About Vegetarian Lunchbox

Vegetarian Lunchbox

Being vegetarian and coming from an Indian background with a kid in an American school leads to dilemmas when packing school lunch. I struggled with it all through her preschool and kindergarten years. My daughter would agree to take only pasta or PBJ sandwiches. She was not particularly fond of the latter but found it easy to eat given the fact that there were things like limited time, space and distractions to deal with. Pasta most times came back uneaten as it would get cold by lunchtime. She was not happy about that as, after all, mom ALWAYS served it HOT at home! The challenge was to come up with lunch ideas that were visually appealing and easy for an elementary school child to eat, or share. Slowly, I have become a bit savvy about coming up with ideas for her lunch box. The key is variety and also making her a part of the process.

This is my attempt to document what gets packed in my daughters’ vegetarian lunchbox and the philosophy behind it.