Statesman Journal food reporter Brooke Jackson-Glidden and reporting intern Cooper Green taste your kids' lunch box favorites so you don't have to. ANNA REED / Statesman Journal


When I was a kid, all I wanted was a Lunchable. My mother, an avid home chef and former hippie, would give me elaborate thermos meals, turkey sandwiches with pesto, nectarines. I would whine and complain, beg for the frozen Kid Cuisines, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and the little make-your-own pizzas with the Kit-Kat for dessert.

This is the foundational tenet of my generation, in my community: Our parents would not feed us the junk their parents fed them, and we thought this was the great atrocity of our time. Grandma's house was Gushers and Fruit Roll-Ups; home was dried apricots and fruit leather.

Now, as an adult, I had a dawning realization: I can buy myself a Lunchable. I can go to Roth's and pick up my own dang Go-gurts, which I have to admit look pretty disgusting these days. I can buy those frozen crustless pb&j sandwiches to eat at my desk at work. I'm a grown-up, and I can eat my fruit snacks in peace.

Problem is: These things are kind of gross. 

Now, I can't help but look at the nutritional facts (there are 25 grams of sugar in a Lunchable, y'all. That's two grams less than a Snicker's bar). I wonder where all the fiber went in those strange drinkable apple sauce packets. Munching through a block of orange rubbery cheese doesn't appeal the way it used to.

So I brought in our resident youth, Young Cooper the Intern, to try some of those treasured lunch box classics (and some newbies) to see what was worth the hype, what is good enough for kids and what you should keep away from your spawn with a 10-foot pole — not just for their health, but for their taste buds.

Capri Sun Strawberry Kiwi

Calories: 50

Sugar: 13 grams

Fiber & protein: 0 grams

Brooke notes: Still live for these lil' pouches. Bright and sweet, but not so sweet that you feel like you're drinking soda. Plus, they're so small, you can rock through them without feeling gross. They're the fun-sized candy bars of drinks.

Young Cooper notes: Definitely not the best flavor of Capri Sun.

Go-Gurt Strawberry Riptide

Calories: 50

Sugar: 8 grams

Fiber: 0 grams

Protein: 2 grams

Brooke notes: Give me lassi; give me kefir. Do not give me lukewarm liquid Yoplait. Young Cooper had to show me how to eat this (it's sort of like toothpaste; you push from the bottom), and I was not pleased. Also, what are kids doing that's so important that they can't sit down and eat a yogurt for three minutes? I'm in my car half the time trying to stuff cafe paninis in my mouth. Where's my portable lunch? Can't we make go-zpacho? Go-broth? Wait, tm tm tm, that's genius.

Young Cooper notes: It's a classic, you know? It's a mobile form of a classic dairy group. It's an incredibly practical way to consume yogurt when you're on the move, and kids like to move. The jokes on there? The trivia and stuff? That really adds a mind-stimulating aspect to the meal.

Tree Top Apple Sauce Strawberry

Calories: 45

Sugar: 11 grams

Fiber: 2 grams

Protein: 0 grams

Brooke notes: Look! Fiber! This is exciting news. Unfortunately, these weird drinking tubes are not my bag in the slightest. I don't know when snack producers decided that elementary school-aged kids can't handle spoons, but the prospect of drinking applesauce is not appealing. Not to mention, the actual applesauce is a little pasty.

Young Cooper notes: I really didn't like this at all. I don't like apple sauce to start with, but I thought it was a terrible medium for it. 

Annie's Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks

Calories: 70

Sugar: 11 grams

Fiber: Not listed (don't count on it)

Protein: 0 grams

Brooke notes: Definitely tasty. Oddly enough, there is more sugar in these than a pack of Gushers, but you can still feel pious with the organic fruit juice and lack of artificial flavors or preservatives (if that's a thing you care about). 

Young Cooper notes: They're just, like, your everyday fruit snack. But I like fruit snacks. They didn't blow me out of the water.

Smuckers Uncrustables PB & J

Calories: 210 

Sugar: 9 grams

Fiber: 2 grams

Protein: 6 grams

Brooke notes: This is actually a really respectable amount of protein for a weird sandwich disk. The Smuckers Uncrustable is a pb&j pocket enclosed in soft bread, kept in the frozen aisle so it can thaw by lunchtime. Young Cooper initially compared it to a loofah, but we both really enjoyed it — that quintessential grape jelly and creamy pb that every kid loves. I may start keeping these in my freezer for when I'm having a lazy day.

Young Cooper notes: I really liked the Uncrustables. I thought it was a nice alternative of the classic peanut butter and jelly. Don't think too much about it -— It's just a regular pb&j.

Lunchables Extra Cheesy Pizza

Calories: 330

Sugar: 25 grams

Fiber: 3 grams

Protein: 12 grams

Young Brooke: I am horrified. I'm horrified and saddened for my young self. This was so disturbing — the chewy fiber pellet crust, the ketchup-esque squeeze tub of "pizza sauce" (Is it marinara? Who knows?), the powdery processed cheese shreds. And all for a Snickers-bar worth of sugar: 25 grams! I could eat a package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (the two pack, mind you, not those miniature hooligans) with less sugar than a Lunchables. I'd be happier, too.

Young Cooper notes: That's the good stuff. I could eat those for every meal, including breakfast. I think it's a nice construction project for children, they get to develop a can-do attitude but still have it handed to them. It's a simple project. It's also pizza! You can't go wrong with pizza in any form.

Cooper Green contributed to the snacking in this piece.


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