This is the week that most kids and students are dreading, and when parents are silently exalting – yes, that’s right, it’s back to school week! Keep them in good spirits and make their new term as fun and stimulating as possible for them, by making sure their packed lunches are brimming with delicious veggie food. The key is to keep lunchboxes colourful, healthy and tasty – make the other kids envious!

We’ve put together a top 10 list of back to school packed lunches, with hints and tips that’ll make the transition from home to school an easy one. And don’t worry, they’re easy on you too – we all know what it can be like in the mornings!

1.  What you can do, I can do better. Ask your children what other kids are eating. Chances are you can switch meaty or fishy sandwiches for veggie alternatives, and they’ll still feel part of the crowd. Tuna mayo sandwich? Redwood’s faux-fish and vegan mayo. Egg mayo? Scrambled tofu. Meat slices? Polony (faux-sausage meat). Done.

2. You’re crackers. Forget mini-(dairy)cheeses, full of fat and other nasties. Sure they look cute, but what are you putting into your child’s body? Instead, opt for a soya cheese like Sheese, with a range of delicious flavours including edam, smoked cheddar and blue, and some crackers. Simple but effective.

3. Sausage sarnie. There’s nothing quite like a sausage sandwich, smothered in ketchup and with a few fried onions in for good measure. Ok, so I guess this isn’t the healthiest lunch on the list, but it sure beats meaty bangers that can lead to a whole host of health problems later in life. Try Linda McCartney’s sausages, they can be found in many supermarkets and health-food stores.

4. Thermos tricks. Warm your kids up on cold winter days by heating up a soup and pouring it into a thermos. It will stay warm until lunch, and adding in a slice or two of buttered bread will bulk it out to fill their tummies until home time.
 
5. Kiddie salads. Pasta salads are a great way to encourage kids to eat salad. Mix coloured pasta spirals with diced salad staples, such as tomatoes and cucumbers, and a dressing. Try other child-friendly salads, like faux-chicken salad, and faux-bacon and avocado.

6. Pita perfect. Cut mini-pitas in half, and stuff them with hummus, falafel or their other favourite sandwich fillings, and salad. Hummus is found in just about every supermarket in the UK, and is versatile too. Just make sure you pop in an extra little pot and some veg sticks so they can do some dunking!

7. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Who doesn’t like PB&J? Send ‘em packing with a sandwich oozing with lashings of peanut butter (crunchy or smooth) and strawberry jam. Just wait for the compliments to start rolling in!

8. Milky magic. Banish the milk cartons and switch to flavoured soya milk. The chocolate Alpro soya milk is delicious – thick, creamy and available throughout the UK.

9. Fruit, fruit, fruit. So important but it doesn’t have to be boring. Rather than just popping an apple in the lunchbox, mix up a fruit salad of apple, orange, grapes, passionfruit, strawberries, mango… The world’s your fruity oyster!

10. Chocoholics ahoy! If you really can’t leave chocolate out of the lunchbox, opt for dark chocolate. Some are so rich that even just one square is enough for one sitting – pleasing a sweet tooth without the risk of too many trips to the dentist.

Check out a full length feature on more ideas for the back to school rush at VegCooking.com

Very, very angry this time..

So the Mail and the Independent printed an absurd story about a woman who fed her kids a nutritionally deficient, raw food diet. Okay, now that’s not unacceptable. Where I get angry is when they call it a VEGAN diet. C’mon, 99 percent of vegans eat cooked foods and every responsible medical and dietetic body in the world, including the British Dietetic Association, agrees that vegan diets are healthy for children and that studies indicate vegetarian and vegan kids tend to be healthier than meat-eating kids. They are far less likely to be overweight and are far more likely to eat their veggies, an essential part of good nutrition.

It has been reported on before about child obesity – relating to meat based diets – and there is no denying that the UK is going through an epidemic of childhood medical problems – this is happening daily yet one person doesn’t follow a diet properly and because people choose to see vegans/raw foodies as “holier than thou” for some bizarre reason, the article makes it into a national online newspaper (with a factually incorrect title I might add) What is this? Attack vegans month or something?

If this lady wanted to try to raise her kids on a raw diet – (although personally I think there’s no beating a cooked meal on a cold winter evening!) – shouldn’t she have done a better job of researching it? Rule one – if you are going to seriously take on a lifestyle - and raw food, vegan food, vegetarian living is a lifestyle, not a faddy diet - then the first step is to research – let’s face it, you wouldn’t drive a car without lessons, would unlikely be a genius with CRM’s, CMS’ or at CSS (Matt’s geekspeak!) without intensive training, you wouldn’t assume that something written in another language is the gospel truth without first understanding the language..  So why, OH WHY, would you have such a lax attitude towards implementing your dietary choice?

Anyway, are the Indy and the Mail in cahoots (or more likely, can you not find any other unhealthy vegans, guys – I mean c’mon??) Call me a cynic, but the whole thing smacks of poor observation of dietary requirements and an effort to somehow put down the vegan diet again, yawn…..zzzzzz

Your friendly ‘Knows 20+ year healthy vegans so there’ neighbourhood Matt

P.S. Not long to go now with the Morrissey tickets giveaway!!

Well if this story didn’t make me burst into a neon beam of a smile… If you’re sick of all the childhood drink, drugs, sex and crime stories circulating our gem of a country, this should put back your faith in the younger generation. 11-year-old Gaby Trotter from Flintshire, Wales, is taking on Mars by trying to get their products banned from her school. She says in her local newspaper, “I was talking to my friend and she told me about this website about Mars funding tests on animals and I didn’t like what they’re doing. I looked into it and decided not to have any more Mars products.” And now she wants her school to follow suit. Now I wonder where her friend came across the information about Mars testing on animals…