Sack Lunch

by Julia Parker, from the October 2005 Newsletter

When we learned that the Co-op deli would be closed for a while I looked at my partner, J.D., in mock horror and said “But what will we eat?” Although I do eat many lunches at the Co-op deli, I am also an avid lunch packer. Most importantly, I pack lunch, dinner, snacks, etc. when we travel. J.D. and I both have significant sack lunch baggage from our youth. J.D. still won’t eat bananas after years of receiving “too far gone” bananas in his lunches that sat in the over-heated lockers and lunchrooms of Georgia and North Carolina. I, on the other hand, am largely responsible for my sack lunch issues. (This may come as a shock to you, but I may have been a kind of weird kid.) My favorite lunch was pastrami, Parmesan, and pickles on whole wheat. And, thanks to my nutrition- conscious mother and gardening grandfather, I always got a big bag of sliced bell peppers.  This lunch had the ability to stink up several lockers and I can still smell the aroma of that lunch in my memory.

Regardless, when Simone started school this fall, I wanted to make her a special lunch bag to pack her lunches. I had been packing a lunch for her for pre-school for several years in a store-bought lunch box. But, over the years, I realized that one lunch container that just gets wiped out everyday and washed once a week leaves something to be desired. (Ok, it was gross.) So, I made three lunch sacks out of material scraps (an old shower curtain) that could be used once or twice and thrown in the wash.

Of course, kids don’t have to take a sack lunch to school. They can eat “hot lunch.” According to the USDA (www.fns.usda.gov), lunches prepared at school have to meet requirements such as less than 30 percent fat content, adequate protein and 1/3 the recommended daily allowance for vitamins A, C, iron and calcium. However, these are the requirements of the foods offered at schools, not necessarily what is eaten. In addition, the Center for Science in the Public Interest reminds parents that money taken to school for lunch may end up in the vending machine which is often filled with sugary, high-fat and salty snacks (www.cspinet.org). In addition, school lunch programs may meet the requirements of USDA while at the same time serving highly processed, conventionally produced foods. So, as long as we can get Simone to take it, we’ll be packing a sack lunch.

Simone didn’t really help me with these because it was still nice out, and she was busy playing in her fort. However, any child big enough to help with a sewing machine could participate in making these. And, they would be a very easy project for a beginning machine sewer – perhaps 10 or 12 years old.

Directions:

• Cut two pieces of material in the shape shown.
• With the right sides of the fabric together, sew the sides and the bottom without sewing the notches on either side.
• Open the bag and fold the notches into a line.
• Sew each side closed.
• Flip right side out.
• Attach a 6 inch piece of ribbon or string to each side of the bag about 1/3 of the way down the bag.
• To close bag, fold over top and tie the strings in a bow. (You could also use Velcro on the top to keep the bag closed.)

Julia Parker will be packing her lunch at least until the Co-op deli reopens.

Copyright: Copyright on articles and recipes are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective authors, except were otherwise noted.

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