How to Send Apples in Your Kids' Lunches: A Tip

For many years I've sent apple sauce in my kids' lunches. I haven't even done it easy style (those little containers of applesauce from the store). No. I've done it cheapskate style. I've taken a generic jar of applesauce and I pour some into Tupperware containers for my kids' lunches. It's kind of annoying and not a whole food, but it saved time and gave them something healthier than a fruit roll up to nosh on.

So, why, you're asking, don't I just send an apple for Pete's sake. Well, because for a long time my kids would not eat the peels off of anything, so if I sent an apple, a nice, untouched apple would come home. These days my kids will sometimes eat an apple like an apple was meant to be eaten (although they still like it peeled by me if they can fanangle that). But at school they have all of 15 minutes (maybe on a good day) to eat their school lunches. Biting their way around an apple is just too slow.

And don't ask me why, but eating a sliced apple seems much much faster. I'm not even kidding here (though I realize I sound ridiculous). But it's true: eating a sliced apple takes my kids half the time. Also, they don't have to eat the peels if they don't want to.

Yet I could never slice my kids' apples because, yuck, what kid would eat an apple slice that's been sitting in a lunch box oxidizing for the past 3 hours. Not mine, I assure you.

Some moms slice apples with a bit of lemon juice or another type of acid, but my kids always noticed the taste and disapproved (you remember they're the pickiest kids ever, right).

And then, finally, one day Pinterest came to the rescue. If you cut your apple with an apple cutter and then rubber band it, It doesn't oxidize--well, barely at all. Genius. Pure genius. I've been doing it all fall and haven't gotten a complaint yet. (Note: I do put the rubber-banded apples in a baggie, so they don't get the lunch box all a mess.) So I thought I'd pass it along.

See how that front one is cut. You're going to rubberband it up like the back ones.

This is one I left on the counter from 7 am to 2 pm. This is how it looked when I un-banded it. Not bad.