When it comes to lunch duties, do you have a lot on your plate? You have to remember which kids detest which foods and ensure the salad doesn’t ‘touch’ the sandwich, all while trying to encourage healthy eating. Does this sound familiar?

For busy moms, lunchtime is not always a breeze. But we have a quick and easy tip that will transform your prep time and even minimize food waste! Using a system of meal-prep food containers from ECOlunchbox, you can reduce your waste impact -- and the time you spend on daily lunches!

But how do you meal prep for kids?

Here’s the punchline: while you’re preparing one lunch, go ahead and start making that same exact lunch for the following day. As you fill one of your ECOlunchboxes with pretzels and hummus, grab another bento and do exactly the same thing for the next day!

Now, in roughly 15 minutes of food prep time, you’ve saved food, created two day’s worth of lunch for your little ones, and cut your kitchen cleaning time in half! Not bad, right? And because our meal-prep food containers keeps foods isolated, even the pickiest eaters will be satisfied.

Are you ready for our next time-saving lunch-packing tip? Here's why meal-prep lunch boxes are an even more versatile solution to your packing woes. After your kids get home from school, take a quick look at their leftovers. Normally, we’re used to tossing out (compost, right!) their uneaten snacks as we recreate an entirely new meal for the next day. But instead, perform a quick temperature check!

If their lunch pack is still cool to the touch, you should have no problem using the leftovers, “refilling” as needed, and stowing their reusable lunch box in the fridge for tomorrow! This is an easy zero-waste meal-prep lunch box strategy!

If you’re looking for some extra help in keeping your kids’ lunch fresh each day, consider packing your child’s water bottle to the brim with ice and then topping off with water. As the ice melts into water, it will also be keeping your lunch tiding cool! That's just one more way that meal-prep for kids can help you reduce your waste.

I know that some of us get squeamish when thinking about reusing the food from our kids’ lunch boxes, but when you think about it, it’s not much different from eating leftovers out of the fridge. Using meal-prep containers like the 3-in-1 Splash Box also keep foods separated and fresh longer.

So, whether you’re a nighttime planner who likes to work while the house is sleeping or an organized early bird who can meal-prep lunch boxes and get the kids to school on time, you’re going to love your new double-duty lunch prep routine.