Back to School Healthy Lunchbox Ideas with #CVSAbound

Back to School doesn't have to be stressful when you can find fantastic healthier snack options for your family at your local CVS!

CVSAbound is the new line of healthier snack options for your children! Often finding healthier store bought snacks can be challenging and it's why I often just make my own versions of the snacks my kids love. But as the new year begins, convenience is key. We all get so busy with after school activities and rushed dinners to make it to the evening sports events that our children might be involved with. Making snacks as well as all the meals in the house is just not practical on some days and makes life simply stressful.

When I was in Miami for the BlogHer Food event I was able to see these snacks before they even started making appearances in the stores. How exciting to finally see some better choices at a local store rather than having to go to a health food market not always as close to home or convenient.

Just last week when I needed to pick up a prescription for my son, I was so beyond happy to finally see the products in my local CVS!

Right now being the Back to School season, CVS has some fabulous sales going on so get them while you can! And of course if there's a sale, I grabbed a few for my family as they love popcorn!

Many of the products have no sugar, like in the popcorn and rice thin crackers. Some have very little, such as in the trail mixes being the 4th or 5th ingredient on the list.  Since I began sugar- free and refined sugar free living over 10 years ago, my rule of thumb for myself has always been and remains to this day the same philosophy, any type of sugar needs to be 4 or 5th in the ingredient list.

For my children I've had to be more lenient on that rule of thumb because let's face it, finding typical store bought snacks for the kids is hard without any sugar.

For example, store bought fruit snacks are full of sugar and most don't even contain any fruit at all. These Superfruit Baobab bites are actually pomegranate fruit cubes sweetened with apple juice and carrot juice concentrate. Of course these are the better choice as opposed to the typical fruit snacks you see packaged. It has natural sugars in it and for my children I'm fine with that, especially when I've not any time to make them something like this for their lunchbox anyway. 🙂

Another example is the Superfruit Snack bars which remind me of the leather fruit that you can make yourself in the dehydrator or purchase at health stores. But the major difference here is these bars are THICK not thin as the standard fruit strip you've known. It contains apples, pears, grapes, elderberry, pomegranate , blueberry and lemon juice concentrates. 100% pure fruit, nothing else!

Below you will see the lunchboxes of my son and daughter. Since they aren't much for sandwiches, making up lunches can be interesting to say the least. My little man is 8 so whenever he joins me at the market those Lunchables always catch his eye. We thought an easy copycat version was in order for him to be happy since I never buy those Lunchables. Using CVSAbound Baked Rice Thins work perfectly and little man was happy to make his own cracker sandwiches!

Contents of the little man's lunchbox:

• Large compartment- 10 Sea Salt Rice Thin Crackers from CVSAbound along with 5 slices of Colby Jack cheese from Cabot, 2 slices of deli turkey from Applegate and ½ mini cucumber slices
• Medium compartments has CVSAbound Light Popcorn
• Small Compartment has CVSABound Superfruit Baobab Bites

Using their snacks and a few other ingredients we came up with a nice finger food lunchbox for my 8 year old, no utensils needed. He loved it!

My daughter was excited to make her own lunch with some of the snacks as well. She wanted something different though than her brother. She spied the Red Fruit & Chia Snack bars and  since she doesn't have any nut allergies like my little man, she happily broke it in half and placed it into here box along with a few other items listed below.

What I liked about the Red Fruit Chia bars is that they contain some great grains like rolled oats, rye, barley, kamut, spelt, quinoa, and buckwheat and sweetened with apple juice concentrate, but that's 10th on the ingredient list which makes me super happy.

Contents of my 11 year old daughter's lunchbox:

• Large compartment includes 10 Sea Salt Baked Rice Thins, 5 slices of sharp cheddar Cabot cheese, Applegate Turkey Pepperoni and ½ mini cucumber, sliced
• Medium compartment has 1 CVSAbound Superfruit Snack Bar and 1 CVSAbound Real Fruit & Chia Snack Bar
• Small compartment contains CVSAbound Berry Edamame Blend

Seeing these fantastic healthier snacks at CVS is a goldmine in my opinion. CVS stores are located most everywhere which helps being a mom and packing lunches a whole lot easier!

 

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by CVS. They have provided product and compensation fro my time,  but as always, opinions are 100% my own. Thank you for supporting the brands I enjoy working with!