How to pack fruits for lunch: sandwiches, salad boxes and desserts with fresh fruit. If you are not packing fruits for your kids or yourself in lunch, you should start doing it. They are healthy and delicious. Furthermore, they are cheap to get if they are in season. Let’s learn a trick to pack fruits for lunch or snack together!
How to Keep Fruit Fresh In Lunch Box?
No more lunchtime mushy, dark fruits! We’ll show you how to keep them fresher for longer.
Fruits are a great source of numerous beneficial vitamins and microelements, which is why so many people pack them in their lunches for the office. Fruit slices frequently get black and lose their flavor and crispness because we cut them before storing them in lunch boxes.
How can fruit stay fresher for longer in a lunchbox? What more can you do to prolong the appealing appearance of fruit in your child’s lunchbox? We looked for the most straightforward techniques to share with you today.
How to Keep Cut Fruit Fresh For Your Lunch Box
Cut fruit can be kept fresh in your or your child’s lunchbox in a variety of ways. Some of these methods involve washing fruit in cold water, while others call for particular packaging.
However, there are a few techniques that are more regularly utilized for the fruits and berries that people pack in their lunch boxes than others.
- Wrapping fruit in a dry cloth
- Use a solution of cold water and salt
- Freeze your fruit
- Use a cling film to prevent fruit from browning
Now let’s see, for what kinds of fruit each of these methods can be used.
Keep Your Fruit Fresh Like a Pro!
If you frequently bring round whole fruits to work with you, like apples, peaches, avocado in a lunch box, or pears, think about wrapping them in a dry, clean towel. Feel free to pack them; just be sure you tie a tight knot on the top to prevent your fruit from rolling about the lunchbox. The round fruit that you send with your children to school can also be prepared using the same technique.
Apples
Try out a straightforward method if you need to keep sliced apple crisp from browning too quickly and for a longer period of time.
Simply combine two cups of cold water with an eighth of a teaspoon of table salt, and soak your chopped apple for about five minutes.
After rinsing the apple slices to remove the salty flavor, place them in an airtight container. Done! They can now be transported safely to work or school.
Strawberries
We can help you if you like strawberries but are concerned that they won’t last in a lunch box. The berries should only be washed, then left intact. I’m done now! Your strawberries will be able to stay fresher for longer if you do it this way.
Kiwi
Okay, but what should I do with kiwis? you could ask. They deteriorate rather rapidly and are far too soft! Kiwi can be extremely demanding, it’s true. To keep things interesting, there is one solution we can offer. Kiwi lollipops are possible to make!
Simply peel the kiwis, cut them into thick slices, and place a popsicle stick into each slice is all that is required. After that, freeze them on a plate or a tray. Your kids will surely like this odd portion of fruit, we bet!
Banana
Bananas are the last item. It makes sense that we take one or two with us as a healthy snack because they are so nutrient-dense.
These fruits only have one drawback: they have a propensity to turn brown far too quickly.
Simply cover their stems in plastic wrap to prevent this situation. By doing so, you will greatly slow down the ripening process.
You now have a ton of advice on how to quickly keep chopped fruit fresh!
How Long Do Cut Fruit Last?
When it comes to keeping sliced fruit fresh and crisp for your lunchbox or your child’s school lunch, this is the most commonly requested question.
Indeed, many fruits should not be cut in advance since they will spoil much too quickly, such as avocados and bananas. But how can we determine how long various fruits will remain edible?
Well, after we slice the fruit, it typically keeps its freshness for about a week. However, some of them will spoil more quickly while others will do the opposite.
| Fridge | Freezer | |
|---|---|---|
| Apples | 3-5 days | 8 months |
| Bananas | 3-4 days | 2-3 months |
| Avocado | 3-4 days | 3-6 months |
| Kiwi | 3-4 days | 10-12 months |
| Mixed fruit | 3-5 days | 10-12 months |
In this way, you can determine how long each type of fruit will remain fresh after being cut. And if you know how to extend their life, your wonderful fruit lunch will stay fresh for much longer!
How to Pack Fruits For Lunch
Normally, you don’t think much about how to pack fruit if you take some with you to work. It’s an entirely different story with the kids, though! How can you pack fruit for your children so that this nutritious treat remains appetizing and appealing? We have a lot of helpful advice!
- Write funny messages on bananas! Your kid will love these short love notes!
- Make small fruit cups by chopping apples and pears finely and soaking them in lemon juice for a minute to prevent browning.
- Freeze some thickly sliced kiwis with lollipop sticks being inserted into them. Your kids will love those all-natural and sweet treats!
And of course, remember to wrap fruit with a cling film, or put them in a zip-top packet to keep fresh longer.
In this way, it would be simple for you and your kids to eat fruits for lunch.
We have provided some basic advice on how to keep different fruits fresh if you choose to pack them in your own or your child’s lunchbox. Additionally, you now have a ton of simple recipes for fruit-packing ideas that will make your kids want to eat them at school!
With all of that in mind, along with knowledge about the most popular lunch fruit’s shelf life, your lunchbox will start to appear quite tempting.
How to Pack Soft Fruits for School
It’s not as simple as it sounds to pack soft fruit for your school lunch. Soft fruits are vulnerable to bruising and, if improperly packed, can produce a large, juicy mess. To cushion and protect whole fruits, such as bananas and peaches, you can first wrap them in cotton napkins. Berries and grapes should be stored in compact, plastic containers because they are delicate and juicy. To make fruit easier to travel, you can either chop it into bite-sized pieces or purée it.
Packing Whole Fruits Safely
- Roll whole fruit in cloth napkins to prevent bruising. Fruits with edible skins, such peaches and plums, should be completely rinsed and dried before being wrapped and placed in a lunchbox or bag. Bananas and citrus fruits, which have detachable peels, can be rolled up without any prior preparation. To stop bruising and keep the fruit clean, the layers of fabric around it create a cushioned pouch.
- If you don’t dry off rinsed fruit before rolling it up, the extra moisture can make the fruit mushy and unpleasant.
- Wrap multiple pieces of fruit separately for the most protection. For example, don’t roll a banana and a peach together in the same cloth napkin.
- If you aren’t using a lunch box or bag, pack the rolled fruit in your backpack last so that it sits on top of everything else and won’t get smashed.
- Wash grapes and berries before packing them in plastic containers. Berries and grapes should be carefully dried with a paper towel after being rinsed. To keep the clean fruit safe in your bag or lunchbox, put it in plastic containers. Berries and grapes can turn mushy and make a large, juicy mess inside your lunch box or backpack if they aren’t enclosed in a protective case for safety.
- You can chop the green stems off strawberries or leave them on. Grapes can be packed individually or in clusters.
- Bite-sized grapes and berries are great soft fruit options for kids’ lunches because they’re easy to eat.
- Place small fruits into sectioned lunch boxes or bento boxes. Smaller fruits perform well in rigid lunch boxes with separate compartments and bento boxes because the stiff divisions keep the fruit separate and safe. Small fruits like grapes, strawberries, and blueberries are the greatest candidates for this.
- Bigger soft fruits, like peaches and plums, won’t fit nicely into compartments unless you cut them up first.
- Use an insulated lunch box to keep whole fruits cool. Many fruits, such as entire bananas, don’t require refrigeration. However, cold fruits like grapes, berries, peaches, and plums are frequently tastier! To keep things cold, bring an ice pack in your lunch or use an insulated container.
- For example, nestle a peach or plum wrapped in a cloth napkin inside your insulated lunch box. Keep whole grapes or berries stored in plastic containers chilled by using an insulated lunch box or bag.
Slicing or Mashing Soft Fruits
- Peel and section citrus fruits before packing them in plastic containers. Orange peeling can be tedious, time-consuming, and untidy at school. By peeling and slicing the fruit before packing it, you can avoid the mess and save some time. Since oranges can be somewhat juicy, put the slices in a small plastic container with a lid to prevent spills.
- You can leave the citrus fruit intact, but it’s easier to fit into your lunch if you section it into individual slices.
- Chop fruit into bite-sized pieces and pack them in plastic containers. A full peach or plum can be messy to bite into. For your lunch, it may be helpful to cut larger fruits into smaller, easier-to-eat pieces. Before packing sliced fruit in an insulated lunch box, store it in a tiny plastic container to prevent sogginess and to safeguard it.
- Try cutting mangoes, pineapples, kiwi, and pears into bite-sized pieces.
- Pack fruit purees in rigid plastic containers with lids. Think about using a fork to mash up soft fruits like bananas. After that, put the puree in a tiny plastic container and put it in your lunchbox. You can also experiment with other fruit purees, such as homemade or store-bought applesauce.
- Try mixing low-fat cream cheese or bite-sized pieces of soft fruits into fruit puree to change up the flavor and texture.
- Don’t forget to pack a spoon so you can eat the puree!
- Pack store-bought single serving portions for an easy option. Any grocery shop will have pre-packaged pieces of applesauce as well as tiny containers of sliced peaches, pineapples, and pears. Put the single-serving container in your lunch and head off. The sturdy containers will safeguard the fruit inside.
- Be sure to pack a plastic spoon or fork so you can eat the fruit.
- For the healthiest option, choose sliced peaches, pineapples, and pears that are packed in water or their own juices with no sugar added. Avoid fruit packed in syrup.
- Pack sliced and pureed fruit in an insulated lunch box to keep it fresh. Fruit that has been sliced or mashed is best kept cool and fresh in an insulated lunchbox or bento box. Try putting an ice pack inside your lunch box if you don’t have an insulated one.
How to Make Your Child’s Packed Lunch More Sustainable
It might be challenging to pack a lunch for your kid, so it makes sense to try to make it as simple as possible. Pre-packaged goods can help with it. They are quick to put together and greatly simplify one of the most time-consuming tasks.
However, the cost of that convenience is that those packages could damage the environment and add to landfill debris. Though it can seem paradoxical, choosing environmentally friendly options need not make lunch packing more difficult. Putting the appropriate materials in place is the first step.
Here are some quick adjustments parents can make to make packing a kid’s lunch more environmentally friendly.
How Packed Lunches Can Be Unsustainable
Making sure your children have a nutritious lunch at school is easy by packing them one. Additionally, it may easily stop being a viable practice. Food waste and single-use packaging are to blame for this. Here’s why both of them could be bad for the environment.
Single-Use Packaging
The amount of single-use packaging in prepared foods and home-cooked meals might be frightening. Children’s lunch packs frequently contain plastic bags, cling wrap, food containers, and other items, as well as landfills.
A typical school student generates 45 to 90 pounds of trash each year from disposable lunch items, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Since these plastic products are frequently not recycled, they significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to climate change.
Food Waste
Another problem is food waste, whether your child eats lunch at school or brings a packed lunch from home. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reported in 2019 that food waste in American schools could total as much as 530,000 tons annually. Both food purchased at school and food brought from home are included in this.
In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, this amounts to almost 1.9 million metric tons of food waste that ends up in landfills. According to the same article, wasting food also implies wasting the water, energy, and other resources used in food production.
Types of Unsustainable Products in School Lunches
In general, school lunches contain three different categories of unsustainable items. These include paper products, composite packaging, and single-use plastics. The unsustainable behaviors that are bad for our environment and health include all three of these items.
Single-Use Plastics
In a lunch box, single-use plastics can be found everywhere from sandwich bags to snack packs. Consider these to be any single-use plastic that you would discard. In actuality, over 300 million tons of plastic are produced by people annually. These substances are well known to be dangerous to both animal and human health, both in their production and in their disposal.
Despite being advertised as recyclable, some products are not. Straws and other plastic utensils, for instance, become caught in the crevices of the recycling machines and can’t be recycled. Furthermore, a lot of recyclable plastic products are simply not recycled, which results in them ending up in landfills or the environment.
Additionally, the manufacture of plastic is often unsustainable. Manufacturing contributes to global warming by emitting a sizable number of hazardous gases in addition to using nonrenewable resources like natural gas.
All of this adds up to serious harm for people, animals, and the environment.
Composite Packaging
Like juice pouches and chip bags, many food items are packaged in composite materials that are difficult to recycle. Multiple layers, typically made of metals and plastics, make up these so-called “metalized films.” Due to their multilayer construction, which makes recycling difficult, they frequently wind up in landfills or are burned.
Paper Goods
Paper goods like brown paper bags, paper straws, and paper cups may not be all that much more environmentally friendly, depending on how they are created. Numerous precious renewable resources, including trees and water, are used in the making of paper. Considering that paper items are typically recyclable, they are still preferable to plastic ones. Paper can only be recycled five to seven times before the fibers start to disintegrate, and recycling itself can be very energy-intensive.
How to Pack a Sustainable School Lunch
The good news is that changing to a more environmentally friendly option for your child’s school lunch is cheap and simple. Here are some innovative and useful suggestions to help you be more environmentally conscious and minimize trash during lunch.
Use Reusable Storage Bags
Switch to reusable, non-toxic sandwich and snack bags instead of single-use plastic storage bags. Ones made of waxed fabric are available. Kids will adore the several designs and colors that are frequently offered for them.
Using beeswax wraps rather as cling film to encase sandwiches for lunch is another environmentally responsible choice.
Fabric is coated with beeswax and other materials, such as jojoba oil and tree resin, to create beeswax wraps. These wraps are eco-friendly, washable, and recyclable. They come in a range of sizes and patterns as well. To fit your demands, they can even be cut to any size.
You can bundle a sandwich, crackers, or even some fruits and vegetables in beeswax wraps to keep them fresher for longer.
This is so that foodborne germs cannot spoil the food due to their antibacterial qualities.
Buy Reusable Lunch Containers
An eco-friendly substitute for plastic food containers is to purchase a reusable, toxic-free lunch container made of stainless steel or food-safe bamboo that is totally compostable.
Use containers made of durable hardwood, harvested wheat straw, and recycled metal, as well as other non-toxic sustainable materials. These containers are available in a variety of sizes, colors, and styles (from bento boxes to tiffins).
Get a Reusable Water Bottle
Invest in a reusable water container for your child rather than juice cartons, pouches, or plastic water bottles that are challenging to recycle. They are built of materials that can be cleaned and used repeatedly, such as stainless steel. You can put juice or water in the bottle when packing a lunch. Additionally, your child can fill the bottle up at the school’s water fountains as required.
Buy in Bulk
Instead of buying items in individual containers, buy items like crackers, cheese, cookies, dried fruits, juice, or yogurt in bulk. This not only saves money, but it also lessens packaging waste from individually wrapped goods.
Then, pack the meal in a bento-style lunch box, a recyclable container, or a reusable storage bag so that your child can easily bring home any leftovers.