t see myself making a Turkey Kabob for my son’s lunch box. Molly cubed the turkey, and cut up pieces of home-made bread for her kabobs. That is just not happening in our household. And then I think of what my son would do with the skewer once he was done with the kabob? Use it as a weapon? Hmmmmm. Not a workable lunch idea for me. Even the news anchors were doubting Molly’s suggestion to get your children to eat roasted red peppers.
Instead of a labor-intensive lunch making plan, I decided to use one of my favorite strategies to make life easier: use child labor. My son started first grade this morning. So last night, I asked him if he’d like to make his own lunch. He enthusiastically agreed to do so. So I got him set up and he went to work. While he worked on his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I cleaned up dinner dishes. It was a win-win situation. Yes, there was jelly to clean up after, but it was worth it.
I went into the office today to see my friends who work in Scoring to see how my son’s lunch fared. I was pretty excited because I thought I had found THE AMAZING BREAD THAT SCORES AN 81. I was wrong.
Nature’s Pride 100% Natural 100% Whole Wheat Bread: 27
Trader Joe’s Natural Peanut Butter: ?
Smucker’s Strawberry Preserves: 1
Organic Baby Carrots: 99
Apple Slices: 96
Horizon Organic Reduced Fat Chocolate Milk: 27
So the bread that I bought looked really healthy. Look at all those claims – 100% Natural, 100% Whole Wheat. But it got a 27. Not bad, when you consider that the median score in Bread is a 25. But it’s not THE AMAZING BREAD THAT SCORES AN 81. That would be Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat Bread. And this is why I really wish I had a grocery store that actually had NuVal in it. I work there and I work with scores all the time, but when faced with the completely overwhelming bread aisle, I can’t remember which breads get what score.
The peanut butter that we used is from Trader Joe’s and we haven’t scored their store-brand products. Now, I could assume that it gets close to what Teddie Peanut Butter Smooth gets (a 36). But as I learned from my Bread experience, you really can’t make those assumptions.
My son also packed a snack for school.
Fruit Falls Tropical gets a 41 (a much better score than many juice boxes)
Pepperidge Farms Goldfish get a 24
Bananas get a 91
With my own first-day jitters, I worried that he might get hungry and so I quickly packed him a second snack this morning:
Minute Maid 100% Juice Mixed Berry which scores a 13 (see what I mean about those juice boxes)
Wheat Thins which get a 23 (nope, they’re not better than Goldfish)
Grapes which get a 91
Well, he’s home now and he had a great first day. His lunch may not have been made on a skewer, but it was a fun project. And it included this note that you see in the picture. Now that’s creative. And it only took me a minute.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Apples, Goldfish, Juice, bread, chocolate milk, peanut butter, wheat thins
