Tuna Salad & Crackers

The Lunch Idea

I try really hard to come up with ideas for lunch that are different every day, and that aren't totally loaded with bread and carbs.  Not because we're on a diet or anything, but because most carbs are empty calories that provide very little nutrition, and I want my kids to get calories and nutrition. 

Two of these lunches have my kid version of a tuna salad - just albacore tuna with mayo and shredded cheese.  I know, most people have never heard of putting cheese in tuna salad before.  But we have cheese on a tuna melt, right?  I realized a few years ago that it's much easier for a kid to eat a tuna melt if the cheese was mixed in, because as it melts it helps hold the whole thing together. So instead of putting a slice of cheese just on the top of the tuna in the sandwich, I mixed shredded cheese in with the tuna.  But then I realized that they really liked just eating the leftover tuna that way, with the cheese in it - they will gladly just eat that with a spoon. So ever since then, that's how I make tuna for them, sandwiches or not. 

What's in the Lunch:

• Two have the above mentioned tuna salad.
• The third doesn't like tuna, so she has just cut up leftover chicken. 
• The fourth child doesn't like either of those, so she has a container of peanut butter and a container of apple sauce, and a cheese.
• Veggies: carrots and/or sweet peppers
• Crackers
• Seaweed Snacks
• Apples