The Total Whole Foods Makeover (Part 2)

...and now, we'll cover lunch!

{You can read about our new breakfasts (and our motivations behind the total whole foods makeover) here.}

Here's what we USED to have for lunch:

1) Grilled cheese.  With a side of grilled cheese.  (We were really in a rut with that one.)

2) Mac n' cheese... from the box.  L's favorite that she requested pretty much every day.

3) Sometimes we'd have turkey sandwiches or PBJ.

Many times, especially with numbers 1 and 2, I would spend so much time and effort preparing a grilled cheese or mac n' cheese for each person, I didn't have the time or energy left after that to cut up fruit or veggies.  Many times we just ate the grilled cheese or the noodles with no fruit/veggie option.

Here are some examples of our new lunches:

Greek yogurt, blueberries, hummus with carrot, avocado slices and whole grain Ritz crackers.

(I'm looking for healthier cracker alternatives-- any suggestions?  Usually, if we have any kind of crackers or snacky carbs in the house, those get chosen over fruits and veggies--by all of us--as first snack choice.  If we're going to buy crackers I'd prefer that they weren't empty calories.)

A variation on the above, minus the avocado because L refuses it (although she loooooved it as a baby... go figure).

Turkey sandwich on homemade Super Fiber bread with fresh berries and a leftover breakfast cookie.

Hummus with carrots and pita chips, sliced watermelon, apple slices with Teddie's all-natural peanut butter (when I put chocolate chips in the peanut butter, even my children who claim not to like peanut butter will gobble it up... a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, I say).

A lunch for late in the week when I'm low on fresh produce: sliced banana, greek yogurt, and hummus rolled up in a tortilla.

If we have something leftover from supper last night that's easy to throw on a plate with the other fruits/veggies (like this cheese quesadilla) I'll sometimes include that too.  This one also has strawberry greek yogurt and homemade almond butter.

As you can see, I'm trying to cut back on any kind of cooking/prepping/sandwich grilling, so that *all* prepping of food at lunch time can be devoted to chopping or preparing fruits and veggies. All of the other foods are just plain whole foods that I can take out of the fridge and scoop onto a plate (yogurt, hummus, nut butter).  I don't even take the time to make cold sandwiches anymore--the one turkey sandwich you see pictured above was a rare occasion.

Mama's new lunches (a.k.a. "the quest for the perfect salad wrap"):

M has been taking salad wraps to work for lunch every day for the past two years or so.  He chops up the greens and puts them in a bowl in the fridge after we go grocery shopping at the beginning of the week, so everything is all prepared for me to just throw on a wrap and follow his healthy lunch example.  However, I found I was straying to the lure of the grilled cheese because I got bored with just plain greens and dressing on a wrap.  Plus the lack of protein left me hungry an hour later.

So lately we've compromised-- M adds a bit more variety of other chopped veggies into the greens at the beginning of the week, and I've been experimenting with other protein additions to my wrap.  Here are a few favorites:

Greens, carrots, cukes, goat cheese, and Newman's Own Sesame Ginger dressing.  This mimics one of my favorite salads ever from Flatbread Restaurant... minus the seaweed.  Sorry for the blurry cell phone pic.

This one included some of our leftover bean burrito ingredients from the previous night's supper: black beans, rice, avocado, and chopped tomato.  I did have greens on this wrap as well; I must have thrown them on after I took the picture.

One of my favey-avey-avorites.  Cooked quinoa, greens, carrots, cukes, chopped scallions, and thai peanut sauce.  This mimics the thai wrap from one of my favorite lunch spots near our old stomping grounds.

If we're out of wraps or I just feel like plain salad (this one was greens, cherry tomatoes, cukes, red onion, black olives, and ranch dressing... a yummy combo) I'll usually have a protein addition on the side, like avocado crackers or a green smoothie (I had both the day of this picture, apparently).

And now those burning questions...

1) Does Mikey like it?
Yes.  I'm trying to include things the kids already like, with perhaps a few more veggie options, so we usually get clean plates at lunch.  I haven't even heard a request for a grilled cheese or mac n' cheese in a long time.  I'm also being a little more persistent in continuing to put things on their plates that they have refused in the past-- every once in a while I'll give L a little avocado, for example.  We've had many successes and overall they are much more receptive than they were when we first started this.  N is actually choosing healthy things of her own accord when offered the option.  She's beginning to "get it"... and persistence on my part has been key.

2) Anybody got time fo dat???
The new lunches are definitely saving me time.  Even with chopping up fruits and veggies, I'd estimate that overall I'm spending less time making these lunches than I was before we made the switch.  The only hangup is the salad wraps for myself... even though I'm just pulling greens out of the fridge and throwing them on a wrap with whatever protein is in the house, I'm still having to make myself a separate lunch (the kids will eat salad wraps every once in a while-- especially if we have croutons-- but they kind of revolt if I serve them every day).  So sometimes I just make myself an extra plate of whatever yogurt/hummus/fruit/veggie combo the kids are eating, if I'm feeling lazy or pressed for time.

3) Does the diet change meet our budgetary needs?

Surprisingly, yes.  We're buying a lot more produce and going through it really quickly, but other items we *aren't* buying makes it even out, cost-wise.  And it's such a good feeling to be saying to myself "Where did all that kale go that I just bought?"  Before we would have rotting produce that we'd have to throw away... and now we're eating all of it.  That's gotta be a good thing, right?