A La Peanut Butter Sandwiches!

I have two sons in Elementary School … multiply that by 191 school days … minus 12 hot lunches …  carry the two …  that’s approximately 370 sandwiches I’ll be making this school year!  (When all four of my boys are in school, it’ll be 740!  Yikes.)  I’m proud to say that we are healthy eaters – I know the importance of nutrition, and I feed my family whole, natural foods whenever possible.  I used to make them a sandwich, pack a juice box, a small yogurt or fruit cup, and a recess snack of crackers, pretzels, or something equally easy-to-eat-while-running-and-climbing-on-the-playground.  Then I watched Food, Inc. and I took a good look at the lunchtime staple – THE SANDWICH!  What was I putting into the sandwiches I was making for my kids?  After watching Food Inc., I wasn’t sure I wanted all those chemicals and food-like products going into my little boys.  I’ve noticed over the last few months that natural sandwich options are popping up all over my local grocery store, which gives me options to make sandwiches I feel good about!

Maple Leaf now offers Natural Selections deli meats, which contain no preservatives, artificial ingredients, fillers, or MSG!  In fact, I guarantee you can pronounce each and every ingredient.  With ham, turkey, or chicken deli meats available, I can keep both my eight-year old “I want a ham sandwich every day, Mom” and my six-year-old “Do we have to have ham again, Mom?” happy.  Good times.  You can purchase Natural Selections at your local grocery store, but check out these Maple Leaf coupons before you go.

What is it with kids and those processed cheese slices?  I’m not even sure they should be considered “cheese”.  Try as I might to duplicate the size and shape of these perfectly square and flat slices of processed cheese from my block of cheddar, I just cannot do it to my boys’ satisfaction.  This is why I was so delighted to find Cracker Barrel cheese slices.  They’re slices of Cracker Barrel cheese (yum!) – perfectly square and perfectly flat.  And they’re available in Medium, Marble, Monterey Jack with jalapenos, and Swiss cheese varieties!

We’ve all heard the importance of incorporating whole grains into our diets.  Choosing a whole grain bread for your kids’ lunches is a great way to get started.  It’s wonderful to see so many varieties of whole grain breads on grocery store shelves these days.  I’ve been buying Dempster’s Wholegrains Ancient Grains and Dempster’s Wholegrains Multigrain breads for over a year now.  My boys love them both – they’re soft, not too nutty, the right size slice, and they taste great!  Dempster’s also makes Flax and 12 Grain breads.

I would need a degree in higher math to figure out how many sandwiches my boys will be eating over the course of Grades one to 12.  Needless to say, it’s a lot.  It’s so exciting to see nutritious lunch options sprouting up all over my local grocery store.  Read the labels, try the different options, and find ones that work for your families!  Your children might even thank you one day … if they even realize that they were eating ‘healthy’!

Don’t forget to enter to win a Lunch Punch Sandwich Cutter to cut those school lunch sandwiches into funky shapes!

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Just in time for Back-to-School lunches, Maple Leaf foods has generously provided the Spilt Milk Moms THREE prize packs for THREE readers to WIN!  Two lucky winners will win product coupon prize packs valued at over $25 CDN each, and one really lucky winner will win a thermal grocery bag, a Natural Selections memory stick, a Maple Leaf Butcher apron, AND product coupons valued at $40 CDN! Thanks Maple Leaf Foods!

To Enter:  Go to the Maple Leaf Foods and the affiliated Dempster’s Bread website and then leave us a comment HERE (one per day only, please) telling us which Maple Leaf and Dempster’s products you would use to make your favourite sandwich.  Need ideas – Maple Leaf can help!  Once you’ve entered by leaving a comment, you can gain additional entries like this:

• Follow @MapleLeafPledge and @SpiltMilkMoms on Twitter and tweet ” Win an @MapleLeafPledge Natural Selections & Dempsters prize pack for lunches http://tinyurl.com/3x4kbyf @SpiltMilkMoms #giveaway #contest ” and leave us the link for extra daily entries.
• If you ‘Like’ Maple Leaf on Facebook, leave us a comment letting us know for one extra entry.
• If you ‘Like’ Spilt Milk Moms on Facebook, leave us a comment letting us know for one extra entry.
• Mention this giveaway on your blog for one extra entry.

This giveaway ends at 12:01am PST on Thursday, September 16th, and the winner will be selected using Random.org.  The winner will have 7 days to respond to our notification email before another winner is selected.  THIS GIVEAWAY IS OPEN TO CANADIAN RESIDENTS ONLY.

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