Parents of gluten free children will need to pack at least 175 lunches per child this school year. Other parents face the same dilemma, of course, but our challenge is greater because we can’t allow our children to “trade lunches” with wheat-eating children or to “cheat” because they have refused to eat the lunch we pack and end up being so hungry they will eat whatever is available. It’s a huge problem!

Here is some basic information that may help:

This article sets the goal for all parents. I have added some comments in parentheses to make it relevant to the parents of children living gluten free:

“Our goal is “to make sure that the lunches you pack are envied (or at least not scorned) by other (wheat eating) children, but eaten (not traded or thrown away) by your child”

The article makes many suggestions about how to do this, and modifying the ideas to meet our needs will be relatively easy. “Thirty Ideas for School Lunches“, an article prepared by Good Housekeeping, is not specifically gluten free, but the ideas are useful.

Encourage your children to e-mail me with their ideas about their favorite gluten free lunch. My address is gfceliac@gmail.com.

In this video, a mother outlines her unique plan for dealing with a gluten fee child during a school celebration in which gluten toxic food is being served.