When Did We Become Allergic To Lunchboxes?

When I was a kid, food came in normal-sized containers, and parents were responsible for doling out child-sized portions that their kids could take to school. They accomplished this feat with the help of an amazing technological advancement called "Tupperware" that allowed people to create single servings where none existed before. It revolutionized lunchboxes everywhere -- for a little while, at least. I wondered if Tupperware had gone the way of the dodo -- but clearly the concept is still around, because I found this lovely set of snack tubs online. So why aren't parents using these things? Have we grown so lazy as consumers that we can't be bothered to take a handful of raisins or cookies out of the big pack and put them in a smaller container for our kids?? Or are we just suckers for the latest marketing gimmick?

Either way, this is simply not a sustainable trend. I see this whole "single-serving" craze as part of the very destructive and wasteful love-affair Americans have developed with disposable products. Nothing is made to last anymore, nothing is built to be re-used, just toss it in the trash when you're done with it. Pathetic! You can see it in all the Dasani bottles and juice boxes that end up in landfills (in my day, you took a re-fillable thermos or sippy bottle with you to carry your juice or water) -- in the packs of condiments and napkins that come with every take-out meal (and then go straight in the garbage without ever being used) -- and especially in the "lunchables" and little tuna/mayo/relish kits with throw-away knives and forks (how freaking hard is it to make tuna salad or a ham and cheese sandwich from scratch?)

You'll Pay For It In The End

I know that, for a busy and harried parent, throwing a bunch of single-serving items together for your child's lunch SEEMS more convenient than making lunch from scratch -- but you're paying for that convenience in ways that you probably can't actually afford over the long run. First of all, these kinds of meals cost a lot more than the homemade variety. It cracks me up when parents attempt to save on their food budget by shopping the warehouse stores for all of these "snack-sized" munchables. While this is certainly less expensive than buying miniaturized lunches at the grocery store, feeding your little ones is a lot more affordable if you make the decision to avoid these sorts of overly-packaged foods altogether.

Let's face it, the store doesn't don't give away bags and bottles and boxes for free -- packaging is expensive! It's a matter of simple arithmetic -- the more packaging, the higher the price-tag. And with single-servings, you spend more money for less food than you would get if you bought a bigger container and subdivided it yourself. For example, you might spend 79-99¢ each on those little 6-ounce cups of yogurt -- but if you bought a  32-ounce tub and sent your kid to school with a re-usable single-serving container and lid, you would save 1/4 to 1/2 the price! According to the folks at Waste-Free Lunches, the typical "disposable" school lunch -- which includes sandwich bags and foil, prepackaged snacks (like chips, granola bars, cheeses, and fruit leathers), prepackaged desserts (like applesauce, pudding, cookies, or fruit bars), a canned or bottled drink, disposable picnic ware, and paper napkins -- costs over $4. Buy the same exact food in larger quantities, store it in re-usable containers (rather than plastic and paper bags), throw in a cloth napkin and silverware that your kid will bring home to be washed, and you drop the cost to just over $2. That's a savings of nearly $250 per child per school year!

Of course, there's also the health factor. Aside from baby carrots and bottled water, most of the stuff that comes in single servings is crap -- barely a step above fast food, not at all what young bodies need to grow up big and strong. Sodium-laden sandwich meats, fatty processed cheeses, "juice drinks" that contain more sugar than juice, cookies and crackers with no real nutritional value -- hell, even the apple slices come with caramel dipping sauce! It's no wonder our children have no idea what a healthy meal is once they become adults!

And, like everything else, the problem is bigger than just YOU and YOUR family and what they choose to eat -- the pollution caused by single-serving foods has reached a global crisis level. The Center For Ecoliteracy points out that containers and packaging materials make up 32% of the municipal solid waste stream -- that's over 800 pounds of trash per person each year! Americans purchase 45 million water bottles every day (90%  of which are thrown away), one out of every three servings of water is drunk from a disposable plastic bottle, and we toss out over 300 million cups in a 24-hour period. Nice! It's not just adults that are creating the mess. An average elementary school student eating homemade lunches generates 67 pounds of food packaging waste each year -- that's the body weight of a fourth-grader! School lunches are no better. As much as 60% (by weight and volume) of what your child is handed on a school lunch tray is thrown away -- that equates to 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for just one average-size elementary school.

So you can understand why I got so inordinately irritated at those damned Dora The Explorer edamame beans -- a gain in one direction (better eating habits), offset by a drastic and disturbing failure in another (packaging). Parents, please -- you have to be the ones to take responsibility for this. You want your children to eat right and be healthy -- you also want them to inherit a functional planet and become good "stewards" in their own right. Then say no to prepackaged convenience foods, explain to your kids why they are wasteful, and you'll kill two birds with one stone!

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