We all start out the school year with lofty goals for our kids’ packed lunches (not to mention our own!) but it’s been a few weeks, and we’ve all hit a rut. But before you fall back on packaged snacks, give these whole foods packed lunch ideas a whirl. They’re fast, they’re easy, and best of all, you can pack the same thing for everyone in the family.

1. The Classic: Sandwich, Veggie and Dip, and Fruit

This lunch idea falls back on the old classic you grew up with, with a few modern twists. Start with a sandwich: swap out that white sandwich loaf mom used with a healthier organic bread. You can either make your own (this vegan spelt bread is to die for) or choose your favorite store-bought or bakery bread.

Sandwich the slices around a simple filling made of healthy, whole food ingredients. Here are just a few of our favorite combos:

• Organic roast turkey with mustard
• Hummus and alfalfa sprouts
• Organic beets and goat cheese
• Organic cashew butter and raw honey

Next, throw in a baggie of carrot sticks, a fresh organic apple, and a little container of hummus, nut butter, or tahini, and you’re ready to go.

2. Rice or Grain Salad

Rice or grain salads are a great way to use up leftovers from the night before. When you’re making dinner, make a habit of cooking up a pot of rice, quinoa, or spelt, and toss it with a bit of oil, butter, or vinaigrette to keep it from sticking. Then add some mix-ins, and lunch is ready.

Here are just a few of our favorite combos:

• Quartered cherry tomatoes and basil
• Cooked black beans, chopped scallions, and salsa
• Canned sustainable tuna and sliced olives
• Goat cheese and leftover roasted squash

3. Fajitas

While a lot of Mexican options like nachos, tacos, or burritos can get soggy by the time you get them to school or to work, fajitas work a charm because you keep the tortillas separate until you’re ready to eat. Try using bento boxes like GoodByn to separate the tortillas, guac, salsa, and fillings (roasted veggies or sliced grilled meats are great options).

4. Smorrebrod

For a super special sandwich, why not try a Scandinavian smorrebrod? The grainy rye bread is rich in fiber and super filling, and it makes a great base for a variety of ingredients (here are just a few of our favorite combos).

Some toppings may make the bread soggy, so consider packing the topping and the bread separately so that you can assemble when you’re ready to eat.

5. Lettuce Wraps

Leftover ginger chicken or barbecued tofu are the perfect fillings for lettuce wraps. Just choose a lettuce that will hold together well like butter lettuce or bibb – or even a heartier green like Swiss chard or kale. Add a small container of your favorite dipping sauce like teriyaki, sriracha, or coconut aminos to make this lunch even more special.

6. Spanish Tortilla

A well-made Spanish tortilla holds together even better than an omelet and is even better cold than hot. While a traditional tortilla features just potatoes and a bit of onion as a filling, you can also add other low-moisture ingredients like bell peppers, chiles, or peas to add color and nutrients.

Make the tortilla the night before, and once it’s cool, cut it into wedges. Wrap the wedges in a sustainable material like bee’s wrap, and let everyone grab their piece out of the fridge before heading to school or work.

7. Leftovers

With a little bit of planning, you can ensure that all the effort you’re putting into dinner serves you twice. Recipes like stir fries, Buddha bowls, or heartier soups can easily be doubled or tripled to make enough to pack up for the next day with no extra work or effort at all. Just be conscious of whether your kids have access to a microwave when picking your recipes: you want it to be something that’s just as delicious cold as it was hot.

Do you have any other tips and tricks for making a healthy packed lunch quickly? Share them with us via Facebook or Twitter.

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Greening the Brown Bag: Lunch Solutions 

The post 7 Ways to Make a Whole Foods Packed Lunch in Under 20 Minutes appeared first on EcoSalon.

Poor Alice has been getting beaten up regularly these days, particularly after her recent appearance on 60 minutes. On the show, she came off as quite out of touch with how normal people live. In essence, she said that she chooses to spend more money on good food and, well, why shouldn’t other people?

She even made an unfortunate comment about how some people prioritize buying two pairs of Nike sneakers. After mulling over the show, reading the many opinion pieces all over the web, and thinking about what she has accomplished, I still don’t really know where I stand on the issue, so I thought I’d put it to you readers.

Without at doubt, Waters lives in her own rarefied world. Berkeley has a year-round temperate climate and an abundance of farmers’ markets. She has a lovely house with a gorgeous kitchen, complete with open hearth. I’m sure she worked hard over the years to get where she is, but now she has personal assistants and staff to take care of the boring little details of life, so she may not have a very good grasp on the struggles of us everyday plebes who have to get to work on time, keep the house clean, pay bills, answer our own emails and feed our kids, while also making sure they get back and forth to all their school activities. And I’m pretty sure she regrets having made that comment about Nike sneakers.

In a recent piece in the New York Times, her insistence on serving only local, organic food in our nation’s truly abysmal school cafeterias is a little nuts considering how far they have to come. I think she probably truly does believe everyone deserves good, wholesome, organic food, but this piece read rather disingenuous, like it was a response to the criticism she’s been getting.

On the other hand, we have Waters to thank for things like locally-grown baby salad greens, the joy of knowing where our food comes from, the pleasure of enjoying the best ingredients cooked as simply as possible and most recently, the fact that the Obamas are planting a vegetable garden at the White House (she has lobbied for this since the Clintons lived there). For people who care about food, she is a hero.

The Edible Schoolyard she founded in Berkeley is a triumph, and she had a big hand in the fact that 85,000 people showed up to Slow Food Nation last summer in San Francisco. The fact that 60 Minutes is covering local, organic food is a huge step forward.

I think we need many changes in this country in the way we eat: in schools, in hospitals, in grocery stores, and convenience stores, and our own kitchens. We need individuals to jump on board and we need different government policies around food.

But every individual working on these changes needs to do it from where they are. Alice is simply making changes where she lives. Maybe other communities less blessed cannot replicate her Edible Schoolyard, but if she inspires some teachers and parents to work with kids to plant a few seeds, perhaps that’s better on balance. Or is she so out of touch she alienates the very people she’d like to inspire?

Image: San Francisco Chronicle / Carlos J. Ortiz

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