Despite introducing ALL THE FOODS to Lilly through baby-led weaning when she was about six or seven months old, Lilly is now three and totally opinionated about what she eats. Meaning, she is a bit of a picky eater. However, for most meals, I don’t make her anything different and she can either eat it or not. I want her to eat a variety of foods and I want her to obviously eat as many fruits and veggies as possible, but, you know… she’s three… so… that doesn’t always happen. We try! But let’s be real…

And while dinner is easy because I just have her eat what we eat, lunch can sometimes be a bit of a struggle. Does anyone else have trouble with lunch ideas?!?! Seriously!

Now don’t get me wrong, I am NOT fancy with lunch. In fact, I am the-simpler-the-better when it comes to lunch. This year Lilly is in preschool three days a week and a few times a month, I have her stay after school for lunch bunch. Basically lunch bunch is where she eats lunch at school and gets an extra hour of playtime and I get an extra hour in the morning to work or have a meeting or run errands.

However, we go to a school where there are A TON (and I mean, A TON) of allergies amongst the kiddos. The biggest one being peanut / tree nut allergies. There are a few kiddos in her school with life-threatening nut allergies, so we can’t send ANY snacks or food that have peanuts or tree nuts in them and we can’t even send any food or snack that have ANY type of cross contamination or could be processed in a facility with nuts.

If you’ve never paid attention to those kinds of allergy warnings on food before, then you have NO IDEA HOW MANY foods have allergy risks. So, when you couple allergy risks along with a picky eater, that can somewhat limit your choices in what you send with your kid to school!

ANYWAY, I thought I’d share with y’all a typical lunch I send with Lilly (that is TOTALLY allergy free!) along with some of my other favorite things to send with her. 

Now, if you’ve been reading the blog for awhile, you know my LOVE for Relay Foods. I have blogged about Relay before because they’re AMAZING. If you don’t know, Relay Foods is an online grocery store that only carries “healthy” foods – meaning organic, non-gmo, not a lot of processed foods, and a lot of foods that support local farms, bakeries, etc. They are amazing!!!! Right now they’re only located in the Maryland, DC, Virginia, and North Carolina areas. BUT, they could be expanding to your area soon!!

Another thing I love about Relay is that they are either DELIVERY or pick-up. Pick-up is super easy because you literally show up to a pick-up location and they load the groceries in your car… OR you have them delivered ($19 a month for UNLIMITED DELIVERIES). Delivered groceries is basically the best ever.

I also love their fresh produce selections that are FULL of delicious produce from local farms! 

ANYWAY. Back to the subject at hand…

I love that I can order things from Relay to easily use in Lilly’s snacks and lunches and I know that they’re healthy and a lot of the options are allergy free!!

Here is the lunchbox I use for Lilly. It’s from Bentology and I am seriously OBSESSED with it. It’s made in the USA and I love that it really portions out her food AND I love all the different compartments and components!!

Lunchbox c/o Bentology

The interior part of the lunchbox is removable!

And here’s what it looks like. It even comes with a reusable fork and spoon!!

So here’s what a “typical” lunch looks like for Lilly:

• Sun butter and organic jelly sandwich on organic bread
  • I LOVE Sun butter! It tastes JUST like peanut butter but it’s made from Sunflowers!!!! So it’s soy free, dairy free, nut free, tree nut free, etc. Lilly doesn’t know the difference so she thinks that she’s eating Peanut Butter and Jelly!! This is seriously the PERFECT thing to have if you have a nut-free school!
• A clementine / tangerine
  • Lilly LOVES these!
• Organic raisins
• Organic string cheese 
• Organic baby carrots
• Pea crisps (she LOVES THESE THINGS… she thinks they’re potato chips)
• And for “dessert” I put in Annie’s bunny fruit snacks (she calls them strawberry bunnies and thinks they’re candy)

Sometimes I’ll switch it up and do a different fruit or some crackers – but I have to be careful with the crackers that they aren’t processed in a nut facility!

This is the Sun butter that I get from Relay Foods. It’s awesome!

Here are a couple other things I LOVE from Relay. One of the sections I love on their site is the “Lunchbox Solutions” tab… that has PRE-MADE lunch ideas and snacks!! SO perfect!

I hope this is helpful! If you also have a kiddo who goes to school at a nut-free / allergy free facility, I’d LOVE to hear your ideas as to what you pack your kiddo!!

And if you live in Virginia, Maryland, DC, or North Carolina… definitely check out Relay Foods! They have a promo going on for October which is $30 off a grocery order of $60 or more (normally $20 off $60!!).

*This is not a sponsored post. I received a credit to Relay Foods for this month, but I purchase my groceries from there ALL the time!!! You can also receive a credit if you use your referral link! All opinions are 100% my own! 🙂