Packaging, packaging, everywhere

Science Mommy is an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp.

I need my eldest child to eat healthy food during the day. School lunches frighten me. The menu is all brand names and most of them I recognize from the frozen food isle of the grocery store, like XX's "hot pockets". So, not just frozen. Fried, then frozen. What happened to good old mystery meat and Wednesday lasagna day? Ok, we hated it, but the lunch room ladies actually COOKED it! From raw ingredients.

Enter my dilemma. I feel l must send him with milk, fruit, a protein source, a grain (yes, I have been completely brainwashed by the concept of the food pyramid despite all those years of education!). All of these come in little packages. I tried getting small re-usable containers for a while and my ds kept throwing them out no matter how much I threatened him with corporal punishment and a world overflowing with parks turned into landfills.

So, I buy small cartons of milk that dont have to be kept cold (I love that these come in the organic variety), small containers of fruit in the healthiest varieties I can find (when we cannot get fruit in season), baggies or packages of crackers that the two of us can agree upon (precious few varieties), and usually a sandwich in another baggie. So much plastic, so little child!

I am a living contradiction. The scientist in me says there must be a better way! Surely I can reduce all the waste in this one little lunch box. The Mommy in me cannot seem to risk it. Ug, school lunches!